Coffee Break? Ask Your Gadget!

Ever ask yourself if a late afternoon coffee is a wise idea? Will you be up all night if you indulge? It’s a tricky call, since you have no way of knowing if the tea you had with lunch and a 4 pm cup of Joe might throw you into caffeine overload. Well, you’re in luck: There’s an app for that, and it’s free! Caffeine Zone, developed by Penn State researchers, was designed to help users better understand how caffeine levels rise and fall in the bloodstream, ho long the effects last and how they may interfere with your bedtime. When one CE staffer tried to sneak coffee just an hour after a green tea, a red flag popped up alerting her that she’d gone beyond the recommended milligrams of caffeine for that time frame, especially if she still planned on keeping her 10 pm bedtime! (And we all know how important a solid eight hours of sleep is to a healthy, fat-burning body).