Once and for all: is coffee addictive or not?
When you wake up in the morning, do you head straight to the coffee maker? Before you’ve even greeted your significant other, fed the cat or opened the curtains? Believe me, you’re not the only one. There are plenty of people who can’t (or don’t want to) function without having had a cup of coffee first. Every year, we drink an average of more than 260 liters of coffee per person, so that says something. But is coffee really that addictive? Or do we mainly think it is?
A workday without coffee = no workday
Those boring meetings that achieve nothing, the deadline staring at you from your calendar with wide eyes, colleague Jolanda talking for hours about her weekend outing with the hiking club… We can hardly cope without a cup of coffee. Coffee makes us alert, and that’s exactly why we crave it so much—especially on workdays. It’s also why we reach for it first thing in the morning. Because there’s no way you can be sharp at half past six in the morning, with a long journey to the office ahead of you.
6 cups of coffee before three in the afternoon
As soon as you notice that alert feeling fading, you’re already craving another cup. Craving may not even be the right word; you feel downright restless when the caffeine wears off. And suddenly you realize that by three in the afternoon, you’ve already had six cups. You almost feel as though you can’t live without the black gold. Are you addicted, then?
Addiction and prevention expert Tom Bart explains
Quest investigated and spoke to Tom Bart. He is a prevention expert at Jellinek, an expertise center specializing in addiction. This expert is quite clear in his answer: coffee is not addictive. Coffee meets too few of the criteria for addiction as set out in the book Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Many psychologists and psychiatrists use that book to establish addiction diagnoses. For example, you don’t develop major social, physical or financial problems if you consume excessive amounts of caffeine—things that can happen with an addiction to alcohol or drugs.
Withdrawal symptoms?
So coffee addiction is not really a thing. What is striking, though, is that you can experience withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking coffee. At least, if you’ve been consuming caffeine daily for a long time. These can include headaches, trembling, sweating and fatigue. You may also feel irritated more quickly. But don’t worry: these aren’t severe withdrawal symptoms that would almost require hospitalization. If you do experience withdrawal symptoms, they’ll probably feel very mild. According to prevention expert Bart, it’s also partly in your head. You think you can’t function without coffee, while in reality it’s not really a problem at all. In short, we’re simply being dramatic.
The maximum number of cups of coffee per day
So no rehab program awaits us. Good news! Can we keep filling ourselves with coffee all day long, without limits? Not according to the Netherlands Nutrition Centre. They state that 5 cups of coffee (125 milliliters per cup) is the maximum recommended amount per day. Just make sure you haven’t also had energy drinks on top of that. If you consume more than the recommended amount, you may get headaches and feel restless. And you’ll probably be staring at the ceiling when you’re in bed at night.
Black gold, and rightly so
So we can simply keep enjoying our coffee. In fact, we have to keep doing so. Did you know, for example, that people who drink coffee live longer than those who don’t? That coffee is good for your gut flora? And that it can give your sex life a serious boost? No wonder we call it black gold! So let’s go get some coffee. At these 13 coffee shops in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, you’re guaranteed to find delicious coffee. Otherwise, just switch on your own coffee maker. First check whether the cat has been fed.
Also read:
- Coffee first, breakfast later? You’ll regret it!
- Decaf coffee exists, and it’s delicious too (and the pods fit in a Nespresso machine)
- Recipe: ridiculously easy coffee mousse
Sources: Quest and Het Voedingscentrum
