Maybe the term “miracle” is a bit of an exaggeration, but coffee truly can be amazing. Whether you are simply using it to stay awake into the deep hours of the night or actually like the taste coffee can benefit our health.

When I was younger I used to be able to smell my dad’s Starbucks cup from the back seat of the car and plead with him to try it, because I liked the scent. Little 10 year old me did not like the taste of whatever was in his cup and almost spit it out. But who doesn’t like the smell of new hot coffee? It is the first part of intrigue that older coffee drinker appreciate. Something that smells like books and Barnes and Noble and coziness all in paper cup is sure to make anyone smile.

However it’s not just the smell and the taste or even the different types. Coffee can actually help us in various ways. The first thing to note about drinking coffee is that it will make us alert. Caffeine is a stimulant that will hype us up and keep us sharp when we are preforming some task.

Unlike other drugs that have a similar but harsher effect, coffee won’t really give us a downfall. We don’t come down from drinking coffee unless we are actually addicted. That’s where people find it unhealthy. It makes sense that people get addicted to caffeine and coffee and that there are real withdrawal symptoms, but that only means we have to drink it in moderation to truly enjoy its greatness.

So not only is the sip of a latte in the early morning keeping us in focus but it may also help in the prevention of disease. A person drinking coffee every few days has a lower chance of getting type two diabetes.

Medical News Today reported on a study done at the Harvard School of Public Health discussing how coffee can actually help. They stated on their website “The researchers found that the participants who increased their coffee intake by more than one cup a day (on average, an increase of 1.69 cups per day) over a four-year period had an 11 percent lower type 2 diabetes risk over the subsequent four years, compared with people who did not change their intake.” The whole study was about how not drinking coffee can be connected to type two diabetes.

Now am I saying that if you don’t drink coffee that you will get this disease? No! Of course not, but it is something that already regular coffee drinkers may not really have to worry about.

Some might say that these benefits are just things to make coffee drinkers feel better, but this is false. Ok sure we’ve all heard that coffee will stunt your growth, but at this point in my life I don’t think I’m going to make it past 5’4 and a half anyway. No, do not let your children drink coffee, that is a terrible idea. But once puberty is over it’s really anyone’s game.

Coffee contributes to the quickening of our metabolism and can actually help us to burn fat. We already know that the stimulant affects us, and this affect that it put on the central nervous system can raise metabolism and get rid of fatty acids. Coffee is all about being quicker, whether it’s our brain or our body. That’s why too much coffee will often result in someone having headaches or their hands shaking.

This is the result of too much, but coffee really isn’t a bad thing. There are ways to tone down the harshness of coffee. Through a flavor, or whole milk or a crazy amount of sugar coffee doesn’t seem so scary anymore and is back to its comforting smell and taste of reading at night.