How does caffeine affect my sleep?

Caffeine affects your sleep in that it's a shock to your system, making drifting off to sleep difficult. Watch sleep expert Michael Breus, PhD, explain why a cut-off time for caffeine in the afternoon is beneficial if you are sensitive to it.

Transcript

00:00

Do you think that you might be somebody who's caffeine sensitive-- meaning if you drink caffeine later in the day and you find it difficult to fall asleep--

00:07

I recommend that you stop drinking caffeine by about 2:00 or 2:30, and there's two reasons why. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:28

So caffeine affects your sleep in a whole bunch of ways. But the biggest thing that caffeine does is it comes and it's a shock to the system--

00:35

specifically to the frontal lobes. So when you ingest caffeine, it is an equal opportunity stimulator. It hits every nerve ending in the frontal lobe

00:43

and just excites it by opening up those pathways. And that's exactly the opposite of what we want to do when we sleep.

00:49

When we sleep, we want those pathways to be calmer, not as much nerve ending action. And that's not what caffeine does.

00:56

If you think that you might be somebody who's caffeine sensitive-- meaning if you drink caffeine later in the day

01:02

and you find it difficult to fall asleep-- I recommend that you stop drinking caffeine by about 2:00 or 2:30, and there's two reasons why.

01:08

First of all, we know that that's about the time that most people have a tendency to get sleepy midday. But we also know that caffeine has a half-life of somewhere

01:16

between six and eight hours. And that way, if that's your last time of drinking caffeine, it gives you enough time to get at least half of it out of your system so that you

01:23

can get a good sleep at night. [HEARTBEAT] [AUDIO LOGO]