Caffeine affects your sleep in that it's a shock to your system, making drifting off to sleep difficult. Watch sleep expert Michael Breus, PhD, explain why a cut-off time for caffeine in the afternoon is beneficial if you are sensitive to it.
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So caffeine affects your sleep in a whole bunch of ways but the biggest thing that caffeine does is it comes and it's a shock to the systems, specifically tom the frontal lobs so when you ingest caffeine, it is an equal opportunity stimulator, it hits every nerve ending in the frontal lobs and just excites it by opening up all those path ways, and that's exactly the opposite of what we want to do when we sleep.
When we sleep we want those pathways to be calmer, not much as nerve bending action and that's not what caffeine caffeine does. If you think that you might be somebody whose caffeine sensitive, meaning if you drink caffeine later in the day and you find it difficult to fall asleep, I recommend that you stop drinking caffeine by about 2:00 or 2:30, and there's two reasons why.
First of all, we know that's about time that most people have a tendency to get sleepy midday but we also know that caffeine has a half life of somewhere between six and eight hours, and that way, if that's your last time of drinking caffeine, it gives you enough time to get at least half of it out of your system, so that you can get a good sleep at night.
Michael J. Breus, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and a fellow of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. He specializes in sleep disorders and is one of only 163 psychologists in the world with his credentials and distinction.
