This Is How Many Sleepless Nights It Takes For Coffee To Stop Working

Have you ever thought about your coffee tolerance after downing a third cup of joe before 1 pm? And you're still drowsy AF?

I have. It's bad, especially when you have access to free coffee at work.

Well, according to new research, coffee does stop working at a certain point, but it has little to do with your tolerance.

It's actually about how much sleep you're getting.

It's easy to use coffee as a crutch for quick energy. After working eight hours a day, you come home and have so much to take care of, and it seems unrealistic to also squeeze in the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

According to a study done at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, three consecutive nights of low-quality or too little sleep will make coffee ineffective. And drinking more of it won't make you feel more awake.

How to fix it? Don't drink more coffee. Just go to bed and get the sleep you need.

Aiming to mimic the standard work week, researchers had 48 healthy adults sleep for 10 hours a night for five days to ensure they all started with the same energy levels.

The following week, they slept just five hours a night. One group was given caffeine gum to chew twice a day, while the other group was given a placebo.

Interestingly enough, the caffeine worked well for the first three days of participants getting a little sleep. But after that, the adults who had the real caffeine slipped into a poor performance level that matched the group that didn't have caffeine.

Basically, coffee can't help you when you're super sleep-deprived. And yes, getting five hours is depriving yourself. To avoid the crash, try to prioritize getting good sleep instead of relying on caffeine to get energized.

Think of your caffeine tolerance as your body's way of saying, "Hey, you need at least seven to nine hours of sleep every night like a normal person."

Coffee is not a super-drug, people. But, getting good sleep can literally change your life.

Citations: This Is How Long It Takes Before Coffee Stops Working (Ozy)