For what it's worth, article I kept on the merits of drinking coffee (to help justify my drinking coffee). : ) PS: Thinking coffee might be an energy boost in itself - see bottom of article.
Extending that think thought: What else could you think about more, for a productivity boost. For myself, one thing I like to think about are 'positive possibilities', including how could I turn a seeming negative into a positive, or at least find some positive in a negative - some of which I'll implement. I find that more productive than letting negatives, negative thinking dominate and drain me.
Coffee is a miracle
Humans have been drinking coffee since at least the 15th century. It's been a staple of the workplace for more than a century. And recently, science has finally explained some of its incredible health benefits.
I’ve been an avid coffee drinker since I was about 15, so these studies make my ears perk up. For this midsummer morning, here's a look at five of them -- and the benefits they say coffee can bring.
1. Reduce your risk of death.
I have to start with
a fascinating British study of 500,000 people. It found habitual coffee drinkers were less likely to die than non-coffee drinkers over a 10-year span. Not just less likely to die of certain causes. Less likely to die of anything. As in, they literally cheat death. Find me a better argument than that!
As for why, it's a bit of a mystery. One theory: Since coffee contains more than 10,000 different chemical compounds that protect cells from damage, it might inhibit causes of death that scientists haven't isolated yet.
2. Lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, and even suicide.
Another
massive study, this one from the Harvard School of Public Health, followed 200,000 doctors and nurses over 30 years. It linked coffee consumption to a lower risk of death from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, neurological diseases -- and even suicide.
For those who drank a cup of coffee each day, the chance of death from those causes dropped 6 percent. For those who drank between three and five cups, it dropped 15 percent.
3. Prompt your body to burn fat.
Researchers
at the University of Nottingham used a thermal imaging system to measure the temperatures of people's necks, which told them how much brown adipose tissue (BAT, otherwise known as "brown fat") those people were burning.
My Inc.com colleague Geoffrey James
wrote about this study in June: "
offee heats up your BAT, which causes your body to more efficiently convert [white adipose tissue] into energy. Or put even more simply: Coffee literally burns fat. Woohoo!"
[B]4. Appear to counteract part of the aging process.[/B]
This is [URL='http://click.visit.inc.com/?qs=b3cf40bc01e3eee8c356f2232ddc7c9ac9628b39bf20c85475bb8fc13ce046e53ea8ddbbdc4bcb168b099f3f750d3f5686d32d144978e03b']a smaller study[/URL] conducted at Stanford University: just 100 coffee drinkers over several years. Its theory starts with the idea that as people get older, they experience a "fundamental inflammatory mechanism associated with human aging and the chronic diseases that come with it.”
Coffee’s high caffeine content could counteract the chemical reactions that trigger the inflammation over time, according to the study.
[B]5. Improve brain health and lower the risk of age-related cognitive decline.[/B]
Related: “Coffee consumption does seem to have some correlation to a decreased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease," Dr. Donald Weaver, co-director of the Krembil Brain Institute at the University of Toronto, said in [URL='http://click.visit.inc.com/?qs=b3cf40bc01e3eee8e347a5e46ec9f06b83c1304ccdaabf667a5f5f29bfaa1fae84c6afe0cffdc7175bab058065d1d755186480ae4acd4f56']a press release[/URL] about his November 2018 study on the drink.
Other studies suggest drinking coffee helps you [URL='http://click.visit.inc.com/?qs=b3cf40bc01e3eee8ccb5f2cce13862c58c623b08ae396bcc2207030ef0754df4aae5e2debd07ffb767aa22391f724a220e5c47b2ced242e6']calculate math better[/URL], boosts the [URL='http://click.visit.inc.com/?qs=b3cf40bc01e3eee8ac89c34f68ab4508491fbf2856fed174db2341496f7f56bd6d0ad4d369b9124b691f32705174fc47e25c2458ea8fd014']quality of conversations in groups[/URL], and [URL='http://click.visit.inc.com/?qs=b3cf40bc01e3eee86854b38ddb15b7d33ee91dc408e3da6b4686fea2611b717574d024fc54e63240e8c91f4d3aab68fa55f2624b07a0cfb2']improves the quality of your workouts [/URL]. And as my Inc.com colleague Jessica Stillman found, even thinking about coffee [URL='http://click.visit.inc.com/?qs=b3cf40bc01e3eee8ea6860f8c817de6a271fbc03a7f9d1b8bc8d0762f30a9c2ddc07999ea72b0335ee736c78f443927def3d2faac274425e']gives you an energy boost[/URL] that mimics drinking a cup.
