Picture your ideal morning.
Your alarm clock goes off.
Oh, you're tired.
You head downstairs and you grab a cup of your favorite perfect morning coffee.
You take that first sip and you think, wow, this is a nice way to start my day.
Perhaps I'm describing your morning routine.
But in reality, I'm describing the morning routine of millions and millions of people around the world.
Coffee has become a ritual.
It's become something which is very important to so many people everywhere.
And today we are going to look at the habit of drinking coffee.
So if you enjoy coffee or you hate it, stick around because today's topic will be interesting and I hope you'll learn something new.
I'm your host Oliver and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
And as always, we are going to be learning new English vocabulary, as well as practicing your English listening skills with interesting topics.
Before we get into the vocabulary and the science, if you're listening on Spotify, I want you to answer our interactive vote.
Our interactive poll.
I want you to tell me do you drink coffee every morning?
So you can answer below on the poll and you'll also be able to see the live votes of everyone else who has voted and answered.
Okay, let's take a look at our key vocabulary for today's episode and topic.
And as we're looking at coffee, we are going to have some words related to this topic.
And some of them might be surprising.
Okay, let's get started with our key vocabulary.
The first word is obsession.
Obsession.
And an obsession is a state in which someone thinks about something all the time.
So they're obsessed with it.
They have an obsession.
Our second keyword for the episode is to function.
To function.
And this verb means to work, operate, or perform duties normally.
So some people require coffee or caffeine to function.
Our
Third word for today's topic is ritual.
Ritual.
I've used this word already and it means a series of actions that are performed according to a fixed regular order.
You can think of it almost like a routine.
So another way to say a routine.
Our fourth word here is craving, craving.
And a craving is a powerful, urgent desire or want for something specific like coffee.
And our fifth word for today is comfort, comfort.
And the comfort is a feeling of physical ease, safety and freedom from pain and constraint.
As always, if you would like access to the vocabulary flip cards, as well as full PDF transcripts of each episode,
Make sure to check out the Easy English Patreon.
It's the best way to support me and to support the show.
If you click the link in the description below, it will take you to our Patreon page and there you can support the show and get access to lots of bonus content and episodes
As well as every regular episode with transcripts, PDFs and vocabulary cards as well.
And this week we will have a short story on there as well about an AI coffee machine.
So to keep in line with the theme of coffee, we will have that bonus content on the Patreon too.
Let's get into our topic and let's talk a little bit about coffee.
This topic came to my mind and I've talked about coffee in the past, but I really like talking about it in different angles, different ways, because I love coffee.
I drink coffee every day without fail.
I drink coffee multiple times per day, sometimes two or three times per day.
And of course, with coffee comes caffeine.
So let's talk a little bit about caffeine first, because it really is important to understand caffeine to understand our relationship with coffee.
Scientifically, caffeine is a natural stimulant that blocks the tired signals in your brain.
When you drink it, it temporarily tricks your nervous system, so everything related to the brain, into thinking that you have unlimited or lots of energy.
However, studies do show that regular drinkers of coffee or caffeine have
High tolerance.
So we build a high tolerance very quickly.
And what that means is
Is that the more you drink, the less effect there is.
You don't feel the same effect as you once did.
You build up a tolerance to it.
And after a few weeks, that morning cup of coffee isn't bringing you that feeling of being a superhero, being ready to use your unlimited energy anymore.
And in fact, it's often simply bringing your tired brain back to a normal level so that you can function, so that you can work normally.
So the first question I ask myself is if caffeine is mostly just bringing us back to normal once we are in a way addicted to it,
Why do we feel such an intense physical pleasure whenever we hold the hot cup of coffee, whenever we enjoy it, whenever we drink it and get the nice smell as well?
And that's because human psychology, how our brains work, is driven by association, so connections to things.
And your brain connects the smell, maybe the heat as well, the ritual of the coffee, of drinking the coffee, and of course the taste.
With that feeling that you get.
It's connecting it with safety and rest.
So in a way this craving, the desire that you're feeling, the want for it,
It's not only chemical, it's not just like a chemical addiction.
It's also deeply emotional.
It's a deep emotional connection that you can develop to coffee really as well.
The more I'm talking about this, the more I'm thinking, hmm, it really does sound like in the modern day that most people are genuinely addicted to coffee because these descriptions are very similar to what I would describe an addiction as when you can't stop using or drinking or having something.
But particularly on coffee.
So psychologists call these morning patterns or rituals anchor habits.
So when life feels chaotic or it feels fast or stressful, our minds really like these small moments of control.
And a 10-minute coffee ritual acts as an anchor or an anchor habit in your day.
It creates a boundary between your restful sleep and maybe your stressful workday or the start of your workday.
It's that moment that separates the two.
And that's why even switching to decaf coffee or herbal tea or some other kind of drink or ritual in the morning can work quite well if you want to reduce how much caffeine you're drinking.
So the brain is still getting that ritual, it's still getting that warmth, that smell, that hot liquid taste, but you're not getting the caffeine.
But it's still giving you that moment of comfort in the morning time, or at the time you usually have coffee.
Without, I guess, caffeine.
Okay, so in today's question, I want you to answer, I want you to tell me a little bit about your caffeine or your hot drink habits.
Do you have any rituals like this?
So not just coffee, but some type of routine that you have which gives you comfort or peace.
So perhaps for you it is drinking coffee, maybe it's tea,
Maybe it is in the morning you like to meditate or you like to read a book at a certain time.
Tell me about some of your rituals, your habits, which give you comfort.
I look forward to reading your answers.
It's always amazing to see what people come up with and what they share.
And I love reading each and every one of them.
So thank you to everyone who comments.
Okay, let's go back.
To this topic of caffeine.
Now when I think about myself drinking coffee every day, I do think that now it has become almost a routine that I don't necessarily benefit from.
So when I drink coffee in the morning, then again in the late morning and then the early afternoon, it does kind of feel like I'm just drinking it to come back again to normal.
So I'm not necessarily getting a boost or a better feeling.
It's more making me go from tired back to feeling okay again.
So perhaps the more I kind of have looked at this topic and think about it, although I love coffee, I should keep it as a treat.
And not some type of regular routine just to be able to work and function normally.
But it's quite hard because of course, like any kind of habit or routine that we build, because I drink coffee so much when I work,
Then when you quit or you stop, you have to go through that time of feeling quite difficult.
So you're feeling less energy.
You feel like you want the coffee.
You feel like you're not working maybe at the level that you should.
And I guess that brings us to the topic of how can we bring back our natural energy?
How can we maybe work with coffee so we can still drink it and enjoy it, but feel a little bit better around it?
So we're not
Becoming dependent or reliant on coffee for energy, but instead we have a healthy relationship with it.
And that's brought me to research and have a look at three kind of points around this, which should be able to help us with this relationship with caffeine and coffee.
And the first one that I can see is really if you feel that your obsession with caffeine is starting to control you, perhaps one tip that you could use is to delay your first cup of coffee by 90 minutes.
And I've seen a bit of advice about this online, and there are some scientific reasons for this.
When you first wake up, your body naturally produces cortisol.
That's a stress hormone when you first wake up.
And if you drink caffeine immediately, you'll ruin this natural process that happens.
And you'll cause a big afternoon energy crash.
And also, you'll not get the effect of the coffee because of the cortisol, because of the stress hormone.
So if you wait 90 minutes after waking up to have your first coffee, you'll get much more energy and you'll have half of the caffeine or rather much more energy from even half of the caffeine.
So you don't even need to drink as much.
The second point is to hydrate before you use caffeine.
Now I'm particularly bad at this.
Like I will literally wake up and get a cup of coffee immediately before I even drink a glass of water.
But your body is naturally dehydrated after eight hours of sleep.
And dehydration causes you to feel more tired than usual.
When you can use the word sluggish here, you start to feel like awful.
And we often use that or confuse it as a craving or a desire for coffee because we want to feel energy again.
So what we should do here is first, even before you agree to drink a cup of coffee or decide, make sure that you drink a glass of water first thing in the morning when you wake up.
And that will probably help give you much more energy than you would from that glass of coffee or that cup of coffee.
Our third point here is to protect the peace, not just the coffee.
So remember that the true value or benefit from your morning ritual is not necessarily the caffeine itself.
It's more that mental quiet time or that process rather than the specific drink itself.
And if you're drinking coffee, turn it into more of a mental break for yourself.
Don't scroll work emails or read a
Of what you're going to do in the day while you're drinking your coffee and having that break.
Take the time and the space that you need.
So really coffee in summary is not good or bad.
It is about your relationship with it.
And that goes for a lot of things.
Of course, caffeine can give us benefits.
Caffeine can be great and coffee can be lovely.
There's a variety of tastes.
It's amazing.
I love it.
But we have to understand our relationship with it, whether it's healthy for us, whether it's not.
Whether we are approaching it in the correct way.
I know myself, one thing's for sure is I'm not going to stop drinking coffee, but I definitely could improve my morning routine with it.
So I'm curious if you have similar thoughts, if you've maybe done some of those improvements that I've mentioned, how that has worked for you.
As always, I'm going to ask a few questions about today's topic and I want to see how much you have understood.
So you can pause after I read the question and try to answer before I answer.
Read the answer directly after the question.
So let's get started.
Question one, why doesn't caffeine give long-term regular drinkers superhuman energy?
Because the body builds a tolerance, meaning the caffeine mostly just brings your brain back to its normal baseline so that you can function.
Question two, what is an anchor habit?
An anchor habit is a small, predictable daily routine, like making coffee.
That gives your mind a sense of control, calm and psychological boundary during a busy day.
Question three.
Why does drinking coffee immediately after waking up cause an afternoon crash?
Because it interferes with the body's natural morning cortisol production.
Or you might have said the stress hormone, that stress release in the morning.
And finally, question four.
Why do some people still feel then relaxed after drinking decaf coffee?
Or maybe they feel more energy too.
The reason is the brain associates the warmth, smell, and that quiet ritual with the drink rather than necessarily the caffeine itself.
That wraps up our topic for today.
Thank you so much for listening and remember
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Thank you very much and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.
Goodbye.
