Coffee: How To Use It, Not Abuse It
Coffee is one of the most effective performance tools available. Most people use it in a way that ruins its benefits.
Dejan Koceski
Health & Performance Coach · Melbourne
Coffee: How To Use It, Not Abuse It
Coffee is one of the most effective, legal, free performance tools available.
Most people use it in a way that ruins its benefits.
What Coffee Does Well
Caffeine improves alertness, focus, reaction time, and physical performance. A well-timed cup before training genuinely makes you train harder and feel better doing it.
It also has genuine health benefits - lower risk of type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's, and certain cancers in regular drinkers.
Used well, coffee is a tool. Used badly, it is a debt you pay back at 2am.
The Timing Problem
Caffeine has a half-life of roughly 5-6 hours. A coffee at 3pm still has half its caffeine in your system at 9pm.
If you drink coffee in the afternoon and your sleep is poor, this is why. Poor sleep makes you more reliant on coffee the next day. The cycle compounds.
Cut off caffeine at midday. If you need an afternoon pick-me-up, walk outside or drink water. Not coffee.
The Dose Problem
More is not better. Beyond roughly 3-4 cups, the returns diminish and the anxiety, jitters, and cortisol response increase.
1-2 cups in the morning is the sweet spot for most people. Enough to sharpen focus. Not enough to wire you.
The Dependency Problem
If you cannot function without coffee, you are not using coffee. Coffee is using you.
The fix is not more coffee. The fix is sleep, sunlight, and movement. Coffee should amplify energy you already have, not replace energy you do not.
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