The cure for sleep deprivation is pretty uncomplicated: get more sleep. But sometimes, there’s no time for a cheeky nap, and you need an energy boost. That’s where coffee comes in, at least in the tiny term. But a modern study has found that while coffee can give you a boost and a boost of energy, it can also impair your brain’s ability to recover from chronic sleep deprivation.
As reported Newsweekthe latest study was recently published in the journal In this study, a group of Swiss and German researchers sought to investigate the effect of caffeine on the total volume of gray matter in the brain.
Previous studies have shown that even one night of insufficient sleep can reduce the amount of gray matter in the brain, “particularly in regions involved in memory, perception, and conscious thought.” Meanwhile, daily caffeine consumption has also been shown to reduce gray matter in the outer regions of the brain and regions used for long-term memory storage. This is why the researchers hypothesized that using caffeine to counteract sleep-deprivation fatigue might exacerbate the reduced gray matter volume.
To find out, researchers studied 36 fit adults in a nine-day study in which participants underwent one adaptation day, two baseline days, and then five sleep-deprived days — defined as sleeping only five hours — followed by a recovery day. The participants were divided into two groups: 19 who drank three cups of coffee a day, which is 300 mg of caffeine, and 17 who drank the same amount of decaffeinated coffee.
Over the course of nine days, the participants underwent three different MRI brain scans. They found that in the decaffeinated group, the total volume of gray matter actually increased compared to their baseline readings. But in the people who drank caffeinated coffee, the total volume of gray matter in those brain regions was reduced.
These findings suggest, the researchers say, that the increased gray matter volume in the decaffeinated group is the brain’s way of counteracting the effects of chronic sleep deprivation. Drinking caffeine, then, blocks the body’s ability to adapt.
“This study revealed reversible cortical plasticity in the frontal, temporo-occipital, and thalamic gray matter in response to chronic sleep restriction. However, this plastic response could be suppressed or reversed by concomitant caffeine intake,” the researchers speculated.
So while coffee can assist provide a little extra energy and focus after a night of inadequate sleep, it’s not a long-term solution. The only way to overcome sleep deprivation is, well, sleep. Maybe a post-coffee nap?
