Coffee Break

As most of you would agree, raising a child is no easy matter. They say, for the first two years of our child’s life, sleep is a luxury, especially when you don’t have babysitter to help you. My child is nine months old. For the first eight months of his life, he spent in Bandung; a city with cool climate. On the ninth month, he spent in Jakarta; a hot and crowded city. That’s when he starts waking up at night more often. Sometimes I would wake every one or two hours, because he’s crying and see if he’s thirsty or wet on his pants. That’s when I’m lucky. Most of the times he would woke up every 15 to 30 minutes, crying. As a result, sleep deprivation is a daily matter for me to cope.

Coffee, is what’s comes natural to deal with those sleepy moments. But I’m worried, since I’ve heard so many bad effects of drinking coffee; I’m beginning to lose hope on finding its replacement.

As usual, when I’m in doubt, I started looking through some books, websites or magazines for answers. See if I could find what the experts are saying on this matter. I found out from Reader’s Digest that coffee is actually good for us.

There are mounting evidence suggest that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, gallstones, Parkinson’s disease, cirrhosis and certain types of cancer, as the article suggest. A Harvard study reveals coffee drinkers had a lower risks of dying of cardiovascular causes than nondrinkers. A Norwegian study found that a typical serving of brewed coffee is richer than antioxidants than a serving of blueberries, raspberries, or many fruit juices. It even could calm the mind just by inhaling the scent of roasted coffee beans.

However, anything that is too much is always not good. The same goes for coffee. If I drink two cups of coffee in one day, my hearts starts pumping like crazy, my head start to spin and I often felt light headed. I have never been that strong with caffeine.

As I read on the pages that follows, it is suggested to drink no more than two cups of coffee a day and without the added whole milk and sugar. If you drink more than that, the caffeine could dehydrate you or raise your blood pressure. I guess that’s what happens to me.

In drinking coffee, pregnant women should limit themselves more, since coffee can boost the risk of miscarriage. If you have cholesterol problems, drink paper filtered coffees; unfiltered coffees contain more cholesterol raising substances called “cafestol”.

Nevertheless, coffee is still the most common and natural sleep depressant. But if you’re like me or worse; if you felt even a cup of coffee would give you light headedness, just choose coffee with a little twist. Drink cappuccino or mocha coffee or if it’s still too strong too, have a coffee flavored candy. It helps…at least for me.