Coffee is not good for your child while studying

When exams come around there is often too much to study and too little time to do the studying in. This is especially true for children in the middle and senior school. So when there is so little time and so much to study – should you keep giving your child repeated cups of tea and coffee? The answer is no. Coffee is not good for your child while studying.

Just before the exam there are large chunks of syllabus that have to be studied and revised and of course there is too little time to do all that is required. The only way to find more time to study is to sleep fewer hours. And almost every student in the senior classes – compromises sleep to find more hours to study in.

But the human body requires a finite number of hours of sleep. Without fulfilling its minimum sleep requirement – it just cannot function normally. The requirement for sleep increases when the brain is doing a lot of work – as it does when it has to study.

To combat sleep – when child are studying – they drink tea or coffee. But large amounts of tea or coffee are harmful.

When the brain works hard for long hours – and is tired, a chemical called Adenosine comes into circulation. Adenosine calms us and makes us sleepy.

Feeling sleepy however is not an option when there is a huge amount of studying to be done and so to stay awake – children reach out for tea or coffee.

Coffee has caffeine and does exactly the opposite of adenosine. And this is how it acts. Caffeine has a structure that is exactly like adenosine and it tricks the brain into thinking that it is adenosine and goes and attaches to the very same spots on the brain where adenosine was supposed to attach.

But caffeine is a stimulant – and with caffeine occupying the spots where adenosine was supposed to be – the brain wakes up instead of going to sleep.

The effect of Caffeine does not last very long. After a while adenosine begins to displace the caffeine again and the brain begins to feel sleepy once more. And that is the point at which we feel like reaching for the second cup of coffee. This is why we require several cups of coffee to stay awake when we are tired.

However, with too much coffee there is too much caffeine in the brain. And too much caffeine causes anxiety and nervousness and reduces your child’s concentration

Caffeine also does not allow the brain to sleep. And without sleep – what is learnt is not retained

Encourage your child to sleep to overcome tiredness and feel refreshed. Discourage – repeated cups of tea and coffee.