Why does caffeine give you energy and why is it bad for you?
In: Biology
Caffeine doesn’t give you energy, that’s a bit of a misnomer.
Your body naturally produces a molecule called adenosine which is what makes you feel tired. Adenosine builds up in your body over the course of a day. The caffeine molecule blocks the receptors for adenosine, so it counters the effect temporarily and wakes you up.
However the adenosine is still in your system, so when the caffeine wears off all the adenosine suddenly takes effect which is why you feel that caffeine crash a few hours after you drink coffee.
Adenosine also eventually builds up to the point where you can’t counter it anymore, so drinking coffee won’t keep you awake forever.
Coffee is considered a stimulant for that reason, but technically speaking caffeine doesn’t actually give you more energy, it just makes you less tired so it feels like you have more energy.
Caffeine is also addictive, a lot of the feelings you get from it like the mild high and energy are actually a result of you feeding the caffeine addiction. This is also why caffeine gives you headaches when you haven’t had any for a while, you are going into withdrawal.
Caffeine is a very mild drug, but it does develop into a dependency. For people who drink coffee every day it stops being a stimulant so much as you end up needing the caffeine to feel fully awake. The good news is it doesn’t appear to cause any long term damage. If you go off coffee you’ll have headaches for a day or two during the withdrawal but within a week or two you should be back to ‘normal’.
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