Bellyaching Over Caffeine

As I write this, the effects of caffeine are beginning to ooze through my body. Although I am a habitual night person, I needed to get to work early on this and other projects. So naturally, I turned to the “drug” of choice in this house – caffeine. Yes, sweet caffeine. And...I’m convinced it makes my coffee taste better.

Now let me explain why (too much) caffeine is not good for us. Shiftworkers have been known to abuse caffeine. In fact, I’ve known some people on graveyard shifts who could consume a whole pot on a single shift, and I used to be one of them. There's even a description for what we in the "business" call "graveyard coffee," and it isn't complimentary. Let's just say if anyone ever offers you "graveyard" coffee don't plan on getting any sleep for a long while.

Caffeine is abundant in our society. Not only is it contained in coffee, most of the soft drinks carry copious quantities of it as well. So if you’re a Diet Coke user, you’re consuming a lot of caffeine. Caffeine is also relatively inexpensive, and let’s admit it – it works. It enhances alertness, it increases your physical performance, and reaction times are sharpened. I’ve even known competitive runners who consume caffeine before a race, and they swear that it helps reduce their times.

The problem with caffeine is that it stays in the body for many hours. If you get home after a night shift and you’ve consumed a pot of coffee, you’re not going to sleep for a while. You may have to wait up to eight hours before you’re body is ready to wind down.

Caffeine users also find that the quality of the sleep that they do get is very poor. They wake up often, and the overall length of time sleeping is shorter than if they weren’t on the stuff at all. Studies have shown that the duration of that “good quality” REM sleep is diminished as the amount of caffeine consumed prior to sleep increases.

Shiftworkers also can build up a tolerance for the substance. The more caffeine they consume, the more they seem to need to keep themselves awake. Scientific evidence supports that notion. And the more a person consumes, the more they report incidences of gastrointestinal problems. – the proverbial bellyache. And we all know of the increased nervousness and irritability that caffeine can provide. And working is irritable enough!

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