Heavy caffeine drinkers sleep less but have deeper sleep, study finds
Analyzing data from over 485,000 people, researchers found that habitual consumers of four or more caffeinated drinks sleep slightly less. Surprisingly, this shorter sleep features increased depth, suggesting our bodies adapt to chronic caffeine intake.
A recent study using UK Biobank and HypnoLaus cohort data has found that individuals who consume four or more caffeinated beverages per day tend to sleep less than those who drink three or fewer such drinks daily. Although the estimated reductions in sleep duration vary widely, from 11 to 229 minutes, researchers believe the more realistic estimate is around 11 to 13 minutes shorter per night.
The study, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, involved data from 485,511 UK Biobank participants and 1,702 HypnoLaus cohort members, who wore devices to record their sleep patterns for one night. The research team concluded that while high caffeine consumption results in less total sleep time, it also leads to deeper sleep stages, such as non-rapid eye movement sleep with increased delta power brain activity, which might be the body's way of compensating for the reduced sleep duration.
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