Coffee before a short nap isn’t bad for sleep

Coffee is a stimulant. So, it seems obvious to think that drinking coffee just before going to bad isn’t good, right? A research in England showed the opposite. Drinking coffee just before a short nap is not harmful, and it can also be beneficial to concentration just after.

It is seen in an article from Reuters, as published by Isto É.

Coffee before a nap

We often agree with some ideas for a long time. Then Science comes and everything changes.

In this case, we are used to hear that coffee hinders the sleep.

Though, scientists from Loughborough University, England, concluded that it’s not that right.

They assessed participants of the research divided in two groups.

The first group has had coffee before a quick 15-minute nap. When these people have woken up, they committed less mistakes in a car-driving simulator.

In turn, people from the second group have taken a nap, during the same 15 minutes, without drinking any coffee before.

A similar experiment, carried out by Japanese scientists, have reached the same results with memory tests.

Other researches

Other researches also brought down the myth that drinking coffee is harmful to sleep in short periods. They compared the consumption of coffee with other substances like alcohol or tobacco, for instance.

According to the studies, alcohol reduces the efficiency of sleep, possibly causing fragmented periods of rest.

Likewise, a single cigarette up to four hours before sleeping might reduce the rest period in 42 minutes, in average. And it can also hinder the efficiency of sleep for one’s health.

Caffeine

Caffeine doesn’t produce any major impact either on the duration or on the quality of sleep.

As the substance takes nearly 20 minutes to reach the brain, for it competes with the adenosines (molecules that cause tiredness when accumulated), caffeine becomes even more efficient in renewing our energy after short naps.

Although, the recommendation is restricted to two cups of coffee up to six hours before sleeping.

Conclusively, scientists suggest that new and broader studies might be carried out to confirm such propositions.