Some people think caffeine gives them a boost. And it does. Back to your normal baseline.
Apparently your daily pick me up is more “pick me back up” than a boost to your performance.
Peter Rogers, from the University of Bristol’s Department of Experimental Psychology and one of the lead authors of the study, said: “Our study shows that we don’t gain an advantage from consuming caffeine — although we feel alerted by it, this is caffeine just bringing us back to normal. On the other hand, while caffeine can increase anxiety, tolerance means that for most caffeine consumers this effect is negligible.”
Approximately half of the participants were non/low caffeine consumers and the other half were medium/high caffeine consumers. All were asked to rate their personal levels of anxiety, alertness and headache before and after being given either the caffeine or the placebo. They were also asked to carry out a series of computer tasks to test for their levels of memory, attentiveness and vigilance.
Like all drug addicts I drink caffeine for the taste, and not for the effect… and to get rid of my nasty withdrawal headaches without resorting to nurofen (panadol doesn’t work).