Royane Real
Caffeine Benefits - Does It Boost Memory?
By: Rebecca Prescott
Introductory comments by Royane Real
Author of: “How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative”
If you are interested in boosting your mental performance, you may have wondered if you should be drinking more caffeine, or if you should be cutting out caffeine altogether in order to boost your brain. Which is the right answer for you?
To some extent, each person reacts to caffeine a bit differently. Small amounts can boost mental performance, but larger amounts of caffeine are counterproductive, because excess caffeine can interfere with sleep.
The following article discusses some of the beneficial effects that drinking coffee can have on improving your memory and boosting your mental performance.
Are you on a caffeine roller coaster? Many people find that they need to drink a cup of coffee to get started in the morning, or else they feel too groggy to think or to function at work.
A few hours after the first cup of coffee, most people experience a crash in energy around ten in the morning. So, they grab another cup of coffee, and maybe a donut, and that keeps them going until lunch. Then they might have a cup of coffee or two at lunch, followed by a few more cups of coffee to keep them going.
Then at night after all these cups of coffee, these people feel much too “wired” to settle down. The early hours of sleep are spent tossing and turning, and then, a feeling of hopeless exhaustion when the alarm goes off in the morning.
What’s the solution that most people use to combat their sense of morning exhaustion? Why more coffee of course!
And so the cycle continues. People use coffee to force themselves to keep going because coffee is a stimulant, but then they get so over stimulated by the caffeine that they can’t really sleep properly.
Many of us are so used to hearing negative things about the caffeine in coffee and in other drinks, that we often aren’t aware of some of the documented benefits that caffeine can give us.
The following article by Rebecca Prescott lists some of the benefits of caffeine that have been discovered by researchers. In particular, caffeine can be beneficial to our mental performance, but we need to weigh the benefits against potential problems that caffeine can cause if we drink too much, or if we happen to be sensitive to this chemical.
One of the main benefits of coffee and tea that have been discovered in recent years is that both of these drinks have been found to be rich in protective antioxidants. Tea in particular may have some long term protective effect on brain cells that are crucial to memory.
Caffeine may also have a short term beneficial effect on memory because of its stimulating action on the brain.
( The above introductory comments to this article were written by Royane Real author of “How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative” To learn more ways to boost your brain power, download it today at http://www.lulu.com/real )
Feature article:
Caffeine Benefits - Does It Boost Memory?
By: Rebecca Prescott
Caffeine, like chocolate, often receives bad publicity. Whilst in some instances, and in excess, these can have negative effects on our body, they can also be quite beneficial.
I am not disputing that some people are more sensitive to the negative effects of either caffeine or chocolate.
For example, excess caffeine can create anxiety, nausea (particularly if taken on an empty stomach), an increase in heart rate, and even depression in some people. And chocolate is certainly not something that should form the mainstay of one's diet. If struggling with sugar addiction, or wanting to lose weight, there are more nutritionally complete foods that are available.
But scientists have turned up some interesting facts on caffeine. For example, caffeine actually blocks the effects of a neurotransmitter in the brain (adenosine) that otherwise makes us feel tired. This is why it works so well to keep us awake. It also encourages the release of another brain chemical, dopamine (as well as adrenaline). Dopamine contributes to a feeling of well being.
Two studies, one a population based study (which are not as specific or rigorously defined as other types of studies, but nonetheless valuable indicators) found that drinking caffeine containing drinks like coffee and tea had a protective effect for those at risk of developing liver disease. Issues that the study participants had that increased their risk of liver disease included alcoholism, hepatitis B or C, obesity, or other complications.
And the results indicated that people who drank more than 2 cups of coffee a day had a 44% lower chance of showing actual liver damage compared to those who drank no caffeine. This was not a clinical trial, and the reason why coffee and tea had such an effect is not known.
Coffee and tea contain a range of plant chemicals (phytonutrients) that could be responsible for this. A 2005 Norwegian study also found similar benefits for coffee with regards liver disease. This study found that drinking 3 cups of coffee a day could lower the risk of death from liver cirrhosis.
Even if you're not at risk of liver disease, caffeine still has some advantages. Recent research from Austria showed that caffeine may actually enhance short term memory. Researchers found that there was an increase in brain activity (as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging) in the parts of the brain that were associated with memory and attention. These parts of the brain were the frontal lobe and the anterior cingulum.
This was a placebo controlled study, meaning that some people were not given any caffeine. Another, earlier study (2004) found that caffeine did support short term memory, but only when it was in relation to a topic that people were already thinking about. This study found that when testing coffee's effects on unrelated subjects, short term recall was actually inhibited.
Everything does have a flip side though. Adenosine, which is blocked by coffee, is also calming. This could be why it can also cause anxiety in excess, and in some individuals. After all, the balance of our brain chemistry is unique. And when we are addicted to stimulants like caffeine, we lose the sensitivity to our own natural stimulants (dopamine and adrenaline).
If you want a gentler source of caffeine that also has antioxidant benefits, try green tea. Find out more about the health benefits, including about green tea weight loss here. And on the subject of weight loss, if you'd like to try some natural ways to boost metabolism, check out these herbs. Rebecca Prescott runs the website http://www.vitaminstohealth.com
Article source: http://www.articlejoe.net
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