Do you feel energized after your morning coffee? Scientists say it may just be a PLACEBO
For many people, the day doesn’t start until they’ve had a cup of coffee.
It’s the drink most people turn to to wake up, feel more alert and improve their efficiency.
But that essential morning coffee may act like a placebo, according to one study.
Portuguese scientists studied coffee drinkers to understand whether that wakefulness effect depends on the properties of caffeine, or whether it is about the experience of drinking coffee.
They recruited people who drank at least one cup of coffee a day and had two short MRI scans – one before and one after drinking coffee or drinking hot water with the same amount of caffeine in it.
For many people, the day doesn’t start until they’ve had a cup of coffee. It’s the drink most people turn to to wake up, feel more alert and improve their efficiency. But that essential morning coffee may act like a placebo, according to one study
Analysis of the brain scans revealed that the connectivity of the default mode network – involved in introspection and self-reflection processes – decreased after both drinking coffee and taking caffeine.
This suggests that both made people more willing to go from ‘rest’ to ‘work’ mode on tasks.
But drinking coffee also increased connectivity in the higher visual network and the right executive control network — parts of the brain involved in working memory, cognitive control and goal-directed behavior.
This did not happen when participants drank the hot water with caffeine in it.
In other words, the researchers said, if you want to not only feel alert, but be ready to go, caffeine alone isn’t enough — you have to experience that cup of coffee.
First author Dr Maria Picó-Pérez, from Jaume I University, said: ‘In short, the subjects were more ready for action and more alert to external stimuli after drinking coffee.
“Considering that some of the effects we found were reproduced by caffeine, we might expect other caffeinated drinks to share some of the effects.”
“Others, however, were specific to drinking coffee, driven by factors such as the drink’s specific smell and taste, or the psychological expectation associated with consuming that drink.”
The authors pointed out that it is possible that the experience of drinking decaffeinated coffee may also cause these benefits, but their study was unable to confirm this.
The findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.
Separate research, published earlier this year, showed that people sleep worse on days when they drink coffee, but walk further.
When people could drink as much coffee as they wanted, they took about 1,000 more daily steps, according to the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
However, on days when the same people enforced abstinence, they slept about 30 minutes longer.