Happiness & Coffee
At SHUFL we’re Sleep geeks… but we are also coffee geeks. Coffee actually impacts on all of SHUFL’s focus areas: Sleep | Health | Fitness | Leisure. So what did we learn when combining our passions?
Market: $0.5T market | Worldwide 2B cups everyday | UK 98M cups daily | 210k UK jobs
Science: The caffeine in coffee blocks adenosine in the brain. The accumulation of adenosine is what makes us feel sleepy. It’s not just about the caffeine, a cup of coffee provides polyphenols and fibre that are great for our microbiome amongst other things.
Sleep:
- On average caffeine starts to impact within 20 mins, peaks in 2 hours and disappears within 7 hours of consuming. Though the rate of metabolism varies massively by individual. At SHUFL we protect our sleep by stopping the coffee by early afternoon.
Health:
- The negative association of coffee and health tend to stem from outdated studies and more recent, high quality studies actually show some pretty remarkable results, including:
- 20% reduced risk of depression and 50% reduction in suicide amongst heavy coffee drinkers!
- 8% all cause mortality reduction and 20% heart disease reduction amongst moderate coffee drinkers
- Reduced risk or delayed onset of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s
Fitness:
- Many fitness supplements include caffeine, whilst the benefits are mostly marginal there are some studies showing interesting impacts, including:
- Improve endurance performance by delaying fatigue. It can increase the availability of free fatty acids, which are used as a fuel source during prolonged exercise, thereby sparing muscle glycogen.
- Enhanced muscular strength and power. It can improve muscle contractility by increasing calcium release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum, leading to greater force production during muscle contractions.
Leisure:
- The number of coffee shops in the UK has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. Something won’t have escaped many looking at struggling high streets shifting towards experiences.
Personal variation: Fascinatingly genetic, hormonal and lifestyle factors all significantly change our reaction to coffee. Smokers need twice the amount of caffeine to get the same hit! Some anti-depressants and contraceptives can increase caffeine sensitivity.
So what: We’re going to keep enjoying our coffee, in moderation, early in the day and appreciate the example of where one size really does not fit all and why SHUFL love businesses taking a personalised approach to happiness like Asensei.
Sources: Statista | Huberman | Tim Spector | CBA | Allegra
