Now, I drink coffeemaybe once a week or once every other week - yeah, call me crazy. But I feel perfectly fine without it! I used to drink coffee daily out of habit; I craved the taste and the warmth of it. But I eventually realized that 1) I'm not getting a jolt of energy from it, 2) I'm consuming way more calories than I need to be through cream and sugar, and 3) I should probably cut back... And so I did.

Coffee also naturally has a lot of health benefits: it contains antioxidants and other nutrients, it can reduce inflammation in your body and increase physical performance, it can protect against diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and it can even help burn fat and lower your risk of Type II Diabetes - just to name a few. However, the aforementioned health benefits are soon voided when you add in sweeteners and creamers.

Did you know the best time of day to drink coffee is not actually first thing in the morning? To put it simply, your body naturally produces and cycles through cortisol, a hormone that regulates stress levels, fatigue, and blood sugar. Upon first waking, cortisol levels surge as your body attempts to wake you up and get you going (hard for us college students, I know).

But drinking caffeine first thing in the morning actually does more harm than good. Caffeine intake when cortisol levels are already high interferes with your body's natural ability to produce cortisol. In turn, your body produces less cortisol on its own and relies on your caffeine in take instead - hence the perceived dependence on our morning cup of joe.

Cortisol levels hit natural low points in our bodies at certain times of the day: once between 10am and 12pm, and another time between 2pm and 5pm. And yes, THESE are the best times of day to drink coffee! At these natural lows, the caffeine you drink boosts cortisol rather than replacing it and creating that dependence we all feel.

I'm not trying to discourage you from your coffee drinking habits by any means, I totally get that it's a life sustaining substance for a lot of us. But I challenge you: wait until your cortisol levels are low (between 10am-12pm and 2pm-5pm) to drink your first cup of the day, and see what a difference it makes.