{"id":117380,"date":"2026-09-30T04:05:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T08:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=117380"},"modified":"2026-09-30T04:05:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T08:05:46","slug":"coffee-and-stress-decaf-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/health-and-wellness\/coffee-and-stress-decaf-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Coffee and Stress: Decaf Lowered It Too, a Study Found"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>9 Minute, 33 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

Most of us think we know what the morning cup is doing. It wakes us up. The caffeine lands, the fog lifts, and the day feels possible. So when people talk about coffee and stress, they are nearly always talking about caffeine.<\/p>\n\n

A study from Ireland suggests the story is bigger than that. Researchers took coffee away from a group of daily drinkers, then gave it back without telling them what was in the cup. Half got regular coffee. Half got decaf. Both groups went on to report less stress and lower scores for low mood. The cups with no caffeine in them helped too.<\/p>\n\n

One honest note before we go on. You may have seen this in your feed this week as if it were brand new. It is not. The paper was published in April 2026 and is going around again now. It is still worth a slow, careful look, because the most interesting part is the part the headlines skip.<\/p>\n\n

Coffee and Stress: What the Study Actually Did<\/h2>\n\n

The work came from APC Microbiome Ireland, a research centre at University College Cork. It was published in the journal Nature Communications<\/em>, and the senior scientist was Professor John Cryan. You can read the university’s own summary here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

The team studied 62 people. Thirty-one of them drank coffee every day, about three to five cups. The other 31 did not drink coffee at all.<\/p>\n\n

Everyone took tests that measure mood, stress and thinking. They kept diaries of what they ate and drank. They also gave stool and urine samples, so the researchers could look at the tiny living things in the gut and the chemicals those tiny things make.<\/p>\n\n

Then came the hard part. The coffee drinkers stopped. No coffee for two weeks.<\/p>\n\n

After that, the coffee came back. But it came back “blind.” Half the group was given regular coffee and half was given decaf, and nobody was told which one they had.<\/p>\n\n

If your own stress tends to get loud at night, when the house is quiet and your mind will not stop, this free guide explains why that happens and a simple five-step order that helps.<\/p>\n\n