For coffee every morning.
The sequence of activities that make up the morning ritual can be neatly divided into two distinct categories. First, there are the things that happen before morning coffee.
Then there are the post-coffee activities that engage with heightened mental awareness and significantly improved productivity and mood.
Scientists have observed that this mood and cognitive functioning can improve after drinking coffee, and we can now establish a link between caffeine and our ability to process positive stimuli.
When we drink our morning coffee, we actually strengthen our brain's ability to recognize and process words with positive connotations, this effect is not observed with neutral or negative words.
This link was observed by Ruhr University researchers Lars Kuchinke and Vanessa Lux* in Buchum, Germany, pointing to the role of caffeine in dopaminergic transmission in the brain. They say that if we consume enough caffeine, we create a positivity advantage in the left side of the brain, which is most associated with language.
The result is faster and more accurate brain processing of positive information. And research shows that as little as 200 milligrams of caffeine, or two to three cups of coffee, is enough to boost that performance.
In a research experiment, Kuchinke and Lux recruited 66 healthy participants who reported "normal" caffeine consumption (averaging 1.58 cups of coffee per day). Participants were split between a caffeine group — those given a 200-milligram caffeine tablet — and a placebo group that took a candy tablet.
Each group finished a word recognition test 30 minutes early, in which real words with different connotations (positive, neutral, or negative) were presented between fake words, which are strings of letters that look and feel like real words but have no lexical meaning. Participants were required to recognize real words quickly and accurately and then rate them on a Likert scale from 1 (calm) to 7 (very arousing).
The results showed that the caffeine group performed significantly better when evaluating positive words. There was no difference in the recognition of neutral or negative words. This means that we coffee lovers not only process all the information better, but especially the positive information we come across. Another happy news for the caffeinated among us. And let's have coffee in honor of that!
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