Have a Problem to Solve? A Cup of Coffee Can Help You Out
According to a new study published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, caffeine can help boost your focusing and problem-solving abilities
Drinking one 12 oz cup of strong coffee between 10 and 45 minutes before you need to concentrate is ideal.
Caffeine can also help improve your athletic performance and muscle recovery.
Your morning probably doesn’t seem complete without a cup (or two) of coffee to get you going. Whether you’re heading out for an early ride or straight to the office, the energy caffeine gives you feels essential to your performance. As it turns out, a strong cup of joe does more than just reinvigorate you—according to new research, it can help boost your focusing and problem-solving abilities as well.
In the study, published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, researchers gave 80 participants either a 200 mg caffeine pill—equivalent to 12 oz of strong coffee—or a placebo pill 20 minutes before being asked to do two things:
Solve problems that had only one “right” answer
Generate new ideas where multiple responses would’ve been correct
The researchers found that caffeine enhanced the participants’ abilities to solve the problems that only had one correct answer, meaning caffeine boosted their focus and analytical skills. However, when it came to the more creative way of thinking—generating multiple ideas, rather than one answer being “right” or “wrong”—caffeine had no effect on performance.
“This is the first time we’ve been able to show that if there’s a problem you need to solve and there’s only one correct solution to this problem, a cup of coffee will help,” lead study author Darya Zabelina, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arkansas, told Bicycling. “If you’re working on a creative approach where a problem has many solutions, or where you need to generate many ideas, caffeine might not help—it doesn’t make creativity any worse, it just has no effect on it.”
You’re probably wondering how exactly caffeine can boost your ability to focus and solve problems, but not bolster your ability to think creatively. According to Zabelina, the reason has to do with how caffeine bonds to receptors in your brain.
“Our brains produce a molecule called adenosine, and the amount produced continually increases from the time we wake up until we go to bed,” she said. “Caffeine hijacks this process by mimicking adenosine, latching onto the adenosine receptors, and pushing those receptors. away. As a result, we don’t feel as tired because we don’t have as much adenosine in our brains, so we feel more alert, awake, focused, and able to solve problems.”
On the other hand, creativity stems out of boredom and day dreaming, Zabelina said. Consuming caffeine pushes you in the opposite direction of the mindset you want to be in for creative thinking by prohibiting your mind from wandering.
According to Zabelina, the effects of caffeine are noticeable after about 10 minutes, but the concentration of caffeine in your bloodstream reaches its peak after about 45 minutes after consumption.
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It’s worth noting that the participants in this study were regular coffee drinkers, meaning they already drink one to two cups of coffee per day in their everyday lives. Those who never drink coffee at all or drink more than two cups per day might have very different experiences, Zabelina points out.
Aside from boosting your ability to focus, caffeine has also been proven to help your muscles recover after exercise, enhance your circulation, and even make you faster. The bottom line? The most important part of your morning ritual has some serious benefits for both body and brain.
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