Although coffee is our energising drink of choice here at Lifehacker, tea is a great alternative. Step up your drink with blooming tea, a flowerful, delicious cup that is great to enjoy with your tongue and your eyes.
If coffee tends to do a number on your stomach, but you love the brew too much to give it up, switch to a darker roast for less digestive woes and more cup-of-joe enjoyment.
According to a study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, coffee can stave off the affects of aging on the brain — specifically in women over the age of 65. “MRI brain scans revealed that women who drank three cups of coffee per day (or 6 cups of tea) had lost less brain tissue called white matter than those who drank less.”
Coffee, tea, cola, energy drinks and even pills; people love the energy and focus boosting properties of caffeine. If you’re in it for kicks and not for the love of a good latte, it’s time to find the cheapest buzz possible.
If you’re trying to cut back on or give up caffeine, then you already know to avoid coffee. But the eye-opening stimulant is found in lots of other beverages, and even some food and medications.
Reader Brian came across a new notice from Google this morning, in place of the Caffeine search architecture upgrade that Google’s been letting users test out. It indicates that Google is starting to take its improved search database fully online.
We all know the ill-effects of a few too many cups of coffee, but when does the amount of caffeine you ingest become toxic? The Death By Caffeine calculator lets you work out how much of your favourite drink would be lethal.
Good news for those who get jitters, headaches, and really bad social graces when deprived of their caffeine fix—beating the habit and switching to a placebo can leave you feeling just as energised.
The New York Times reports that in a study of 61 people, those who took a 2-hour afternoon nap did “significantly” better at repeating verbal, perception, and motor-skill tests from that morning than those given caffeine or a placebo. What’s more, the caffeine takers didn’t do do much better in verbal tasks than the placebos, but claimed to be the most awake. Not brand-new news to long-time Lifehacker readers, perhaps, but a nice reminder that coffee does not always equal productive power. (Here’s the full study paper).
Think the best way to jump-start a project involves a large dark roast with extra shots? Think again, according to Wired magazine. As part of a roundup of mental boosters, one writer suggests that research has shown smaller, regular doses of caffeine—think tea breaks or half-cups of coffee—do more to boost alertness and reduce jitters than a large blast of the stuff: Test subjects reported that periodic small shots made them feel clearheaded and calm, both of which enhance mental performance. Even better, add a lump of sugar or have a carbohydrate-rich snack at the same time for an extra cognitive kick. It seems that glucose and caffeine together do more to enhance cognition than either does alone.
