So you get to work after a long commute and you're feeling a bit tired, you reach for a coffee and within seconds you feel more awake —how is the coffee affecting your brain?

Stay tuned to find out!

There's no doubt about it, drinking a coffee or any caffeinated drink when you feel tired will make you feel more alert but let's take a second to think about what coffee is.

Coffee comes from the coffee plant which grows in many places but primarily Brazil, Vietnam and Colombia.

The seeds, also called coffee beans, are packaged and shipped all over the world and are then brewed into your favorite coffee at your local coffee shop.

The types of coffee available are endless but no matter which you drink they will all make you feel more alert, because they contain caffeine.

How does caffeine make you more alert?

It's all to do with the neuroscience—adenosine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter and so when it binds to receptors in the brain it reduces nerve activity and makes you sleepy.

To the receptors in the brain, caffeine looks just like adenosine and so it can bind to those receptors too, but it doesn't reduce nerve activity, it just stops adenosine binding.

Therefore the neurons aren't inhibited, they just speed up, which stops you feeling sleepy and instead makes you more alert and awake!

So there you have it, next time you reach for a coffee to give you that buzz, you'll know how it affects your brain.

Just make sure you don't drink too much as you might end up with a bad case of the caffeine jitters!

Subscribe to Soton Brain Hub for more videos to help explain the mysteries of the brain!