Is coffee making your anxiety worse?

TLDR; yes. Keep reading to learn what you can do to reduce anxiety from caffeine.

If you’re like most, you probably reach for your coffee first thing in the morning, but if you have anxiety, that might not be the best choice.

Undoubtedly caffeine increases energy. This energy comes from caffeine’s role in blocking adenosine receptors in the brain. Adenosine is sleep-promoting, so when you drink caffeine, you temporarily block them, which increases your energy. Additionally caffeine stimulates your central nervous system, switching you into your sympathetic nervous state, or “fight or flight.” This triggers your adrenal glands to pump cortisol, adrenaline and other stress hormones into your bloodstream.

This stress response to increased blood-caffeine levels can directly and indirectly affect anxiety.

Studies have shown that consuming as little as 100mg of caffeine can worsen your pre-existing anxiety, trigger new anxiety and even panic.

Think about how similar the symptoms of caffeine consumption and anxiety are.

• Increased heart rate

• Elevated blood pressure

• Racing thoughts

• Jitters

• Restlessness

• Difficulties focusing and concentrating

• Increased urination

Let’s be real you’re drinking more than 100mg of caffeine a day and most likely on an empty stomach, which will definitely increase the cortisol response.

Let’s simplify this:

increased caffeine = increased cortisol response = more anxiety

In fact just the amount of caffeine in a Venti Starbucks coffee has been shown to significantly activate your midbrain periaqueductal gray matter. This is an area of your brain that fires up when a predator is about to attack you.

Read. That. Again. A Venti Starbucks coffee can stimulate your brain’s stress response in the same way as if you were being chased down by a tiger 😱. But you’re just drinking coffee‼ So no wonder it can fuel even more anxiety.

If you’re chugging coffee at the moment, don’t quit cold turkey ❌ as caffeine withdrawals can spark anxiety attacks as well.

So you don’t want to quit cold turkey, but you want to decrease your anxiety, but you also want to energy and taste of coffee? What do you do?

Option 1: Treat it like any wean and slowly cut back over the course of a few days to under 100mg a day.
Option 2: You can also try switching to a caffeine source, like green tea and matcha, that contains relaxing, anti-anxiety ingredient l-theanine with the caffeine.

Option 3: You can also try coffee additions to slow caffeine’s roll into your system. You can do this by adding to your coffee. We recommend adding in fiber (like Bulletproof InnerFuel) or protein from collagen.
Option 4: Eat some protein and fat before consuming your coffee to reduce the anxiety effects of caffeine on an empty stomach.

Just like everything else you put into your body, the dose is dependent on your specific body and goals.

If you’re ready to learn how you can change your diet to reduce your anxiety and increase your energy, schedule your free strategy call here. We look forward to hearing from you!