Should Coffee Be A Part of Your Wellness Lifestyle?
Are you one of the many that love to start the day with a nice cup of coffee – for the taste, the experience, and sometimes the adrenal support to get going in the morning?
Are you one of the people that has stopped coffee in efforts to sleep better, feel better, and improve how you handle stress?
I get you and want to make it better! Coffee can be a healthy supporting practice if you keep a few things in mind…
Coffee Pros
We are bombarded with reason to not drink coffee but how often do you hear about the benefits of coffee?
As with any other tool in your Wellness Lifestyle Self-Care Cupboard – you need to know when to use it and when to reach for a different tool.
When might you do well to reach for coffee?
- To raise or stabilize your blood pressure
- To prevent (some) migraines
- To raise your overall energy levels
- To dispel sleepiness and add alertness (for adults)
- To increase mental focus
- To help you feel pleasure
- To stimulate your liver
- To warm the body – and the coffee doesn’t even need to be hot!
- To raise your dopamine levels in your brain so you are more motivated to “go get something”
- To add a potentially potent source of antioxidants to your daily diet
- To help the adrenal glands create your life supporting hormones
- To stave off depression
Wow right?!
5 Ways to Make Coffee Healthier
I know I have picked up a coffee and regretted it later. I have felt agitated, light headed, heart racing, angry, headache-y, and more. Yuck! That was the opposite of what I intended! Now I know better. Here’s what I do to make sure my coffee experiences are great 100% of the time:
A special wellness note: Many people think they have a bad relationship with caffeine when the real problem is the poor quality of the coffee (mold, mycotoxins, pesticides, etc.)
Choose mold-free and mycotoxin-free coffee
and yes I bring it with me when I travel. Why mold-free? Mold attacks the mitochondria inside your cells that keep you alive and functioning – at all. Why mycotoxin-free? Mycotoxins are the chemical warefare tools used by molds to kill enemies such as your mitochondria. Coffee is grown in hot, humid areas of the world. Coffee beans are dried in the sun and often touch their neighbors trapping moisture. Moist beans will grow mold. Do you know which country has the least strict rules on the mold content of coffee beans? Yep. the USA. So choose coffee which has been 3rd party tested for mold contamination on EVERY BATCH. Scroll down to see my 3 favorite coffee brands
Add minerals to your coffee
Coffee is a diuretic. It stimulates your liver and kidneys (hello detox organs!) and makes you poo and pee. Yay! But that means you need to offset your coffee intake with minerals and water. I either add BEAM Minerals to my coffee or simply choose coffee with the fulvic and humic minerals right there in the bag (thank you Danger Coffee).
Skip the sweetener
yeah I don’t want to spike my blood sugar from my delightful coffee – do you? Let’s also skip the artificial sweetener. Why? Because it just keeps encouraging you to want sweet things and I am all about not getting my blood sugar regulation to be so poor that I end up with a Diabetes diagnosis. I do like adding a bit of something though. Have you tried cream, half and half, or butter in your coffee? Try it … and let me know what your brain thinks!
Use a white cup
if you like it sweet that is. Science shows that coffee registers in the brain as sweeter when it is served in a white mug rather than a darker mug. Do your own taste test. Does it work for you? It did for me! It was but one way that I stopped using sugar in my coffee…
Lean into decaf
A lot of the coffee benefits do not rely on caffeine so you can get plenty of benefits for yourself when you choose a cup of decaf. Make sure it is water processed with awesomely healthy water. Yes you can decaffeinate it yourself (most of the caffeine comes out in the first minute of brewing – but you will lose flavor and antioxidants. I prefer to let the experts take care of this for me. My favorite is Calm from Purity Coffee.
