Short read: What does coffee do to your body?

When caffeine enters your body, it is absorbed by your intestines but the real action begins when the caffeine hits the nervous system. This happens because caffeine has a chemical structure very similar to a chemical produced naturally by our body called Adenosine. The surface of our nerve cells are where our body’s Adenosine receptors are housed. The BBC says that caffeine blocks our Adenosine receptors (like a key entering a lock) and by doing so increases our blood pressure, stimulates the brain, supresses hunger and helps us stay in a state of alertness so that we can concentrate for longer. Caffeine can also uplift your mood and improve your physical performance.

However, all of these effects last from 15 minutes to 2 hours. The body then proceeds to flush out caffeine over the next 8 hours. As a result, if you want to get a full on kick from your morning cup of coffee, you should NOT drink coffee post 2pm on the preceding day. Not only that, if you have more than 4-5 cups of coffee per day, your body’s Adenosine’s receptors get jammed so comprehensively that adverse side effects (explained in the BBC video) are likely to follow.