Coffee has built itself a reputation for being the go-to fuel for muscling through a long workday or for sleep-deprived nights. It gives us the jitters, racing thoughts that tipped negative, and a ton of anxiety that we freshly brewed and poured into our bodies in the name of alertness. But, new research says that there is a nearly mystical amount of coffee that might actually do the opposite — it might lower stress.
A huge study from Fudan University, published in Journal of Affective Disorders, tracked more than 460,000 people over roughly 13 years, looking at how coffee consumption related to future diagnoses of anxiety and depression. If you’re looking for a clean and easy-to-read determination of whether coffee is good/bad, you’re going to get something much more subtle. The results were presented as a curve where the benefits sit in the middle, and the problems stack up on both ends.
People who drink 2 to 3 cups per day have a lower risk of developing mood and stress disorders. Drink less than that, and the protective effect drops off. Drink any more than that, like in the 5 to 6 cup range, maybe even more, and the risk starts climbing again. In that sense, it’s best to think of coffee not as a dosage that, when accurately measured out, prescribed, and the instructions are closely followed, can provide benefit.
The Benefits of Drinking Coffee Come Separate From Its Caffeine Content
The best part (at least for people like me who tend to spiral into a panic attack when I have too much caffeine) is that researchers found that this held steady across different types of coffee, including decaf, which means the benefits aren’t coming from the caffeine.
When we talk about coffee’s effects on the body, we get wrapped up in the caffeine aspect that we tend to forget, or maybe never even learned in the first place, that it’s filled with a wide mix of bioactive compounds that can influence brain function. Some of them can possibly be anti-inflammatory, and others can subtly affect our mood regulation.
The study controlled for several variables like age, level of exercise, education level, and existing health conditions. It also accounted for genetic differences in how people metabolize caffeine. None of it significantly changed the overall pattern the researchers found, which is that moderate coffee intake consistently lined up with better mental health outcomes.
Of course, the research does not prove a direct cause and effect. But it does add some weight to the growing idea that the relationship between coffee and our mental health is a lot more nuanced than your “Don’t Talk To Me Until I’ve Had My Coffee” T-shirt implies.
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