Drinking coffee is not useful in the evenings, because of the caffeine. But that substance is just as good in tea and in chocolate. Should you stay away from that after dinner? Well, if you also have trouble sleeping with coffee.
Coffee is known for its caffeine, but it’s far from the only stuff that has that stuff in it. Caffeine is also found in all kinds of other foods: in chocolate, cola, energy drinks, bars, iced tea, and tea, for example. In the latter case, we often call it theine, but that is exactly the same substance.
We all know that tea has a lot of benefits. And depending on the additives you add to it, it can either be good or bad. For example, when you add Tea Burn to your regular tea (Read about what are customers really saying? real results or scam!), the mixture can boost your metabolism and allow you to lose weight. But a mix of tea and chocolate can still equal coffee which can result in a lot of negative effects such as loss of sleep.
The effect of caffeine does of course depend on the amounts. They vary quite a bit per food. Coffee stands out, with about 60 milligrams of caffeine per cup. Only energy drinks do even better (or worse, if you value your hours of sleep), with 80 milligrams per serving. But anyone who longs for a good night’s sleep probably won’t be able to drink cans of energy in the evenings anyway.
Tea with chocolate together equals coffee
So panic for nothing, as long as you stay away from the coffee? Well no. Just count. Tea and chocolate separately are less caffeine-rich than coffee, but the combination is worth it. Black tea contains half as much caffeine as coffee: barely 30 milligrams per 125-milliliter cup. (If you immediately drink a mug of tea, as many people do, you will soon be getting close to a cup of coffee.)
If you eat chocolate with your cup of tea, you will easily overtake coffee. Dark chocolate has 7 milligrams of caffeine per serving, but those are portions according to the Nutrition Center: two cubes. The first human to adhere to it has yet to be discovered.
If you eat half a bar of chocolate (also pretty good, right?), you end up with 26 milligrams of caffeine. Add to that modest cup of tea and voilà: you have a cup of coffee full of caffeine. And since chances are you’re drinking more than a puny cup of tea, and can’t hold back on that bar, that means one thing: bounce!
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So stop with chocolate snacks
It is, therefore, better to avoid tea and chocolate in the evenings, if you like your sleep. Because remember, it easily takes eight hours to process caffeine. If you snack on a bar of chocolate at nine o’clock in the evening (well, that’s how it often goes), you’ll notice it around bedtime. It is also better to avoid soft drinks such as cola and iced tea.
All these products actually have an effect on sleep. Portuguese researchers (Universidade do Porto) found in 2013, for example, that caffeine causes 13-year-olds to sleepless. Coffee had little to do with that, the kids didn’t drink it. The main culprits? Iced tea, cola, and chocolate bars.
Fortunately, there is a way out
There is an important caveat: not everyone reacts equally to caffeine. Do you slurp without sleep deprivation another cup of coffee around nine in the evening? Then that chocolate tea combo won’t do you much harm either.
But if coffee makes you squirm, well, then it’s better to ban the above-mentioned foods as well. To ease the suffering a bit: green tea and milk chocolate contain considerably less caffeine. So you can try whether you sleep with these light variants.