Ignorance is bliss. So is caffeine. Here’s how my morning coffee was ruined by science…
There are some facts that, once learned, you wish you could immediately scrub from your memory.
A couple of years ago, I read that it’s best to abstain from coffee in the first hour after waking, because caffeine interferes with your body’s production of the stress hormone cortisol.
People generally have negative associations around cortisol production. But when you’ve just woken up, cortisol is definitely your friend, prodding you into alertness. Coffee consumption during peak cortisol production diminishes the effect of the caffeine and can blunt the effect of the drug in the long run.
So first thing, every morning, many of us are employing coffee for a job it can’t actually do, and that will make it less effective in the aggregate.
Sure, we also drink coffee for the sublime taste, but it’s interesting to note that it stops being Gummiberry juice if you drink it too early.
A mental firmware update
This was one of the most profoundly annoying discoveries I’ve ever made, and the effect on my life was immediate and permanent. Doubtless, there are some reckless coffee lovers who stumbled across that cortisol factoid, and still make a beeline for their French press as soon as they awaken.
But my specific cocktail of personal traits made this new information horribly consequential.
The first problem: black coffee is my religion. “It’s a new day today, and the coffee is strong”, Michael Stipe once sang. For me, that sentiment has the weight of Biblical verse. Whether the coffee is freshly ground, or chipped out of an exhumed Kenco jar, is ultimately academic to me. I just want a double shot, thanks.
Second: I’m an Upholder in the Gretchen Rubin tradition; I comply with resolutions and regulations. A brief example: a few years ago I changed to a new dentist. She suggested I add mouthwash and interdental brushes to my brushing routine to avoid further remedial work.
And that was that: no willpower required. My new three-times-more-elaborate routine was etched in stone, every night, whether I was drunk, sick, exhausted, or relaxing on holiday.
Third: I’m a micro-efficiency junkie. Whatever I’m actually trying to do, there’s a prissy algorithm running in the back of my brain, thinking ahead, arbitrarily plotting the ‘optimal use’ of time and resources.
Usually this involves scanning through the household chores and flipping the tetrominoes around until they fit together perfectly: drain the residual water from the top drawer of the dishwasher, then transfer the laundry to the drier, put a fresh load in the washing machine, then back to the dishwasher.
Once my mental operating system has been updated with the ‘helpful’ new lines of code concerning optimal coffee consumption, it’s all but impossible to revert to an earlier and more forgiving version.
The waiting game
So to recap: I cannot forget this information and I also can’t avoid complying with it. Acting on it is the correct and the efficient thing to do. But it also makes my mornings more challenging and, where I come from, mornings are a daily occurrence.
The problem isn’t that I take a really long time to ‘get going’. I’m just weak and impatient. Some health websites recommend having your first Americano as late as 9.30am. Anyone raising a preschool child will tell you that’s practically the afternoon.
It used to be Christmas morning, every day
You see, for me it used to be Christmas morning, every day. I was allowed to open my stocking as soon as I woke up, and I still want to do that. Not my Big Present, that can wait, but come on – the stocking, please! I was a good boy, and I’m due my reward, aren’t I? I stayed in bed all night for this. Now I have to wait some more?
I’ve tried starting the day with a cup of decaf, but my heart isn’t in it. Decaf fundamentally undermines the sacrosanctity of the ritual. Plus, getting the taste without the buzz just doesn’t feel the same.
Dopamine waypoints
And that brings me to a fourth personality trait. This is the one that prevents my brain from collapsing under the strain of the new coffee protocol: delayed gratification.
I’ve always savoured the waiting game, the long anticipation of a gift, surprise or reward. As long as I can make it through the first 15 minutes of the day, then I find I can restrain myself – grudgingly – for a full hour.
So when the appointed moment arrives and I start brewing, now I also get to enjoy a burst of self-regulatory smugness, having savoured my hour of delicious, unrefined cortisol.
It’s the first of several dopamine waypoints that I chart every day (Social Media Break – Lunch – Beer – Netflix) and few of them receive this level of veneration.
Too often I speed through those periodically rationed treats. Before I know it, all the ports have been visited, and there’s nothing exciting left under the sun.
Then, I brush my teeth (and clean between them, and rinse with fluoride) and once more, the wait begins.
