Can Coffee Really Help You Succeed at Work?

In a word, yes. As much as we love to hate it and fear its speculated detrimental effects, it turns out coffee can actually be an effective on-the-job tool, according to a recent Time Magazine article. (Quick pause for the angelic hallelujah cry.)

Specifically, coffee, and caffeine in general, not only allows you to be alert but also boosts your mental performance -- sharpening your short-term memory and making you more clever, quick-witted and focused.

Just to be clear: Coffee can’t enhance your natural intelligence, but it can help you make better use of what you’ve got -- especially when you’re tired (surprise, surprise). While scientists don’t exactly know how this happens, they suspect it has something to do with the fact that caffeine binds to receptors in your brain that normally accept adenosine, a neurotransmitter that signals brain cells to quiet down their activity. “Blocking adenosine staves off sleepiness,” according to the article. “The resulting higher level of brain activity puts the nervous system on alert, triggering the release of adrenaline -- the probable cause of caffeine's tendency to focus the mind.” Also, caffeine triggers your brain’s release of dopamine, which might be why you feel more upbeat right after you have a cup or two of coffee. It’s no wonder that renowned number theorist Paul Erdos has said that "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems."

In addition to caffeine, coffee contains antioxidants, and has actually proven to help protect against liver damage, Parkinson's disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, gallstones, depression and maybe even some forms of cancer (!) Sure, caffeine has also been blamed for such harmful effects as bladder cancer, high blood pressure and other ills. But the overall good versus bad effects of this drug are yet to be determined.

I was relieved to read this article, especially this early in the year. (I can cross “cut coffee” off my list of resolutions.) I don’t drink much of it, but I do enjoy it every other day, whenever I can. Now, it seems, I can have my cup -- and guiltlessly drink it, too.

Share this post: Digg, StumbleUpon, del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter, etc.