Ahh, the lovely smell of ground coffee when you walk in a warm cosy cafe’, perhaps on a rainy day.. nothing better.
but do you like coffee?
or maybe I should ask, can you Handle coffee?
this is me: when I drink coffee early in the morning I have palpitation for the next 7-8 hours, accompanied with shakes and anxiety.
As an Italian, I was brought up with coffee, drinking Espressos since I was 12. Unfortunately, I have l have bad blood circulation and this plays a huge role in my relationship with caffeine.
It took me several years to understand that not all of us have the ability to handle caffeine (shame!).
Some of my friends drink more than one coffee per day and for them is like drinking water. I was always puzzled by why, why do I feel so crappy and they are glowing?
Out there, we can find different opinions on how to get the most benefit out of coffee and here I tried to sum up some that I have encountered so far:
First of all, don’t drink it too early! our bodies need a gentle time to wake up and function. Considering that we are very dehydrated in the morning, after 8 hours of no water, we can’t give our body a mixture of caffeine – sugar and nuts (in case you drink cow or nut milk). Our body needs plenty of warm water ( I will discuss the importance of this very soon) to wake up well.
Then, try to have a coffee between 11 and 2 pm, which is the peak of our alertness during the day, so we can process it better.
and here, Ayurveda plays its role.
I have a very sluggish constitutional type (don’t worry I will talk about this very soon as well!) this makes me incapable to deal with caffeine, and I need extra care in choosing my food and my behaviours around food as it’s easy to suffer from digestive problems. I can’t have stimulants, my digestive fire is not strong enough.
This might sound not too familiar to you about constitutional type, but if you have palpitation and anxiety every day, ask yourself where it comes from. If you are used to having coffee every day, maybe it’s time to observe this routine better and go one day or two without to see how you feel.
There are great alternatives out there such as Turmeric Lattes, Rooibos, Chai…this is if you are in need of a warm drink rather than the caffeine hit. I wouldn’t push on having Decaf instead. Decaf I think has got more chemicals to make it without caffeine than it’s better to have the normal version, but at the right times and don’t overdo it.
If you need the caffeine hit, try drinking warm water first, and wait until you are a little hungry before having breakfast. Food will give you more energy.
Or instead of the normal boring black coffee, why not try Bulletproof coffee? I will talk about it again soon, but for now, give it a google, it might interest you. I had it few times and it was super delish, filled me for hours and didn’t give me as many palpitations as normal coffee.
Have a think about your next Cuppa xx