COFFEE lovers beware. Having a quick “pick-me-up” cuppa late in the day will play havoc with your sleep. As well as being a stimulant, caffeine interrupts the flow of melatonin, the brain hormone that sends people into a slumber.
Melatonin levels normally start to rise about two hours before bedtime. Levels then peak between 2 am and 4 am, before falling again. “It’s the neurohormone that regulates our sleep and tells our body when to sleep and when to wake,” says Maurice Ohayon of the Stanford Sleep Epidemiology Research Center at Stanford University in California. But researchers in Israel have…
