How To Master Your Coffee Habit

I don’t know who coined the term ‘friend with benefits’, but it’s likely they had coffee on their mind. 

I love coffee’s exquisite depth and aroma, and its desirable pick-me-up qualities. And I’m not alone. Coffee drinking is popular around the world – and that’s only set to increase.

Although its long been lambasted in some quarters of the health/wellness community, coffee is no longer understood to be unhealthy for us (generally). In fact, according to a growing body of evidence, quite the opposite is true.  Coffee might not offer health benefits to rival that of green tea. If you don’t like the taste of coffee, or your body doesn’t react well to drinking it, there’s no reason to make coffee a part of your daily routine.

However, if you do enjoy a cup of java, science suggests it is a reasonable component of a healthy diet, with more potential benefits than almost any other drink we’re consuming. Whilst there isn’t a right or wrong way to drink coffee, there are ways to maximize the benefits you receive from it.

The health effects of drinking coffee have long been a source of controversy. The controversy has centered on its content of caffeine, a stimulant that can cause problems for some people.

However, as mentioned above, a consensus is emerging that coffee has some really great benefits:

• Coffee might help to prevent the sort of cognitive decline usually associated with diseases like Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Researchers discovered that participants who drank three to five cups of coffee per day had about a 65% decreased chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease or dementia later on in life.
• Coffee can help people to lose weight, as caffeine is one of the few natural substances with proven fat burning capabilities. Caffeine can boost the metabolic rate by 3-11%, and increase the burning of fat by as much as 29% in lean people and 10% in those who are obese.
• According to a Japanese study, men consuming one to two cups of coffee daily reduced their risk of dying from a cardiovascular disease by as much as 38%. 
• Drinking two cups of coffee a day has been associated with a 40% lower risk of developing liver cancer. 
• Coffee consumption is linked with a reduced incidence of some types of cancers, including liver and colorectal cancer. 
• Drinking coffee has been found to ease pain in the neck, shoulders, forearms, and wrists experienced by those who work in an office. 
• Two cups of coffee can cut post-workout muscle pain by up to 48%.
• Coffee might help to prevent depression. Scientists aren’t exactly sure why this is so, but they believe that it’s because caffeine activates neurotransmitters in the brain which are responsible for controlling mood. What’s clear is that coffee consumption has been associated with a 50 percent reduction in suicide risk among both men and women.
• Given that coffee drinkers are less likely to get many diseases outlined above, it’s not surprising that coffee drinkers tend to live longer overall.

Coffee’s main health giving qualities arise from its antioxidant activity. Antioxidants help us to fight inflammation, an underlying cause of many chronic conditions.

In fact, studies show that most Americans get more antioxidants from coffee than they do from both fruits and vegetables combined (though perhaps this serves best to demonstrate how sad the SAD diet is, rather than coffee’s superstar antioxidant status).

Note that the health benefits apply to instant coffee as well as the good quality stuff.