I know coffee can make you more wakeful, maybe even more cheerful. But here’s something I didn’t know. It could actually make you smarter.

"Allow you to use what brainpower you have in a much more efficient and focused manner. "

Michael Lemonick, a colleague from Time Magazine has been drinking coffee, lots of coffee for years. He's also been researching its effects on the brain.

"Can you give me a latte（n.拿铁，咖啡的一种）, skim latte（n.脱脂拿铁，另有skim milk 脱脂牛奶）?”

"Sure”

Make no mistake. Caffeine is a drug and stimulates your brain in sort of a tricky way. Look here, many medications focus on increasing the amount of stimulating neurotransmitters（n.[生化]神经传递素）, such as serotonin（n.血清素）. Caffeine actually works against other neurotransmitters that would normally make you sleepy. The end result:

"Coffee gave me more energy, more focus, more sharpness, and it gave me a better attitude. This mountain suddenly didn’t look like such a big mountain."

As far as concerns about increased risk of cancer or high blood pressure, none of that has ever been proven. In fact, there seems to be no major negative side effects to consuming a couple of cups of coffee each day, unless your doctor advises otherwise for conditions such as menopause（n.绝经期，更年期）, lumpy breasts, urinary（a.泌尿器的） incontinence（n.失禁，不能自制） or rapid heartbeat.

"There seems to be nothing medically dangerous about doing it and in fact, it’s protective against things like Alzheimer’s Disease, we think, and Parkinson’s. Physically if you let the caffeine go out of your system, you do go into a slump, you go downhill in the afternoon or late morning, which is why I am doing this.

Of course, your inherent smartness isn’t actually changing with what you drink, but you may just be getting a lot better at using what smarts you do have.

"Most of the stimulant drugs are memory-enhancing drugs. Caffeine, as you know, is in coffee and tea and so we routinely dose ourselves with mildly memory-enhancing drugs. "

There’s a downside though, Michael has been drinking coffee for so long, he can’t even go one day without. But hey, some would say why stop in the first place. All this talk about “better mental performance just waiting for me in this paper cup” made this non-coffee drinker a little curious.

"Enjoy, enjoy"

"Cheers"

"Feel the IQ point is adding up already."

posted on 2007-03-14 19:47 cql55 阅读(810) 评论(1)  编辑  收藏 网摘收藏