Stress is basically a physical response to a situation that’s making you nervous. When stressed, the body thinks it is under attack and switches to ‘fight or flight’ mode, releasing a complex mix of hormones and chemicals such as adrenaline, cortisol and norepinephrine to prepare the body for physical action. That is, it assumes you are in threat and is trying to prepare you to ‘fight’ or ‘flee’. This causes a number of reactions, from blood being diverted to muscles to shutting down unnecessary bodily functions such as digestion, lowering the metabolism, increasing your blood pressure etc.
In this situation when you have loads of coffee; the caffeine increases your blood pressure, inhibits absorption of the calming hormones like adenosine and increases the stress hormone cortisol. Caffeine also pumps adrenalin and increases dopamine which gives you a temporary boost making you feel all energised.
But this is very short lived. After sometime you get fatigued, depressed, irritated, jumpy and jittery.
All this is only going to make you more stressed and not calm.
-Dt. JENNIFER DHURI