Does coffee give you energy or drain your energy?
The coffee debate is strong in the wellness industry, and today we want to explore the potential pros and cons.
Whether you love drinking coffee or prefer a different morning bev, it’s important to understand what coffee does to the body.
Let’s first look at the nature of coffee, and how it affects us on the bioenergetic level…
1. It’s a central nervous system stimulant.
Coffee stimulates the fight-or-flight response, which is usually reserved for emergency situations.
Even if you’re just sitting at your desk or driving to work, after a cup of coffee your nervous system thinks you’re in danger.
Its response is to direct resources like blood to your muscles, as your body prepares to fight back or run away.
All of that takes a lot of energy, so coffee actually uses up your energy, rather than adding energy to your system.
Over time, being in the fight-or-flight state too often can lead to a dysregulated nervous system, a dysregulated body-field, fatigue, and ultimately, burnout.
2. It’s a diuretic.
Diuretics increase blood flow to your kidneys and make your body get rid of waste more frequently.
This can be very dehydrating, and have an anti-nutrient effect.
Coffee’s acidity may also leach calcium and other nutrients from bones.
As most coffee drinkers know, coffee affects the digestive system.
If you drink too much coffee, it can interfere with absorption and cause diarrhea, which may lead to further nutrient depletion and dehydration.
3. It’s an addictive psychoactive.
A psychoactive is any drug that affects your brain, including focus, perception, mood, and cognition.
Coffee is the most widely used psychoactive drug. The more you drink, the higher your tolerance becomes.
When a coffee drinker goes cold turkey, they get withdrawal symptoms, like headaches, fatigue, and anxiety.
Those are the hallmarks of addiction: Tolerance and withdrawal.
The bottom line is that coffee has the potential to rob you of your energy, and dysregulate your body-field.
Everyone is different – some people can handle a moderate amount of coffee, others can handle quite a bit, and some feel best with zero coffee.
From what we’ve seen, it comes down to how strong your constitution is – your health at birth – how fast you metabolize caffeine, and your current state of health.
If you’re feeling weak or navigating a health issue, you may want to press pause on coffee.
Here are the symptoms you can look out for if you suspect that your morning coffee isn’t working for you…
- Dry mouth.
- Constant thirst.
- Anxiety.
- Shakiness.
- Dizziness.
- Rapid heart rate.
- Sleep disturbances.
- Inability to focus.
- Digestive issues.
- Feeling of impending doom.
The NES Scan and Infoceuticals can help you identify energetic imbalances and restore your energy at the root.
Curious to learn more about Bioenergetic Health Coaching, and how you can build a location-independent business, working with dream clients?
>> Click here to explore the Bioenergetic Health Coaching Program.
Each person is unique, and the amount of coffee you can truly enjoy with no negative side effects will be specific to you.
Regardless of your ability to drink coffee or not, one thing is clear: It doesn’t ADD to your energy tank. By nature, it takes energy away.
If you have a hearty constitution, you might not notice coffee’s impact…
… but it can be a slippery slope, since it does have a depleting effect.
While whole foods add nutrients to your body, caffeine may flush them out.
What about the boost of energy you feel from coffee?
The boost of energy you experience from coffee is that fight-or-flight emergency mode we talked about.
Perhaps you’ve woken up in a panic after hearing a weird sound at night, suddenly filled with energy, when moments earlier you were fast asleep.
That’s fight-or-flight mode – it blasts you into action.
When you’re in that state, you’re fixated on the details of survival.
That’s why coffee can be an effective aid for getting busy work done, but it can actually make it harder to find a place of deep focus, and settle in for longer periods of work.
Your heart is beating faster, your thoughts are racing, and you’re moving quickly to get everything done.
Even if you’re just sending emails, your brain is in the minutiae rather than the big picture.
You may even feel hypervigilant – like you’re on high alert. It’s hard to focus in that state.
What are the reported benefits of coffee?
Studies show that coffee may contain antioxidants, protect against heart disease, increase lifespan, decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes, improve liver health, and even strengthen DNA.
These benefits and studies are hotly contested, since the coffee industry is a huge part of the economy, and many studies are funded by industry leaders.
In our Bioenergetic Health Coaching Program, we talk about the value of subtle stressors aka hormetic stressors.
Hormetic stressors are stimuli that trigger short, irregular stress responses that can improve health, slow down aging, and make you more resilient to future stress.
Hormetic stressors can include…
- Exercise
- Heat exposure
- Cold exposure
- Fasting
- Nutrients found in plants, including coffee
Stress is a form of stimulation, and we need some of it.
If we had no stress in our lives, we might feel tired, dull, and unengaged.
Hormetic stressors can actually strengthen us, but there is a time and a place for them –
most likely, when your baseline health is strong.
This may be why coffee is shown to benefit some people, while being problematic for others.
If you’re experiencing the symptoms listed in this article, it’s good to know that coffee could be the cause.
Very often, people start developing symptoms, and the last thing they want to blame is coffee – because they’re addicted to it.
If you can break the addiction, reducing or quitting coffee may be an effective way to restore your health and energy.
This is not always the case, but if you could avoid costly medications and procedures, it’s worth experimenting with the amount of coffee you’re consuming – or taking a break from it altogether.
Have you noticed how coffee affects you? What are your instincts telling you?
Ultimately, it’s best to develop a strong understanding of coffee and its long-term effects, and then experiment to find the amount that works for you.
Each person will be different.
The stronger your energetic baseline is, the more freedom you may have in your diet.
Whether coffee works for you or not, listening to your body and noticing how different foods and drinks affect you is a great practice.
Self-knowledge is key.
Cheers,
Harry Massey
Founder, NES Health