Caffeine is a stimulant that affects the sympathetic nervous system — the part of the body responsible for your fight-or-flight response. When it’s activated, your heart rate rises and blood pressure goes up, your muscles tense, and you may start sweating.
But caffeine isn’t the only thing that arouses the nervous system. Any adrenaline-pumping activity — like exercising or riding a roller coaster — can stimulate a response.
When you’re working out or on a ride, those sensations aren’t a surprise. But the incongruity of sitting quietly at your desk while your heart is pounding, the way it might if you’ve just had some caffeine, can make some people experience that arousal as anxiety, said Joseph Trunzo, a deputy director of the School of Health and Behavioral Sciences at Bryant University. On top of that, if you subconsciously label these symptoms as anxiety, you might reinforce the effect.
Other factors can come into play, too. Caffeine acts against the brain chemical adenosine, which slows the heart rate and promotes drowsiness and relaxation. “When we ingest caffeine and it blocks those receptors, adenosine can’t do its job,” Dr. Trunzo said. Some scientists have speculated that the blocking of adenosine receptors might contribute to increased anxiety.
Caffeine can also disrupt sleep, particularly deep sleep, which helps keep anxiety at bay, said Dr. Sheenie Ambardar, a physician specializing in adult psychiatry in Beverly Hills, Calif. If the coffee is consumed within eight and a half hours of bedtime, caffeine might cause you to toss and turn, reducing the time you spend in deep sleep. Even slight disruptions in your sleep can increase anxiety levels the next day.
Caffeine affects everyone differently. If even a small amount of caffeine makes you anxious, you might have a certain genetic variant that influences how you metabolize caffeine, said Lina Begdache, a dietitian and associate professor of health and wellness studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton. In this case, you will process the caffeine more slowly, so it stays in the system longer and accumulates, potentially causing a more pronounced effect.
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