Best Time to Drink Coffee Is Mid-Morning

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The best time to enjoy a morning cup of coffee is between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., according to a study.

Steven Miller, a neuro-scientist at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, said this is due to the interaction between caffeine and the human hormone cortisol. 

According to Miller, levels of cortisol, which helps to regulate the body's own internal clock and promotes alertness, are naturally high shortly after awakening and peak between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., only to drop to the lowest point at around 10:30 a.m.

Drinking coffee when cortisol levels are high is therefore pointless since the caffeine will have little effect. Instead, it should be drunk when cortisol levels are low.

Cortisol levels peak again between noon and 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. As a result, drinking coffee just after waking up, just before or after lunch and around 6 p.m. has little effect. 

But Miller said cortisol levels peak and ebb at different times for different people and depending on when they wake up, so times should be adjusted accordingly.

(adapted from The Chosun Ilbo)