Are you concerned that you might be drinking too much coffee? There is no exact amount of coffee that is considered too much since it can vary a lot from person to person. Nonetheless, the following information can still help you to get a better idea of how much coffee you can drink a day without experiencing any issues.
Maximum Recommended Daily Caffeine Intake
The FDA recommends that healthy adults limit their caffeine intake to no more than 400 milligrams per day. If you drink regular brewed coffee, this means you should try to drink no more than four or five 8-ounce cups in a day. However, women who are pregnant or people with serious health problems should limit their caffeine intake to a maximum of 200 milligrams a day.
Many people are surprised to learn that they can actually have more individual shots of espresso in a day than cups of coffee. According to the USDA, a single 1-ounce shot of espresso contains around 64 milligrams of caffeine on average compared to approximately 96 milligrams in an 8-ounce cup of coffee.
Of course, this number can vary quite a bit based on the type of coffee you drink and how it’s made. For instance, there can be a difference between light and dark roast. Although both types have essentially the same caffeine content, a pot of brewed light roast coffee will usually have more caffeine than a pot of dark roast coffee.
The reason is that light roast coffee is denser and thus takes up less volume. This means there would be more coffee in the scoop of light roast than there would be in the same size scoop of dark roast. However, this isn’t the case if you drink k cups since these are always measured and packaged by weight and not volume. K cups are an easy way to keep track of how much coffee you’re drinking so you don’t have to worry about measuring every cup out.
How to Know If You’re Drinking Too Much Coffee
It is usually fairly easy for a person to tell when they’re drinking too much coffee, but this isn’t always the case especially if you have been drinking many cups a day for years. Still, if you find yourself experiencing side effects like headaches, nervousness, anxiety, insomnia or a fast heartbeat, it’s a good idea to cut back and see if this helps.
Caffeine affects people in different ways, and what is just fine for some may be too much for others. Still, one obvious sign that you’re drinking too much coffee is if you find yourself getting jittery or experiencing other issues as soon as you drink even a little bit more. For instance, if you find yourself getting a headache every day as soon as you have your fourth cup, this is a sign that you should limit yourself to three cups at the most.
The good news is that it’s basically impossible to overdose on caffeine by drinking coffee alone. It would take the average person well over 100 cups to approach anything near a lethal dose of caffeine. Nonetheless, if you find yourself experiencing any adverse effects from drinking coffee, you should probably consider cutting back your intake.
