According to this article, drinking coffee triggers the release of Cortisol in your body, which isn’t good because Cortisol is the stress hormone. But if you drink coffee every day your body builds up a tolerance and you aren’t as stressed.

This article also explains that your body can also build up a tolerance to the caffeine in coffee because your body prepares for the incoming hit of caffeine. So if you smell coffee in the morning but don’t get any you will actually feel more tired then if you didn’t smell that coffee.

So, if you really want your morning coffee to make you more alert you need to not drink it every day, but then you have to deal with the Cortisol rush and the stress. I think I’ll stick with my daily habit addiction for now.

Caffeine and Cortisol: Does Coffee Stress You Out?