Listening To Your Body

millycf1976(73)

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(...I had an unusual sweet tooth so I ate this donut with my "afternoon coffee").

I hope I won't jinx my sleep patterns by writing this post, so before we go any further, please, wish me good luck!

For the 12 years of our marriage, @scubahead and I have both made conscious efforts not to drink coffee after midday, and occasionally when we've done it a little later, it's resulted in us tossing and turning or staying awake without any hope of falling asleep. We even tried to limit our intakes of tea late at nights for the same reasons too. However, since lately I observed, and surprisingly had the affirmation of Cameron, that we've both found ourselves fulfilling our later coffee cravings by having coffee late afternoons and evenings, and even for after dinner drinks.

The thing is, after long days cruising the canals in our narrowboat and navigating long tedious flights of locks which takes, concentration and physical strength, we end up finding ourselves mooring up at sundown about 20:00, as the days are longer in the summertime, and bright even till 22:00 at nights; so we both tend to opt for lighter meals which take approximately 15 minutes to prepare.

Our quick, filling, tasty and relatively simple and healthy meal is Cornish Pasties, or Steak Bakes with Baked Beans (I particularly like Pasties because they remind me so much of Jamaican Patties, which is a derivative of Cornish pasties as Jamaica is a former British Colony and you can still see remnants in the preparation of Jamaican food, which was enhanced by the infusion of African influences.

My favourite way of serving this meal is with a fresh salad, usually of rocket leaves, tomatoes and a dressing of balsamic vinegar mixed with extra virgin olive oil and chilli flakes with a squeeze of lemon, but being on the canals means that we need to plan our meals of fresh and perishable goods accordingly to the strategic positioning of supermarkets and markets being within walking distances of moorings.

On this night, we happily settled for freshly sliced tomatoes only.

However, for the past few weeks, as I'm preparing evening meals, I've become accustomed to Cameron saying, I fancy a coffee, and I'm like, yeah, me too! Where did that come from?

The strangest thing is that we actually drink espresso coffee made in our Coffee Moka Pot, which means that it's fairly strong and you would think that we would utilise our small espresso cups as the one seen in the first picture, but no! We go for these two large cups of black coffee, and sometimes top up a second cup with hot water.
And guess what!

We shower, write our blogs and when the time comes for sleeping, we drift off immediately and since we're on our own schedules, we wake naturally according to our body clocks instead of an alarm clock, and we're actually liking the instructions our bodies are giving us.

I'm left to wonder, is caffeine a sleep deterrent or just a myth?
Does drinking coffee late at nights really affect our sleep parameters?
Is it only mind over matter?
#lifestyle

I already know what the answers of coffee ~~addicts~~ enthusiasts 🤣@discoveringarni and @macchiata, but I'm also curious to hear from other coffee lovers, and also from coffee avoiders.