Why coffee, despite it’s clear interactions with the brain as a drug, isn’t as bad for your health or as physically dependent as most other drugs like cocaine or opioids?
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It has to do with the mechanism by which coffee affects the brain. Caffeine basically blocks certain receptors in the brain. When these receptors are blocked naturally (not by caffeine), the effect is to slow down the actions of the cell, so you lose energy or get tired. When caffeine blocks it, though, it doesn’t have the effect of slowing down the actions of the cell, so you don’t get tired. So there is a limit to how not-tired coffee can make you, and that limit is based on a natural physiological limit. It’s not adding something that is giving you energy, it’s just blocking something that is sapping your energy. So it can never get too bad or too extreme. When you stop caffeine, you’ll get more tired but your body is working within its natural limits and can adjust sufficiently. In contrast, when you’re using certain hard drugs, it’s feeding you something new that is supercharging your body by providing far greater amounts of a substance than you would ever otherwise have. Your body can’t adjust or compensate easily and greater problems ensue.
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