Women who drink four cups of coffee have a lower risk of becoming depressed and experience a short term boost in energy that lifts their feeling of well-being, according to Harvard School of Public Health.

A study was published Monday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

"This short-term effect is what drives the consumption of caffeine," said Alberto Ascherio, lead author of the study told Reuters.

Women who drank coffee four times a day were found to have a 20 percent lower risk of becoming depressed over a period of a decade compared with women who drank one cup or less.

Women who drank two or three cups per day had a 15 percent lower risk of becoming depressed.

The findings suggest that caffeine's long-term usage may affect the brain's reaction to depression, though how is not known.

"Taken together, these results reassure coffee drinkers that there seem to exist no glaringly deleterious health consequences to coffee consumption," added Dr. Seth Berkowitz, editor AIM.