Why your morning cup of coffee is not your friend!

No matter what they say about coffee being good for you, there are reasons to give up the great black drink. For me the best thing about coffee is the smell. I've always been primarily a tea drinker but occasionally on the weekends or when I have company I love to make a slow steeped coffee in my french press with cardamom and cinnamon..But.....I use coffee as a special occasion beverage, not for every day consumption!

Coffee is very acidic. Daily coffee intake is like pouring vinegar into a salt water fish tank. Your body is meant to be alkaline. Acidifying your blood stream has several bad side effects. An acidic blood will rob the bones and teeth of calcium in order to try to alkalize the pH of your blood with the minerals. So regular coffee consumption leads to loss of calcium which is associated with osteoporosis. Acidic blood also stimulates cortisol which is the fight and flight hormone. The daily stimulation of the fight and flight hormone can cause adrenal fatigue by overworking the adrenal glands. So, the big energy rush you feel in the morning from caffeine, can eventually make you feel more tired than if you didn't have any coffee. Fight and flight hormones can put you on edge and make you feel stressed. Cortisol also signals the liver to store glycogen which causes the body to store fat.

Coffee is like fake exercise. Caffeine stimulates the heart to beat harder and faster. This tires out the energy of the heart, according to Chinese Medicine, and can leave you feeling, empty hearted, unloved and insecure. Too much acidity and stress on the heart causes the thoracic heart nerves to get inflamed often causing sharp back pain behind the shoulder blades. Acidity from coffee consumption in the stomach can cause acid reflux and heart burn. Coffee is dehydrating and causes damp heat according to Chinese medicine. This is when the body exhibits symptoms of fluids being thickened or congested..like a dry stream bed or a sluggish body of water.

So I'd recommend you kick the coffee habit for good and drink black tea or green tea or grain beverages instead. Coffee is a drug. An occasional coffee is a nice buzz, but I'd keep it to the weekends or special occasions.