Is Coffee Can Reduce Stress?

Photo : pixabay.com

If you're one of the 56 percent of adults who drink coffee every day, you may wish to increase energy, not relaxation. But the scientists found that coffee may have the potential to reduce emotional and physical stress. In the same way that coffee affects the brain to make you alert, it affects the neurotransmitters that can help your body fight the symptoms of stress and stress-related illnesses.

Research in animals
A Japanese study examined the coffee and also other components, caffeine and chlorogenic acid - a type of vegetable antioxidants - useful for reducing stress in the hippocampus in the rat brain. The researchers looked at the interaction of coffee with the brain chemical serotonin and dopamine, two neurotransmitters associated with emotion. The results, published in "Neuroscience Letters" 2002 edition found that coffee reduces the stress response of rat chemical when they were tested while under stress conditions.

Stress and Blood Pressure
Researchers in Switzerland found that coffee affects the stress-induced high blood pressure differently in people who drink frequently than those who rarely drink coffee. Research shows that coffee causes an increase in blood pressure under stress situations for which no / rarely drink coffee, but in those who drink coffee regularly, their blood pressure is not affected by stress. However, a previous study in 1992, published in "Psychosomatic Medicine," found that 6 cups of caffeinated coffee a day increases the heart rate response to mental stress.

Stress Associated With Pregnancy
The third trimester of pregnancy is stressful for many women because of physical changes of weight, pressure on the internal organs, back pain, frequent urination and heartburn. A Japanese team studied the effect of coffee consumption on stress in pregnancy, is determined by the level of cortisol, or "stress hormone." The study, published in 2006 in the "International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics," found that the level of cortisol in pregnant women significantly reduced after consuming coffee. However, as MayoClinic.com notes, because caffeine can affect your baby's heart rate and may be associated with a slightly increased risk of miscarriage, you should consume no more than two cups of coffee (each cup = 8-ounce) a day while pregnant.

Work Related Stress
Coffee is 'mandatory friends' in the office for most people, but one study published in 2007 in the journal "Psychoneuroendocrinology" shows that coffee is not a good thing when it is present at the time of occupational stress. Health-care workers who drank the most coffee had the greatest level of the stress hormone cortisol in the evening after a day of work. A second study was not published at the University of Bristol in England found that caffeinated coffee consumption in the workplace makes men feel more depressed, although it tends to reduce stress for women.

Related Stress Less Sleep
Staying up all night to prepare for the exam tomorrow and accompanied by a cup of coffee is not unusual for students, but if you lack of sleep can make your body stress. A study published in 2008 in the "Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry" found that the coffee aroma can help combat stress due to lack of sleep. When researchers tested the aroma of roasted coffee beans on mice in the laboratory, several genes in mice can be activated, including some that produce proteins with healthful antioxidant activity and reduce cortisol.