Skip the Afternoon Coffee

Quick Win

Late-in-the-day coffee can disrupt sleep. When the afternoon energy slump hits, rev up with one of these options.

Try This Today

• Move your body. Take a short walk — outside if possible, where you’ll get the benefits of fresh air along with exercise. Walking indoors or climbing stairs works, too! 
• Listen to music. Your favorite melodies may help to ease mental fatigue. Experiment to see what works for you. 
• Chew gum. Believe it or not, research suggests that gum-chewing can increase alertness and ease fatigue. (Blowing bubbles is optional.)

Why

A cup of joe can help you shake off sleep in the morning and power through projects. But caffeine’s effects can linger in the body, and older adults may be especially sensitive to it. Leaving about nine hours between your last cup of coffee and bedtime is best for protecting your sleep, suggests a 2023 meta-analysis reported in Sleep Medicine Reviews. There’s no shortage of substitutes for an afternoon energy boost. Doing aerobic exercise for as little as 10 minutes was found to increase energy more than a low dose of caffeine in a study of 18 young women reported in Physiology & Behavior. Listening to relaxing music eased mental fatigue in a study of 36 young adults published in PLOS One in 2015. And as strange as it sounds, the act of chewing has been shown to affect cognition in various ways. Gum-chewing was linked to increased alertness and greater performance among 39 adults, in a study reported in 2019 in Applied Cognitive Psychology.