Morning coffee or tea will be a mood booster for just 2.5 hours: new research

Researchers have confirmed it. Your morning cup of joe gives you a morning mood bump.

Caffeine drinkers told researchers from the University of Warwick and Bielefeld University in Germany that a cup of coffee or tea boosted their mood during the first 2.5 hours of the day, but it wasn’t sustained toward later in the day.

Their findings were published in Nature Scientific Report .

The researchers tracked the mood of more than two hundred young adults for up to four weeks each, compiling 28,000 mood reports.

Rather than sit in laboratories, where past studies of this type have been undertaken, this study’s subjects received prompts on their phones while going about the day. The prompts arrived seven times a day, asking if they had recently consumed caffeine and how they felt in the moment.

Caffeine can “increase dopamine activity in key brain regions, an effect that (past) studies have linked to improved mood and greater alertness,” says Professor Anu Realo, in the University of Warwick department of psychology.

People with moderate caffeine consumption can also experience mild withdrawal symptoms that disappear with the first cup of coffee or tea in the morning, he said.

The study concluded that caffeine consumption is linked to an immediate increase in positive emotions for two and a half hours within waking up, particularly enthusiasm and happiness.

Smaller effects were observed for contentment and reduction in sadness.

The researchers looked into varying levels of caffeine consumption and differing degrees of depressive symptoms, anxiety, or sleep problems. They found caffeine intake and the impact on either positive or negative emotion was “consistent across all groups.”

The relationship between caffeine and emotion was instead moderated by factors such as tiredness and social context.

The study suggests “morning caffeine consumption may align with habitual use patterns, where the anticipation of caffeine’s effects contributes to its affect-enhancing properties. Psychological factors, such as the expectation of positive effects and the ritualistic aspects of consuming coffee or tea after awakening, could amplify its impact on positive affect.”

Meanwhile, past research has found the initial consumption of caffeine appears to induce improved mood and cognitive performance, while additional intake does not produce further benefits.

“Since many people typically consume their first coffee or tea in the morning (e.g., at breakfast), the effect could therefore be strongest at this time of day,” the study states.

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