The age-old trick among students who want to stay awake is to consume caffeinated drinks, this may come in the form of a cup (or several cups!) of black coffee, energy drinks, or a bottle of Coke with every meal, and several bars of chocolate for those with an incurable sweet tooth.
But is caffeine all it is cracked up to be? How does it work? And does caffeine, in all its forms, really deliver? Consider the facts as presented by BBCiWonder
How do you consume caffeine?
Serving sizes: cup of filter coffee: 200ml, energy drink: 250ml, cup of tea: 220ml, can of cola: 355ml, bar of plain chocolate: 50g, bar of milk chocolate: 50g.
It’s a common misconception that caffeine only comes from coffee, but it’s found in many products. For most people, consuming up to 400mg each day poses no problems. Pregnant women are recommended to drink less than 200mg.
Does it really stop sleep?
Does it make you smarter?
Scientists have measured the difference caffeine makes to mental performance by testing regular users and non-users. Here’s what they discovered from their study:
- Frequent caffeine users seem more alert, awake and have better attention after they consumed caffeine.
- However, regardless of caffeine consumption, non-users performed just as well in tests as the frequent users.
- When non-users consumed caffeine, they felt more awake but jittery. Unfortunately their attention and mental alertness did not improve.
- Caffeine improved motor skills during ‘finger-tapping speed’ tests in both frequent caffeine users and non-users.
While caffeine appears to improve some physical aspects of performance, it does little to enhance the mental abilities of regular users, who quickly develop a tolerance to caffeine’s effects. Non-users meanwhile might feel more alert after a shot of caffeine but they don’t experience any improvement when carrying out mental performance tests either.
So, if your aim of drinking coffee is to stay awake long enough to study, it seems you have an ally in what has been called the world’s most popular drug. And if you are a passive caffeine consumer, now you know.