You thought coffee was bad for you? Think again. Studies has shown that two to three regular cups of coffee a day will give you antioxidants, increase the burning of fat and lift your mood without raising your heart rate too much or seriously affecting your sleep.

If you want to maximize the health benefits of coffee, here’s a few tips.

• Avoid coffee 8 hours prior to sleep

One of the most documented effects of coffee is that it raises your wakefulness. This is both good and bad. Good in the way that it makes you more alert and bad in the way that it can affect your sleep.

If you want to enjoy coffee and still be able to get your ever so important eight hours of sleep, avoid drinking coffee on the afternoon and in the evenings.

• Learn to drink it plain

Many people drink their coffee with milk, cream or sugar. Unfortunately, this adds up on calories and may eventually be a contributing factor to overweight.

How you enjoy your coffee is very much a matter of habit. Try drinking your coffee black for a week or two, and you may start to enjoy it. If you still don’t like it, change the high-fat milk and cream for low-fat milk.

• Drink it before working out

Before you go exercising, have a cup of coffee. The caffeine will increase your energy levels during the workout and therefore enable you to accomplish more.

• Avoid drinking it directly after a meal

Drinking coffee after a meal may block your body’s ability to absorb the iron in the food by up to 40 %. If you want to avoid that, wait an hour.

If you still want to drink coffee after a meal, compensate the loss of iron by eating fruits rich in vitamin C, as this will increase the absorption of iron.

• Spice it up

Antioxidants are nutrients that boost your immune system and protect you from several kinds of diseases. Antioxidant content is usually measured in ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) values, that tell you the amount of antioxidants that can be found in 100 grams of a food or drink. For example, tomatoes have an ORAC value of 200 and onions have an ORAC value of 450.

Several spices have extremely high ORAC values – such as cinnamon (267,000 ORAC) and cloves (314,000 ORAC). If you brew your own coffee, add small amounts of these spices before brewing. Your health will benefit from it, and it tastes great too.

Photo: josh.liba
Further reading

• Want To Lessen The Pain Of Working Out? Coffee To The Rescue! (Quick To Fit)

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