In most meetings, be it offices, small workshop groups or symposium; a cup of coffee just never missed to be there. Was serving coffee in meetings just for hospitality purposes? We all don’t think so. Serving coffee during meetings is, most often than not, used to provide that mental stimulant/perk that we all need during meetings. In every meeting, we all want our minds working; not having to feel sleepy, being able to have that sustained attention, giving the best knowledge to share, ventilating our thoughts and opinions, and coming up with creative suggestions; but could a cup of coffee really support all, if not, any of those mental activities? Well, there have been a lot of studies on how caffeine in coffee helps a person’s cognition on both short and long term basis, and here are just some findings:
   
On sleep and wakefulness:

•During periods of wakefulness, sleep-inducing factor starts to accumulate in the brain. Caffeine antagonizes the receptor for these sleep-inducing factors and thus, helps increase the time spent awake.
•Moderate doses of caffeine in the late evening may prevent individuals from falling asleep.

On alertness:

•Considerable research efforts have been made to assess the effects of caffeine on sustained attention, which can be defined as alertness.
•Low to moderate doses of caffeine are associated with positive subjective effects:
•Energetic
•Imaginative
•Efficient
•Self-confident
•Alert
•Able to concentrate
•More motivated to work.
•On Vigilance
•It is likely to improve general levels of performance in vigilance tasks.
•Data suggests that the effects of caffeine are due to a reduction in distraction rather than to an increase in processing.

On mental fatigue:

•Caffeine induces arousal and increases alertness.
•It has specific effects on the input and output stages of information processing.

On sensation and perception:

•Caffeine may possibly influence visual modalities and colour discrimination.
•Findings suggest that caffeine keeps the auditory sensory pathways alert

On cognition:

•Caffeine has the potential to improve timed cognitive performance parameters such as reaction time, decision-making or cancellation tasks.
•It also influences cognitive performance requiring speed. Nine out of twelve studies reported that caffeine improves speed or accuracy of logical reasoning

On Memory:

•There is evidence of indirect benefits from caffeine intake on learning and memory tasks.
•Research has shown enhanced performance on delayed recall, recognition memory, working memory and verbal memory tasks.
•An increase in memory performance has been reported on both easy and difficult memory tasks.

On Mood:

•Low to moderate consumption  are reliably associated with positive subjective effects:
•Increase feeling of well-being
•Calmness
•Contentedness
•Energetic arousal
•There are some evidences from epidemiological trials that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of age-related cognitive decline compared to non-coffee drinkers.
•Observational evidence suggests that long term coffee and/or caffeine consumption is/are associated with a reduced risk of having Parkinson’s Disease. The evidence on Alzheimer’s is an emerging one.

While caffeine has been shown to deliver the benefits mentioned above, it is not that simple to advice every one just to take as much coffee as they can tolerate, because too much of anything can also deliver some discomforts to our body. Interestingly, scientists have discovered that humans have some genetic make-up that does not support caffeine as beneficial to all types of people.

(Write the author at wellbeing@mb.com.ph.)