September Newsletter -
 2014

   

The Alpaca Bean Coffee Company Registered Trademark


Coffee News

 

You know I am always looking for interesting stuff to pass along to you and to broaden my limited brain...so here is the latest!!!

 

-- The Coffee Nap --

 

*(First read at VOX, a general interest news site for the 21st century)

 

If you're feeling sleepy and want to wake yourself up - and have 20 minutes or so to spare before you need to be fully alert - there's something you should try. It's more effective than drinking a cup of coffee or taking a quick nap.

It's drinking a cup of coffee and then taking a quick nap. This is called a coffee nap.

 

It might sound crazy: conventional wisdom is that caffeine interferes with sleep. But if you caffeinate immediately before napping and sleep for 20 minutes or less, you can exploit a quirk in the way both sleep and caffeine affect your brain to maximize alertness. Here's the science behind the idea.

 

To understand a coffee nap, you have to understand how caffeine affects you. After it's absorbed through your small intestine and passes into your bloodstream, it crosses into your brain. There, it fits into your receptors that are normally filled by a similarly-shaped molecule, called adenosine.

 

Adenosine is a byproduct of brain activity, and when it accumulates at high enough levels, it plugs into these receptors and makes you feel tired. But with the caffeine blocking the receptors, it's unable to do so. As Stephen R. Braun writes in, Buzz: the Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine, it's like "putting a block of wood under one of the brain's primary brake pedals."

 

Now, caffeine doesn't block every single adenosine receptor - it competes with adenosine for these spots, filling some, but not others. But here's the trick of the coffee nap: sleeping naturally clears adenosine from the brain. If you nap for longer than 15 or 20 minutes, your brain is more likely to enter deeper stages of sleep that take some time to recover from. But shorter naps generally don't lead to this so-called "sleep inertia" - and it takes around 20 minutes for the caffeine to get through your gastrointestinal tract and bloodstream anyway.

 

So if you nap for those 20 minutes, you'll reduce your levels of adenosine just in time for the caffeine to kick in. The caffeine will have less adenosine to compete with, and will thereby be even more effective in making you alert.

 

Scientists haven't directly observed this going on in the brain after a coffee nap - it's all based on their knowledge of how caffeine, adenosine, and sleep each affect the brain independently. But they have directly observed the effects of coffee naps, and experiments have shown they're more effective than coffee or naps alone in maximizing alertness.

 

In a few different studies, researchers at Loughborough University in the UK found that when tired participants took a 15-minute coffee nap, they went on to commit fewer errors in a driving simulator than when they were given only coffee, or only took a nap (or were given a decaf placebo). This was true even if they had trouble falling asleep, and just laid in bed half-asleep during the 15 minutes.

 

Meanwhile, a Japanese study found that people who took a caffeine nap before taking a series of memory tests performed significantly better on them compared to people who solely took a nap, or took a nap then washed their faces or had a bright light shone in their eyes. They also subjectively rated themselves as less tired.

 

Interestingly, there's even some evidence that caffeine naps can help people go for relatively long periods without proper sleep. As part of one study, 24 young men went without proper sleep for a 24-hour period, taking only short naps. 12 of them, who were given just a placebo, performed markedly worse on a series of cognition tests, compared to their baseline scores. 12 others, who had caffeine before their naps, managed scores roughly the same as their baselines for the entire day.

 

 

Taking a coffee nap is pretty straightforward. First, drink coffee. Theoretically, you could drink another caffeinated beverage, but tea and soda have generally have much less caffeine than coffee, and energy drinks are disgusting.

 

You need to drink it quickly, to give yourself a decently long window of time to sleep as it's going through your gastrointestinal tract and entering your bloodstream. If it's tough for you to drink a lot of hot coffee quickly, good options might be iced coffee or espresso.

 

Right after you're finished, immediately try to go to sleep. Don't worry if it doesn't come easily - just reaching a tranquil half-asleep stage can be helpful.

Finally, make sure to wake up within 20 minutes, so you don't enter the deeper stages of sleep, and you're awake when the caffeine is just starting to hit your brain.

 

Voila: the perfect coffee nap.

 

You see we learn something new every day...or at least I seem too.  Other folks probably already know most of everything...but that is not the case here!

 

 

On A Personal Note:.

 

You know the other day I was asked if there was anything that gets under my skin.  Seems the fellow thought that I was so laid back I was about to fall over! :o)  Well, there are a number of things that tend to do that from time to time, get under my skin that is. 

 

After thinking about this for a while, you know the thing that gets under my skin the most is to have someone flat out lie to me.  It does not even take a big lie to get to me.  You see I have a hard enough time dealing with what is truthful and maybe a tad bit hurtful, but having to deal with an individual that has no problem continually lying to me...well,  it is often a bit too much to deal with.  Where am I going with this?  You see, this piece came to me first because of a cat, but that is a story for another time.

 

But to go on...sometimes folks are not too proud of their actions so they feel that they need to lie to hide from scorn...or maybe they simply tell a non-truth and it immediately becomes truthful in their own mind...or maybe they have a weak, weak image of themselves and they do not want others to see that unpleasant picture, so they hide it with fiction or untruths. 

 

Well folks, Judy nor I want to go on that path, nor do we want to lead anyone down a rose garden pathway that leads to nowhere. You see,  we went to my 50th high school reunion last year, then this year to Judy's 50th high school reunion.  In both cases there was a time set aside to remember those that are no longer with us...a time that moved us because it brought on reality.

 

Reality is not always what you want it to be, but one thing for sure. it is a "real" wakeup for folks that choose to accept it for what it is.  You see, there were a whole bunch of old folks at both these reunions...I know because the good Lord has blessed me with fairly good eyesight!  No matter what or how we want to lie to ourselves, we know that everyone at both of these events, looked around the rooms, and their vision stuck on the same fact...they saw a bunch of old folks...and, at times, they were looking right in our direction.  Not just at one of the events but at both!  :o)

 

Reality checks are good from time to time...we could lie to ourselves and say that age will never catch up with us, but at this point we know that we must re-evaluate our time lines for operating our businesses.  We had anticipated having a breeding and fiber alpaca farm for around 10 to 15 years, then scale back to a much smaller operation.  We had anticipated having a small coffee roasting company for around 15 to 20 years.  Well, we have been operating our fairly large scale farm (at least for the alpaca world) for 12 years now.  We have been operating our small coffee roasting company for 10 years.  We know that it is time to radically scale back on the alpaca farm operation simply because it is time...we cannot lie and pretend that we will be here forever.  Am I beginning to sound like a gong?  You know someone that repeats himself and begins to sound the same, but in a clanging type way.  I do not mean to do that...maybe it is another sign of the old age thing!  You know the repeating of the same topic...maybe a little different, but the same thing.  Now I AM GETTIN' WORRIED!!!!

 

I regress, let me clarify, when we say radically scale back, we do not mean we are out of here as far as alpacas.  We intend to maintain an excellent herd, but simply one of manageable size and ease of maintenance.  These are beautiful creatures that work their way into your heart and soul.  Can not imagine not having at least a few around us.

 

The Alpaca Bean coffee roasting operation is safe, AND the new adventure for Jude and I, The Southern Alpaca Connection, has just been born!  We do not intend to roll over and take a powder. or even become powder any time soon...we do intend to make sure that what we do continue to undertake, we will do with a growing degree of excellence.  We are excited about restoring a historic storefront in the beautiful town of Lavonia, GA, and we look forward to bringing together the beauty of alpaca fashion with a blending of all the senses within its remodeled walls. 

 

With all this say, probably in a way that has you wondering if the Coffeeman's old age has rattled his brain.  We want to thank you all for your support, your encouragement over the years, and most of all for your friendship.  Stay tuned for more...and to send you off for the month I would like to share a story that came from a recent sermon.  Maybe it will add a smile to your face as it did mine when heard.

 

There was this fellow that liked to stretch the truth, so that he was always getting himself into hard spots with others.  You might say most folks knew him as quite a rascal, and this person was well known in his community and beyond.  Then, as always seems to happen, when he expected it the least, he came down with an illness that required immediate care.  He went to the hospital ER and shortly found himself checked in and being prepared for surgery.  The last thing he remembered before going under the knife, was the beautiful bright sky he saw outside his room's window.  When he came to, he realized that the room was dark and the blinds had been drawn.  He got a nurse's attention and asked why the blinds had been drawn.  She looked down on him and said, "Well, it is like this.  You see there was a horrible fire in the building across the street, and we did not want you waking up thinking the surgery had failed."

 

Think about that one!  :o)     

  

Peace,

 

The Coffeeman 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Alpaca Bean Coffee Company On-Line Store has been moved to a new platform.  Hopefully, this new home will offer all the convenience and ease of operation that we all desire.  If you encounter any problems, any problems, please contact us at [email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Coffee Lovers and Friends,  
 

Judy and I are really enjoying having the opportunity to provide the best possible coffee for your enjoyment.  We also hope you will be able to visit us soon to experience the pleasure of drinking an outstanding mug of our Alpaca Bean Coffee while watching the little ones pronking all over the place!

George Dick
The Alpaca Bean Coffee Company, LLC 


 

 

The Alpaca Bean Coffee Company, LLC

 
The Alpaca Bean Coffee Co., LLC

466 Stone Lane

Canon, Georgia 30520