When is the best time for your morning coffee?

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I like coffee... Ok, I LOOOOOVE coffee. I love the smell, the taste, the texture. I love to make it, to bake and cook with it. I love to drink it - especially when I get to enjoy it with someone else, sitting together, chatting, spending time with one another. 

But there are just sometimes when I need coffee... There are just those days when I've not had quite enough sleep, there is just a bit too much to do, and I'm not firing on all cylinders. While there are other caffeinated beverages out there (I still maintain that Red Bull should have sponsored my PhD for the amount of the stuff I consumed over 4 years!!), sometimes nothing but coffee will do to pick me up and perk me up. 

But do you ever drink a cup of coffee and you just don't feel the same 'jolt' that you are expecting? 
We all know that drinking a cup of coffee too late in the day will keep us up at night, but what is the best time of day to drink a cup when you want coffee to work its wonderful caffeinated magic? 

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It all comes down to "chronopharmacology", a snazzy word that means "the study of the interaction of biological rhythms and drug action" says Steven Miller, a PhD student of neuroscience in Bethesda Maryland. 

Miller suggests that if you drink your morning cup of coffee at a time when the cortisol concentration in the blood is at its peak, you probably shouldn't be drinking it, because you probably don't really need it. 
Cortisol is one of the key stress hormones that your body produces, playing a key role in regulating blood sugar for energy,  for supporting memory functioning, and for supporting your immune system to keep you healthy.
When you're body is functioning normally, cortisol is released in a natural rhythm - it slowly increases in the morning when you are waking up, it reaches its peak at around 8-9am, and then decreases towards the end of the day when you're getting close to bedtime. When you drink a cup of coffee or other caffeinated drink, you're body receives a message to release more cortisol, which wakes you up. But what it also means is that if you're drinking your coffee out of synch with the natural rhythm of your body's cortisol production, it could be knocking your "wake up" and "get sleepy" patterns out of balance. 

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One of the key ideas behind using drugs most effectively (in this case, caffeine)  is to use them when they are most needed. So, in the morning, when your cortisol levels are naturally meant to be at their highest, drinking coffee and 'asking' your body to pump out more cortisol isn't going to work as effectively - there will already be lots of cortisol floating around in your system. Over time, you'll just become desensitized to the energizing effects of your morning coffee. 

Instead, if you wait to enjoy your brew between 9:30 and 11:30am, (when your cortisol levels take a little mid-morning dip), you'll feel the effects much more! 

For those of you out there who feel they would struggle to get to 9:30 before your first cup, another alternative to getting your cortisol pumping first thing in the morning is some bright sunshine! (Ok, I know that might sound a bit "granola-crunchy-hippie-patchouli", but it does work!). 

As it has now reached 9:40 am  where I am, I'm off for my first cup... I really need it now! 

If you're interested in reading the full article, you can find it here.