The Best Time of Day to Drink Coffee for Heart Health and Longevity

Drinking a few cups of coffee each day can improve your heart and overall health, but does timing your caffeine intake impact its benefits?

It is certainly possible, according to a study published in the European Journal of the Heart.

The 2025 study, the first to examine the timing of coffee drinking and heart health, found that people who drink coffee in the morning have a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than all-day coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers.

Morning coffee drinkers also had a lower overall mortality risk than other groups in the study.

“Our results indicate that it’s not just whether you drink coffee or how much you drink, but also the time of day you drink coffee that is important,” said the study’s lead author, Lu Qi, MD, PhD, HCA Regents Distinguished Chair and professor in the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University, in a press release.

“We don’t usually give advice on the timing of our dietary recommendations,” Qi added, “but maybe we should think about it in the future.”

Previous research has demonstrated the health benefits of coffee, including reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and not increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, the timing of coffee consumption remains to be studied.

“Given the effects of caffeine on our bodies, we wanted to see if the time of day you drink coffee impacts heart health,” Qi said in the press release.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from 40,725 adults who participated in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2018. Participants were asked about all the foods and drinks they consumed in a day, including coffee, and were asked to report the amount and timing.

Another group of 1,463 adults who participated in the Women’s and Men’s Lifestyle Validation Study were used to externally validate coffee drinking habits in the NHANES data. The researchers then compared the data to death records over a period of about 10 years.

Among all participants, 36% primarily drank coffee before midday, 16% drank coffee throughout the day, and 48% were non-coffee drinkers.

The results showed that, compared to those who didn’t drink coffee, morning coffee drinkers were 16% less likely to die from any cause, and 31% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease. There was no reduction in risk for all-day coffee drinkers compared to non-coffee drinkers, suggesting that drinking coffee throughout the day was no better than not drinking it at all.

Morning coffee drinkers appeared to benefit from a reduced risk regardless of how much they drank, but the association was slightly weaker for light coffee drinkers who consumed one cup or less per day.

Although the study controlled for factors such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, smoking, physical activity, etc., the research still had limitations.

As an observational study, Qi said the research cannot provide evidence of causality and more studies are needed in other populations to validate the findings.

The study provided no explanation for why drinking coffee in the morning might be the most heart-healthy option, but one possibility is related to coffee’s impact on the circadian rhythm, Qi said.

The circadian rhythm is the body’s internal clock that regulates when you sleep and wake up, as well as several other key functions. Qi said drinking coffee later in the day can disrupt levels of hormones like melatonin, affecting the body’s circadian rhythm and disrupting sleep.

Thomas F. Lüscher, MD, FRCP, consultant cardiologist and director of research, education and development at the Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals in the United Kingdom, explained the link to circadian rhythm in an editorial accompanying the study.

“A lot all day [coffee] “Drinkers suffer from sleep disorders,” he wrote. “In this context, it is interesting to note that coffee appears to suppress melatonin, an important mediator of sleep in the brain.”

Sleep is essential for overall well-being and is especially important for heart health as it relates to blood pressure. Your blood pressure drops while you sleep, so sleep disorders can keep it higher for a longer period of time, increasing your risk of heart disease and stroke.

The study authors also wrote that the anti-inflammatory benefits of coffee might be greater if coffee is consumed in the morning, because certain inflammatory markers in the blood peak in the morning.

The study shows that drinking coffee is beneficial to your health and that if you drink it, you should do it in the morning, Qi said.

Lüscher agreed with Qi’s recommendation. “We must accept the now substantial evidence that coffee consumption, particularly in the morning, is likely to be healthy,” he writes in the editorial. “So, drink your coffee, but do it in the morning!” »

If you still need an afternoon pick-me-up, try drinking coffee at least nine hours before bed. A 2023 study found that drinking coffee within 8.8 hours of bedtime could disrupt sleep.