Over one hundred thousand metric tons of caffeine are consumed around the world every year, that's equivalent to the weight of 14 Eiffel Towers. Most of this caffeine is consumed in coffee and Tea, but it is also ingested in some sodas, chocolates and some kind of caffeine pills and even beverages involved Decaf. caffeine helps us feel alert, focused, happy and energetic even if we haven't had enough sleep but it also raises blood pressure and make us feel anxious and it’s the worlds most widely used drug so how does it keep us awake.
Whenever you’re awake, a chemical known as adenosine steadily accumulates in your brain. And this adenosine ties to receptors which retards brain activity, eventually, the more adenosine there is, the more stressed your brain feels. Which makes more sense, as the more you are awake, the more fatigued you changed. Om the other hand, while you sleep, the focus of adenosine declines, slowly promoting wakefulness.
But it is discovered that the caffeine in our coffee is incredibly equivalent to adenosine in structure. The caffeine in your bloodstream and into the brain, where it triggers to compete and ties with adenosine receptors. Yet because it is not adenosine, the ‘sleepiness’ effect is not noticed. Adenosine can no longer tied, meaning its calming properties are vanished. Which is nice for you when you are feeling tired!
Nevertheless, with continues use of caffeine for longer period, your brain responds by producing more adenosine receptors. Which means more caffeine is desired to obtain the same response. It also means that when you implement to cut down drinking coffee or missed your daily intake, you may feel some withdrawal symptoms and experience more stressed than you would have before you ever consumed coffee.
So can you consume too much coffee in a day? It is discovered there is a fatal dose of caffeine which is almost around 150mg of caffeine per kilogram of your body. This means if you weigh 60kg you would require 12,000mg of caffeine to make it fatal. Put into perspective, an typical cup of coffee consists of almost 150mg of caffeine, meaning if you are 60kg, approximately 60 cups of coffee would kill you. Nevertheless, you had have to drink those cups all at once becoming it really impossible to overdose on caffeine from coffee, because of you wouldn’t be able to physically fill so much in your stomach. You’d also start feeling mania and hallucinations before reaching to this stage.
Caffeine also consists of halflife of around 6 hours. So if you drink a typical coffee with around 150mg of caffeine, after this about 6 hours, there will only be 75mg left in your body and you will be experiencing half of the consequence. And after 6 hours, you will have 37.5mg, with more adenosine to jump back into action. This may be a reason you may reach for another cup throughout the day, which is really not a good habit to adapt, to feel that glorious, alert and energetic experience.
Source: Business Insider, LifeHacker
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