Caffeine is the most widely used drug in the world. Many people drink coffee or tea to help them wake in the morning. And many others drink caffeine throughout the day to prevent sleepiness.
So, it is no surprise that if you get too much caffeine before bedtime, it can keep you awake. It turns out that interrupting your sleep is bad for your health on many levels, including the cellular level.
A new study explains how interrupted sleep can affect your mental and physical health. The study also explores how poor sleep can affect the cells in your body.
Researchers from the United States and the United Kingdom have joined fromacross the pond to investigate this issue.
The investigators are from the University of Colorado, Boulder in the U.S. and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. They found that caffeinated drinks taken up to three hours before expected bedtime can delay normal sleep times by as much as 40 minutes.
The amount of caffeine that disrupted sleep was equal to about two shots of espresso.
Kenneth Wright is head of the Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder. Mr. Wright warns some coffee drinks sold in coffee shops usually contain more caffeine than that.