How Much Coffee is Too Much Coffee?

We love coffee but too much coffee may not always be a good thing. As the saying goes “…too much of a good thing…”

You can consume too much coffee, and the negative effects could mean it’s time to sever ties with coffee for a little while.

If you have six cups of coffee per day (8 oz cups), that may be too much, because it may result in a slightly increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, nondrinkers of coffee and drinkers of decaffeinated coffee also had a slight increased risk of CVD.

This may be a classic case where you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t!

This also means that you’re basically okay to drink a good amount of coffee every single day, so long as you don’t go overboard.

Coffee is still a great way to reduce the risk of type II diabetes, other diseases, and even be a potential solution to constipation.

The benefits of a healthy level of coffee drinking are great

Coffee blocks adenosine, which is a molecule in your brain that is produced from the time you wake up, until you go to sleep.

Even if you’re not someone who feels jittery when you have a lot of coffee, you could still notice that you’re still fired up to binge watch that late-night television show.

If you’re having difficulty sleeping at night, you could have an excess amount of caffeine in your system that’s preventing you from getting drowsy.

It’s difficult to directly diagnose a problem when it comes to sleep patterns as the research is ongoing.

One thing we do know is that caffeine can mimic the symptoms of insomnia, and that can be a real problem.

If you are currently experiencing any of these, it could be related to your caffeine consumption:

• More and more accidents at work or at home
• Feeling sleepy in the middle of the day, but not at night
• Waking up completely restless, even after a solid eight hours
• Difficulty falling asleep in the first place
• Depression or anxiety
• Quick bouts of anger, or irritability
• Waking up in the middle of the night or before your alarm (more than once per night)

These symptoms aren’t exclusive with increased coffee consumption but they could be a warning.

However, coffee may not be the only issue and factors such as snoring, sleep apnea, and temperature may also contribute to insomnia. 

It’s also important to identify the distinction between caffeine and coffee.

It’s a common misconception that coffee is basically just liquid caffeine, when in fact there are three other main components of coffee: chlorogenic acid, which we’ll talk about in a minute, melanoidins, and diterpenes.

Coffee is a complex profile of all four of these, and acts differently from the caffeine in tea and energy drinks.

Caffeine is in tea but in lower amounts compared with coffee. Tea leaves are dried and sorted, and other than that, they don’t undergo much change on a chemical level.

In contrast, roasting coffee beans leads to a whole host of different chemical reactions and modified molecules that lead to different effects of coffee compared with tea.

Tea also contains theophylline and theobromine which stimulate your muscles in a different way compared with coffee.

Exceeding 400 milligrams of caffeine in a single day isn’t the end of the world, whether that’s through coffee or tea.

Caffeine increases your spatial awareness and energy, so if you were to have too much caffeine, you can go for a thirty-minute run at an incline to burn some of it off. Or if you are like me just chill out, enjoy the coffee, and forget the run.

We all have those days where we say to ourselves, “How many cups of coffee did I have today?” If you are worried about how much coffee you are drinking, then just try to stay aware of it.

One day of increased caffeine consumption isn’t going to have immediate ramifications on your health card.

How Much Coffee Per Day is Recommended?

You probably should keep your consumption under 400 milligrams of caffeine per day.

For context, the USDA’s FoodData Central states that one eight-ounce (about 227 g) cup of coffee has about 95 milligrams of caffeine.

Since caffeine isn’t the only thing that’s in coffee, nearing or reaching that 400 milligram cap might be worth it for the added benefits.

Coffee contains a lot of antioxidants through the production of chlorogenic acid during roasting. Antioxidants help the body in numerous ways, including fighting free radicals.

Coffee is actually pretty good for you. It’s also extremely helpful for many other diseases or conditions because the antioxidants can act as anti-inflammatory agents.

Why Do Other Articles Demonize Coffee?

We answered the question, “How much coffee is too much coffee,” but you might see other headlines that tell you all the reasons that it’s bad for you.

Well, that’s not really for anyone to say apart from physicians, scientists, and the literature that they produce.

It’s proven that negative headlines get 63% more views than positive headlines, and the same could be said for neutral or thought-provoking headlines like ours.

Scientific studies aren’t performed with malintent but are often perceived as “Uncovering the hidden truth,” when in fact they’re just further investigating previous evidence and newfound breakthroughs.

It’s very easy to spin the contents of a scientific study, especially when it’s written by academic minds for academic readers, to make it sound like it’s against coffee.

Can You Overdose on Coffee?

You would have to actively be trying to overdose on caffeine, or ignore a blatant hypersensitivity to caffeine in general.

Yes, it is possible to overdose on caffeine, but it’s bloody near impossible to overdose on coffee, though we’re willing to bet your stomach would feel immense pain before you ever neared coffee overdose.

Caffeine exists in many forms, some of which are natural, and others that are manipulated and chemically altered.

Just because you see an energy drink that’s labeled “Made With Real Coffee” doesn’t mean that it’s good for you in the slightest.

Marketers highlight the very few natural ingredients that are in energy drinks and energy shots, but those are so riddled with additional chemicals and other sources of caffeine—often in harmful levels—which contribute to caffeine overdose.

You’re not going to get an overdose from coffee without a hypersensitivity or aversion to caffeine.

What Happens if I Have Too Much Caffeine?

If you have a hypersensitivity to caffeine, you’ll know it after one cup.

If you possess a coffee metabolizing gene in your liver enzymes, then you might not even know what’s going on until you’ve consumed a massive amount of caffeine.

Your blood pressure increases, meaning it’s easier to get aggravated, and you’ll feel systematic problems such as elevated blood pressure.

Caffeine is metabolized by your liver in about 45 minutes and then enter your bloodstream. Elevated caffeine levels in your body can linger around for up to nine hours, and in some cases longer.

You may also develop tension headaches, and a very dry mouth simultaneously while your system dehydrates.

This can lead to constipation and excessive thirst, and in those instances, most people usually try to quench that thirst with more coffee.

Too much caffeine may bring on the symptoms of paranoia, which includes doubting yourself, others, and assuming that something is out to get you.

Keep in mind that these are in extreme cases where someone was susceptible and drank too much coffee for their own good.

Should I Avoid Caffeine in Other Forms?

If you exceed your 400 milligram allowance of caffeine in a single day, it’s best to avoid it in foods until the next day.

Your body metabolizes at night, and even though caffeine from coffee can be metabolized in 45 minutes or less, foods like chocolate, ice cream, or energy water beverages could stay in your system for longer.

That’s where you run into trouble sleeping.

Calculate how much caffeine and chlorogenic acid you drank today!

Do you want to know how much caffeine you drank today? Do you want to know how much chlorogenic acid you drank today? If so, then visit our Caffeine and Chlorogenic Calculator!

You may be surprised!