Is Caffeine Mind Altering? The Caffeine-Brain Connection Uncovered

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Caffeine is a stimulant drug that helps us feel more alert and energetic while improving our mood by releasing dopamine, but it’s all temporary. There’s enhanced mental performance, but caffeine’s benefits on memory are state-dependent. According to a study, daily caffeine consumption significantly changes our brain’s gray matter. That doesn’t necessarily mean it harms our brains, as this change is temporary. Further studies need to be conducted to judge whether coffee alters our brains if consumed regularly for the long term.

Caffeine is a psychoactive drug that is exceptionally legal compared to other drugs in the same category. It’s so widely consumed that 50% of the people in the US consume it daily, accounting for 517 million cups of coffee daily.

Its delicious taste makes it harder to be thought of as a drug, so it’s easier for people to chug cup after cup to feel alert or alive during the day. While coffee has some amazing benefits, it also adversely affects your body and brain.

Although FDA has approved the use of coffee and deemed it legal to be consumed, does it mean it’s good for our brains as well?

Is coffee affecting my brain?

Consuming coffee acts as a central nervous system stimulant and helps us feel more alert and energetic.

A chalk drawing of a head with coffee grounds by the brain, with a statement saying "coffee grains good for brains"

It does improve our mood temporarily and helps us become more productive with given tasks.

Caffeine does improve mental performance but up to a point.

In a study conducted in 2012, caffeine was shown to improve performance on a range of tasks, such as vigilance, response time, information processing, and some proofreading tasks.

But it’s not something that improves your brain activity permanently. Some believe it helps improve their memory, but that’s not the case.

Does drinking coffee improve my memory?

The benefits of caffeine on memory are state-dependent. This means it would work if you drink coffee while taking in information and again drink it while recalling it.

If no coffee is consumed when information is presented, people perform more poorly if they take caffeine when remembering the same information.

Also, if you take caffeine when taking in information and not when trying to remember it again, you might do worse than if you did take caffeine at the time you needed to remember the same information.

People also recall more false memories when they’re caffeinated, so it can stimulate your brain to come up with memories inaccurately.

Is caffeine changing my brain?

We know that caffeine is a psychoactive drug, and what this drug does is affect our behavior, emotions, cognizance, interpretations, and observations of our environment.

We all know the feeling of feeling exhausted in the afternoon, and some of us can’t even think straight in the morning before having a cup of coffee.

A man is observing a cup of coffee that's on his desk

While we crave coffee, this exhaustion comes from adenosine, a chemical that carries signals between nerve cells in the brain.

It accumulates in our brains throughout the day by binding to adenosine receptors.

So, when you indulge in caffeine, the psychoactive effects kick in, blocking adenosine receptors so they can’t bind to adenosine and produce exhaustion.

This lifts up the yawning and makes you feel alive, making you more productive in concentrating on work.

Consuming caffeine increases the concentration of the neurotransmitter dopamine, enhancing focus and attention.

Caffeine can positively affect various mental health disorders when consumed in the right quantity.

But only when consumed in moderation because if the dosage is too much for a long time, it could affect your body and mind leading to issues like sleep disturbances, psychosis, and anxiety.

According to a study, caffeine consumed as part of the daily routine doesn’t result in poor sleep, but researchers observed changes in the gray matter.

A man looks groggy and somewhat unhappy as he is having his morning coffee to wake up

The gray matter refers to the parts of the central nervous system made up primarily of the cell bodies of nerve cells.

On the other hand, the white matter mainly comprises the neural pathways, the long extensions of the nerve cells.

They reported in the journal Cerebral Cortex that the study conducted on a group of 20 healthy young adults who drink coffee daily showed the depth of sleep for all participants was equal, irrespective of whether they had taken caffeine or the placebo capsules.

But they did witness a significant change in the gray matter, depending on whether the subject took caffeine or the placebo.

After 10 days of placebo (not taking caffeine), the volume of gray matter was greater than following the same period of time with caffeine capsules.

In more medical terms, the difference was specifically more visible in the right temporal lobe, including the hippocampus, a brain region essential to memory consolidation.

Researchers did say that this conclusion doesn’t necessarily mean that caffeine has a negative impact on the brain.

A young woman is smiling with her eyes closed as she takes enjoys the aroma of her coffee

But daily consumption affects our cognitive hardware, which should give rise to further studies.

They also found that subjects who drank coffee regularly appeared to reduce the gray matter and could quickly regenerate the same matter after not consuming caffeine for the next 10 days.

So it seems to be a temporary change in the brain for now until more studies are conducted on this matter.

FAQs

Can caffeine change my brain?

Whenever caffeine is consumed, it does increase the energy metabolism throughout the brain but decreases at the same time cerebral blood flow.

Caffeine activates noradrenaline neurons and seems to affect the local release of dopamine.

It also enhances your performance, but only in very specific cases when you’re intaking new information and trying to remember it.

Does caffeine increase thoughts?

When you’re consuming caffeine, it alerts your central nervous system, which makes you feel more focused and alert to your surroundings.

Coffee consumption also makes you concentrate on your actions, making your thoughts more alert.

This can make you feel like your thoughts are increasing as compared to when you don’t have caffeine in your system.

Is caffeine bad for overthinking?

When you’re intaking caffeine in any form, either through coffee or soft drinks, there’s a limit to how much you should consume daily.

Each person has their limit of caffeine intake, but caffeine might also affect yours differently depending on your mental health.

For people with stress, anxiety, and insomnia, caffeine could be one of the worst things to indulge in and worsen their problems.

It could be bad for overthinkers as caffeine makes you more alert, which could lead to thinking about things more.

Overthinkers should be focused more on calming themselves down instead of hyping themselves up with caffeine.

Is caffeine good for your mental health?

A moderate dose of caffeine of fewer than 6 cups a day has been associated with fewer depressive symptoms, fewer cognitive failures, and a lower risk of suicide.

This caffeine quantity also includes caffeine in soft drinks or any other caffeinated drinks, such as energy drinks.

However, its putative therapeutic effects on depression and ADHD have been insufficiently studied.

Also, in rare cases, when there’s a high dosage of caffeine involved can induce psychotic and manic symptoms and, more commonly, anxiety.

Why does coffee calm my mind?

Caffeine uplifts your mood because it helps your brain release dopamine into the prefrontal cortex, an area important for mood regulation.

Caffeine may also help the storage of dopamine in the amygdala, another part of the brain important for anxiety regulation.

That’s not always true, and for every person, coffee might not work as a mood booster, and it’s very situational when it helps raise dopamine levels.

For people with depression and anxiety, it might help in the right situation, as dopamine is typically low in people with depression and social anxiety.

It’s a trial and test method, and if coffee makes you feel worse and more panicky to the extent that you can’t even sleep, then it’s not the right thing for you to consume.

Some people are more sensitive to coffee than others.

Does coffee clear your mind?

Caffeine is a brain stimulant, so when you consume it, it tricks your brain into waking up by blocking receptors for a chemical called adenosine, which normally prevents the release of excitatory brain chemicals.

With adenosine not in the way, these brain-sparking chemicals can flow freely, giving you a surge of energy, potentially improving mental performance and slowing age-related mental decline.

Since it wakes you up, it helps clear your mind when you’re sleepy, making you more focused on your work.

Some previous studies have shown improved long-term memory performance and thinking abilities in regular caffeine consumers.

What does coffee do to your brain?

Coffee can increase resting brain entropy, and it helps to level up your brain’s processing abilities, which suggests a higher information processing capacity.

Caffeine also stimulates the CNS by promoting the release of other neurotransmitters, including noradrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin.

Indulging in caffeine can improve various functions of the brain, such as mood, reaction time, vigilance, attention, learning, and general mental function.

But that’s only true if you keep your intake moderate, as excess caffeine consumption could lead to adverse side effects, and if you suddenly try to leave, it could lead to worse symptoms of caffeine withdrawal.

References

  • https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20164571/#:~:text=Accordingly%2C%20moderate%20caffeine%20intake%20(%3C,ADHD%20have%20been%20insufficiently%20studied.
  • https://www.verywellmind.com/does-caffeine-improve-memory-21846
  • https://www.michiganpsychologicalassociation.org/index.php?option=com_dailyplanetblog&view=entry&year=2021&month=02&day=21&id=70:drinking-caffeine-regularly-will-change-your-brain
  • https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210216100137.htm
  • https://thevarsity.ca/2021/10/02/effects-of-coffee-on-brain/
  • https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/caffeine-healthy-diet-may-boost-memory-thinking-skills-alcohols-effect-uncertain-201406187219#:~:text=The%20caffeine%2Dbrain%20connection&text=With%20adenosine%20out%20of%20the,slowing%20age%2Drelated%20mental%20decline.
  • https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inner-source/201509/can-coffee-help-anxiety#:~:text=Interestingly%2C%20it%20turns%20out%20there,brain%20important%20for%20anxiety%20regulation.

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Saumya Malik
I'm an ardent follower of everything good for the health and wellness of body and mind. I am passionate about providing effective solutions to general health and mental well-being issues and wants to help people achieve the same. When I'm not writing, you can find me curled up with a good book in a corner or cooking as a form of good mental therapy.

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