Coffee Drains My Life

 For the past month or so, i had been drinking coffee daily.

I am a tea drinker. I have 3 cups of tea or maybe more in a day, that is if you include re-adding hot water to the cuppa. 

I used to drink nescafe when i was younger during study week because i was (and still am) an avid napper. The thing is, i wanted to stay awake through studying, that's why i drink nescafe kan, but as far as i can remember, i usually get more anxious and fidgety, and then i get tired so quickly. Rather the opposite of the effect i wanted... but peer pressure kan. I drank some because my friends did. After graduate, i hardly drank that much coffee.

Fast forward to last month. I bought instant coffee, and i mix it with cocoa powder and a little bit of condensed milk and i liked the taste, especially when dipped with biskot. NYAMM.

But i get super sleepy afterwards. 😴😴

Photo by Fahmi Fakhrudin on Unsplash

Indah rupa dari khabar...

I didn't suspect the coffee though. I thought it was just me, "maybe my tiredness from yesterday tak habis lagi kot", i thought. It went on for days.

I wanted to stop the coffee, but i was kinda addicted to the coffee + biscuit in the morning. It's like eating tiramisu.

And because of curiosity, i bought the Aik Cheong coffee tu yang orang duk promote sedap. I like that it's much smoother than the wonda instant coffee tu. So 2 or 3 weeks in, i already have 2 coffee mix. Camane tu 😅

And throughout those times, i was always super sleepy in the day.

I suspected the coffee la. I mean, how can i not? I was never THAT tired tau IN THE MORNING. 

The level of sleepiness is like this: after having breakfast (coffee & whatever), i sit in front of the laptop and just fall asleep in sitting position. One time, i was looking for a parking space and i came to a bump. Before the bump kan kena brake, i braked, and i slept there. Before the bump. It was for a moment, because my daughter startled the crap out of me when she called "Ummi!". It was that bad.

It just made sense that the coffee was the cultprit.

I googled it, of course. 

According to this article, there are 6 reasons why coffee makes a person sleepy.

1. It blocks the effects of Adenosine - adenosine ni reseptor yang tolong kita jadi mengantuk & control our off & on tido time. Our body clock la gitu kot. And so caffeine blocks it, which is why ppl can stay awake after drinking coffee. Now what happens when the caffeine dah wear off? The adenosine receptors builds up then you dapat double dose of the sleepy effects. 

2. It's diuretic - means that it makes you pee more. The more you pee, the more dehydrated your body becomes. So you become lethargic la. 

3. Sugar crash - the sweet stuff we put in the coffee to ease the bitterness causes the insulin to spike, so to turunkan the insulin level would require lots of energy. Therefore you get tired.

4. Mold contamination - coffee dah expired.

5. Stress <=> sleepy - bila minum coffee, the body punya temperature, heart rate sume naik. So the body might translate that as stress. Bila stress, jadi ngantuk.

6. Withdrawal symptoms - Kalau dah biasa minum coffee, pastu quit tetibe, the body will need to adjust. This period of adjustment will cause the body to feel more tired than before.

So basically that's it la.

I usually pun memang eat biskot & teh, so i don't think i was suffering from sugar crash. It made sense that my body is just not used to the higher body temperature, higher heart rate, and the blocking of my sleeping sensors, that it made me extra sleepy than normal.

Too bad.. I had stopped coffee already. I endured the coffee draining my life for a month plus (that is until my coffee stock finished). Puas. Now i am sleepy like the normal kind of sleepy. And at the right time too, so that's good.

Imma stick to my teh o', and occasionally teh tarik & matcha latte lipton tu and continue living like a british tea loving ahjumma.