Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, why don't we stuff to boil
Speaker 1: your mind? My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie. Julie.
Speaker 1: Is there a lot of coffee in your house? Are
Speaker 1: you a coffee household? Yes? How do you make your coffee?
Speaker 1: You know? I put a lot of creamer in it
Speaker 1: and a lot of sugar. Yeah. What kind of device
Speaker 1: do you use? I'm weak sauce when it comes to this. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, a standard coffee machine? Yeah. I don't know
Speaker 1: if someone asked me if if our coffee machine had
Speaker 1: been seasoned, and I was like, what do you mean
Speaker 1: season and apparently like if you brew a certain amount
Speaker 1: of times then infuses your coffee with a better flavor. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Seasoned is often a term for gross stup, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's there enough stuff growing in or on your kitchen
Speaker 1: implement to give it as the desired flavor. Then yes, yea,
Speaker 1: it is seasoned. What about you? We we use um,
Speaker 1: just like we have a standard Mr Coffee. Um, We've
Speaker 1: tried to use different you know, perculators and stuff and
Speaker 1: never quite works out. When I was coming back to
Speaker 1: Mr Coffee and then I also bring out the French
Speaker 1: breasts if I want to do something a little nicer.
Speaker 1: I knew you had the fancy pants when it came
Speaker 1: to coffee, that is not No, I don't even begin
Speaker 1: to have fancy pants because there are so many complex
Speaker 1: ways of making coffee. There's so many different cold brew devices,
Speaker 1: and of course pour over is the big thing these days.
Speaker 1: And uh, I'm I'm really I mean, I'm not a
Speaker 1: straight up, you know, instant coffee drinker. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not a tencent cup kind of a guy, but I'm
Speaker 1: I'm definitely far from fancy. Well, all I know is that, um,
Speaker 1: there was like a month here at how stuff works
Speaker 1: when our our bean supply got really low, and you
Speaker 1: you were the person who blaze the trails and saying
Speaker 1: we must fortify the being supply. So I know it's
Speaker 1: important to you. Coffee is important to me. I I
Speaker 1: drink coffee every day, and if I forget to drink it,
Speaker 1: my my body is quick to remind me that I
Speaker 1: forgot to drink it. And uh, and I like a
Speaker 1: good cup of coffee, but I'm just not not as
Speaker 1: as picky as a lot of people are. And uh,
Speaker 1: and maybe my tasting coffee is just not as nuance.
Speaker 1: But but I do love love a good cup of coffee. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is one of those things that you
Speaker 1: could discuss this for hours and hours. You can talk
Speaker 1: about shade grow and you can talk about fair trade.
Speaker 1: We're not going to talk about those aspects, nor are
Speaker 1: we going to talk about the different ritals um that exist.
Speaker 1: All fascinating, but we're gonna to kind of go into
Speaker 1: what coffee is doing to your brain in some of
Speaker 1: the benefits of coffee. And uh, first I wanted to
Speaker 1: point out something about coffee, or caffeine in particular, that
Speaker 1: it is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance on Earth.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's surprising. In North America, around adults
Speaker 1: report using caffeine every day, eighteen billion dollar business in
Speaker 1: the US, and there are more than sixteen billion pounds
Speaker 1: of coffee beings produced per year in the US. That
Speaker 1: is a lot of psychoactivity. And the number one consumption
Speaker 1: of coffee in the United States Gas No New York City.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, that would that would make a lot more sense. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: coffee one oh one. Here, let's go through some of
Speaker 1: the basics for you guys. Yeah, so coffee beans of course,
Speaker 1: So these come from from the coffee plant and theise
Speaker 1: are you know, seeds found in the pit of a
Speaker 1: cherry sized fruit on the coffee plant. And if you
Speaker 1: just if you've had the experience, if you've visited like
Speaker 1: a coffee farm and had the chance to try them,
Speaker 1: you can't just does not taste like coffee if you
Speaker 1: just pick it up in sweet right, like sweet sweet
Speaker 1: and a little you know, bitter. It's it's not something
Speaker 1: where you would just feel like snacking on them, like
Speaker 1: you're not getting a it's not like eating a blueberry,
Speaker 1: and it's not like eating a coffee bean. And presumably
Speaker 1: though you'd get a bit of a caffeine rush just
Speaker 1: from this. Yeah, because the earlier methods, if you go
Speaker 1: back in time, you know, did not involve slow roasting
Speaker 1: coffee beans. Um. One that I ran across, uh, and
Speaker 1: this is actually from the house Stuff Works article on
Speaker 1: coffee um is that early East African tribes would mix
Speaker 1: the coffee berries and that's again they unhold beans called
Speaker 1: a coffee cherry with animal fat forming energy balls. So
Speaker 1: you could think of it as a as a primitive
Speaker 1: power bar, except except maybe a little less gross. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about that. I was a kid,
Speaker 1: you not. I was thinking about the wrapper that would
Speaker 1: go around that, like animal fat, big lump of fat
Speaker 1: and coffee bear is just poked in and you just
Speaker 1: you just shot down the whole thing and then you're
Speaker 1: good to go. Handcrafted. Yeah, there you go. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think the interesting thing about that too is
Speaker 1: that the beans are actually seeds. We call them beans
Speaker 1: um and coffee trees. They are woody perennial evergreens, and
Speaker 1: they are grown in tropical climates and seventy different countries. Uh.
Speaker 1: These climates, these countries, the areas are known as the
Speaker 1: bean belt. So I already mentioned the some some early
Speaker 1: East African tribes. You have some stuff on goat herders
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, the is and this is again from
Speaker 1: how Coffee Works, our article that we have on house
Speaker 1: supports dot com. There is an Ethiopian legend whearing coffee
Speaker 1: is discovered by a goat hurder named Caldi, who found
Speaker 1: his goats frolicking and full of energy after eating the
Speaker 1: red berries. And uh, Caldi tried the berries for himself,
Speaker 1: and lo and behold, he also started frolicking around, and
Speaker 1: after witnessing the strange behavior of this goat hurder and
Speaker 1: his goats, a monk took some of the berries back
Speaker 1: to his fellow monks, and then they stayed up all
Speaker 1: night long and they were alert and behold the coffee
Speaker 1: beans powers were revealed. They also became rather big, of course,
Speaker 1: in in the in the Islamic world, and kind of
Speaker 1: flowed with the expansion of Islamic culture and uh and
Speaker 1: some people say whirling dervishes. Actually um of early Islam
Speaker 1: especially had were fueled by coffee. Whirling dervishes. Of course.
Speaker 1: I think everyone's seeing footage films of this where there's
Speaker 1: the they wear these kind of flowing garments, they go
Speaker 1: into these swirling patterns and it's really really beautiful stuff.
Speaker 1: At least a lot of coffee would make sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, apparently during the thirteenth century, coffee was extremely
Speaker 1: popular with Muslim um communities because of its stimulant powers.
Speaker 1: So you can see how they also appealed to this
Speaker 1: monks with the with the goat herder who discovered it,
Speaker 1: because what do you do with those stimulant powers? Um,
Speaker 1: It can be very useful during really long prayer sessions,
Speaker 1: and so the story behind this, according to Tory Avy,
Speaker 1: who is writing for PBS and her article The Caffeinated
Speaker 1: History of Coffee, is that coffee plants, they did not
Speaker 1: exist outside of Arabia or Africa until the sixteen hundreds
Speaker 1: when this guy named Baba Boudon, an Indian pilgrim, left
Speaker 1: Mecca with the legend says, fertile beans fastened to a
Speaker 1: strap across his abdomen smuggle him out, smuggled him out
Speaker 1: and established a new and competitive European coffee trade, which
Speaker 1: leads perfectly to the Age of Enlightenment exactly. So, I
Speaker 1: think everyone's heard this story before. This is the idea that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, in human history, um, water wasn't always the
Speaker 1: best thing to drink. It wasn't always the purest um.
Speaker 1: So drinking water to maintain your hydration level might make
Speaker 1: you fabulously sick. Better off trusting good old fashioned beer. Now,
Speaker 1: the thing about drinking beer all day is that, aside
Speaker 1: from from really probably making you feel bloated um most
Speaker 1: of the time, you're also going to be intoxicated most
Speaker 1: of the time. You're gonna take long naps, You're going
Speaker 1: to vomit in the streets and uh, and generally you're
Speaker 1: probably not going to get that much done. I mean,
Speaker 1: some individuals have have a really you know, high work
Speaker 1: rate when they're inebriated, but I think they're the exception
Speaker 1: that proves the rule. And you have to remember to
Speaker 1: that we're talking about the six We were talking about
Speaker 1: societies in which you know that the seasons sort of
Speaker 1: ruled them a lot more than than our modern technology
Speaker 1: rules us right now. So there were periods of time,
Speaker 1: you know, in the winter, for instance, where there wasn't
Speaker 1: anything to do. There wasn't any farming to do, so
Speaker 1: what would you do? Yeah, and at night you're limited
Speaker 1: by how many candles or torches can you lie? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's the limitations were placed something
Speaker 1: by their environment and by the seasons. So you would
Speaker 1: pass the time perhaps drinking some meat, some good old meat,
Speaker 1: and snoring a lot. And although you might have communed
Speaker 1: at a tavern, you would still all be sitting around
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, half polluted in your mind
Speaker 1: and half asleep. But the whole the coffee trade and
Speaker 1: the coffee houses that began to spring up in Europe,
Speaker 1: because here's something else I can drink all day and
Speaker 1: uh and not necessarily get sick on. And it also
Speaker 1: also has an influence on my my state of mind.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, people are chatting and they're awake,
Speaker 1: and they are, you know, talking about all these different
Speaker 1: ideas and focus on them. They're focusing and they're from
Speaker 1: all different socio economic backgrounds, so you're not just getting
Speaker 1: one perspective here. And uh, this is what a lot
Speaker 1: of people credit for helping to usher in the age
Speaker 1: of enlightenment. In fact, there is a book called Uncommon Grounds,
Speaker 1: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World
Speaker 1: by Mark Pendergrass. He makes that claim as well as
Speaker 1: author Stephen Johnson, who has a great ted talk about
Speaker 1: creativity and cites coffee as being one of the fonts
Speaker 1: of creativity and energy. Yeah. Now, of course one of
Speaker 1: the things. Today you go into a coffee shop, like
Speaker 1: I find this especially the case when I go into
Speaker 1: your coffee shop, because we each have coffee shops, yeah,
Speaker 1: fairly close to each other that are there our own turf.
Speaker 1: I know better than to go to Julie's turf unless
Speaker 1: I'm invited, because that's that's where she's working and then likewise,
Speaker 1: you don't show up on my turf. No, not even
Speaker 1: when the power is out. The other week, I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I can't get a Robert's coffee shop. Which places will
Speaker 1: come out? But but when I go to your coffee shop,
Speaker 1: and I mainly bring this one up because your coffee
Speaker 1: shop cans have more people in it. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of people just working with headphones and there's some
Speaker 1: people collaborating. But it seems like, you know, within our
Speaker 1: modern technological age, um, maybe we're less likely to do
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, collaborating with people, uh in
Speaker 1: these coffee shops. But then again, we're connected to people
Speaker 1: outside of it. And I think if you're like me,
Speaker 1: there are certain individuals you you chat with every day, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, by email and by g chat
Speaker 1: and what have you. Um, you know, being a friend
Speaker 1: or my wife, and I can often tell when they've
Speaker 1: had their caffeine because that's when they're reaching out to
Speaker 1: me with all of these ideas and cool stuff and
Speaker 1: they're really excited about something and uh, and if our
Speaker 1: caffeine levels match up, then we're able to go back
Speaker 1: and forth. If not, I might be like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put you on ignore for a little bit because
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm trying to catch up on my edge.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, yeah, this happens. I think especially on
Speaker 1: the weekends. I noticed this with my husband because I'll
Speaker 1: drink a lot of caffeine. I'll but it isn't it.
Speaker 1: And then we'll listen, they will get ike and people
Speaker 1: time to you won't And he's like, whoa, I'm still
Speaker 1: in my first cup. So yes, we know it is powerful,
Speaker 1: powerful stimulant um and it has had a lot of
Speaker 1: influence on the modern world. Let's talk about what is
Speaker 1: in a cup of this stuff? Yeah, magic demons that
Speaker 1: that course through your blood and chew on the creative
Speaker 1: portions of your brain. Exactly. Yeah, just they just roost
Speaker 1: right in there. Um Patrick, did you Stow writing for Wired?
Speaker 1: In his article What's Inside a Cup of Coffee? Really
Speaker 1: details exactly what's in there. And I don't know that
Speaker 1: we're going to go through every single thing that is
Speaker 1: in there, but we wanted to hit the big ones
Speaker 1: because it's pretty fascinating. Um, here's the big dub one
Speaker 1: water content. Turns out that point seven is water at
Speaker 1: one point to five is soluble plant matter. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're mostly paying for for water for water, Yeah, caffeine
Speaker 1: another element um But this is interesting, actually an alkaloid
Speaker 1: plant toxin. It's found in other plants, and it is
Speaker 1: meant to be a natural pesticide. Oh so that's the
Speaker 1: reason it was developed or the reason it evolved in
Speaker 1: these plants exactly. That's why caffeine is in there to say,
Speaker 1: But to the bugs, hey I'm toxic. If you chew
Speaker 1: on me, you will die. Now, what happens to the
Speaker 1: human brain with that same sort of element we will
Speaker 1: find out in a moment. It's also also worth pointing
Speaker 1: out that it operates in the brain the same way
Speaker 1: that amphetamines such as cocaine and heroin do. Yes, which
Speaker 1: which is maybe a bit of a no brainer. But caffeine,
Speaker 1: of course, is a much milder stimulant than those drugs.
Speaker 1: Even even a lot of caffeine, you're not going to
Speaker 1: get the same effect that you would get off of
Speaker 1: somebody doing a much of heroin or coke, obviously, right,
Speaker 1: But what else is on this list stuff in the
Speaker 1: Wired article? Okay, we have to ethel phenol, and this
Speaker 1: creates a tar like medicinal odor in your morning coffee.
Speaker 1: There it's also this is awesome, a component of cockroach
Speaker 1: along arm pheromones, chemical signals that warn the colony of danger.
Speaker 1: The same chemical. Then there's also a clinic acid, and
Speaker 1: this gives coffee it's slightly sour flavor. Uh, And it's
Speaker 1: also one of the starter chemicals in the formulation of
Speaker 1: tama flute. There is also something called a subtle methyl
Speaker 1: carbonyl and according to the article, it's that rich buttery
Speaker 1: taste in your daily jolt, which comes apart from this
Speaker 1: flammable yellow liquid, the same liquid that gives real butter
Speaker 1: its flavor and is a component of artificial flavoring and
Speaker 1: microwave popcorn. And then we have left the best for last.
Speaker 1: It's future scene, right, which sounds lovely. It sounds like
Speaker 1: something you want in your daily cup. Yeah, it's an
Speaker 1: organic chemical compound and it's related to cadavering, and both
Speaker 1: are both are produced by the breakdown of amino acids
Speaker 1: and living and dead organisms. So Digesto and his article
Speaker 1: actually describes the smell as Satan's outhouse. And now that
Speaker 1: I'm why would Satan have an awful outhouse? I think
Speaker 1: It depends on your interpretation. He might have a really
Speaker 1: clean out well that because I think you your version
Speaker 1: is a benevolent satan or you know, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: like constantly crate cleaned by um, you know, by by
Speaker 1: the suffering damned. I don't know. I can see that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see that. Well, in that case, then they
Speaker 1: might be that that might be a component of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm I'm hijacking the discussion with non scientific data here.
Speaker 1: Thankfully that the amount of future scene is just miniscules,
Speaker 1: so it's a scant levels that that wonderful outhouse smell.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna take a break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back, we're going to talk a little more about
Speaker 1: us specifically. The most one of the really exciting things
Speaker 1: here is is how does coffee affect creativity? And you
Speaker 1: might be surprised at some of what we have to
Speaker 1: say about that. And yes, we will also talk about
Speaker 1: coffee's ability to, shall we say, ramp up the digestive system.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. We're talking about coffee. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the effects that coffee has on the body and
Speaker 1: on the mind. So, uh, let's get to it. What
Speaker 1: what's next? Time the click. All right, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about the chemical changes in our brain, because this
Speaker 1: is what caffeine is doing. It is gaming the brain,
Speaker 1: and uh specifically, it is crossing over the blood brain barrier.
Speaker 1: And now this is that the interface between the brain
Speaker 1: and the body's circulatory system that is meant to take
Speaker 1: to keep out all the bad chemicals. But caffeine can
Speaker 1: cross into the brain and when it does, it becomes
Speaker 1: an impostor of sorts. Now when I say impostor, I
Speaker 1: mean that it is taking on the identity of something
Speaker 1: called identazine. No. Identazine is this byproduct of um all
Speaker 1: those neurons firing. It creates this substance in the brain.
Speaker 1: And the build up of adentazine is actually monitored by
Speaker 1: your nervous systems. Your nervous system says, oh, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of adentazine accumulated here. This is going to tip
Speaker 1: off this whole reaction in our body that says that
Speaker 1: we need to take a nap or go to sleep
Speaker 1: or even wake up. Adenazine is part and parcel of
Speaker 1: how we manage our body clock. And what happens is
Speaker 1: that that caffeine sneaks in and it looks chemically similar
Speaker 1: to adnazine. So it takes adentazine's place in the adenazine receptors.
Speaker 1: It bonds to the receptors, and what happens is that
Speaker 1: it blocks that adnazine from bonding with those receptors. And
Speaker 1: now your body, your brain doesn't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have the sort of signals that it might
Speaker 1: get from those receptors saying whoa, we need to slow
Speaker 1: down the body. So that's how caffeine can bond with
Speaker 1: those receptors and change your level of energy even when
Speaker 1: you're you really should be tired. This is how you
Speaker 1: get that that like the PM boost to finish studying
Speaker 1: for the test the next day. Yeah, exactly, because you
Speaker 1: are tricking your body into thinking that it's not tired. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Very sneaky, don't you think. Yeah, it is. There's a
Speaker 1: lot more, a lot more sneakiness involved than you know,
Speaker 1: would initially think. Now, this also causes increased neuron firing
Speaker 1: and a lot more just pup you going on in
Speaker 1: the brain as the ideas fire around and uh and
Speaker 1: and you start making plans for the day, the book
Speaker 1: you're gonna write, the ikea trip, you're gonna make all
Speaker 1: that that's right, because all of that increased neuron firing
Speaker 1: is causing the petuitary to gland to sort of wake
Speaker 1: up and go, wow, that's a lot of activity going
Speaker 1: on there. There must be an emergency. And then the
Speaker 1: adrenal glands get on, get in on the game, and
Speaker 1: of course adournaline is produced, and your pupils dilate, your
Speaker 1: heart rate increases, your your airways open up, among a
Speaker 1: lot of other things. But yeah, this is what gets
Speaker 1: you into that one. Ideas have to come out of
Speaker 1: my room right now. Yeah, so you got boosting energy,
Speaker 1: decrease fatigue, and it enhances physical, cognitive, and motor performance.
Speaker 1: It aids short term memory, problem solving, decision making, and concentration.
Speaker 1: These are all great reasons to have a cup of coffee.
Speaker 1: But the question is, is some of the psychological you mean,
Speaker 1: like the Paucebo effect exactly where I say, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm no good till I have my morning cup, and
Speaker 1: I'm just by believing that I'm no good till I
Speaker 1: have my morning cup. Yeah, I mean, we we talked
Speaker 1: about the power of the placebo. The placebo effect absolutely works. Um,
Speaker 1: whatever kind of quack uh you know um medicine, you're
Speaker 1: taking your magic being you're swallowing. That's a whole another story.
Speaker 1: But the polcebo effect the ability to believe in something's
Speaker 1: positive or negative effect in the in in some cases
Speaker 1: you know, there's all no sebo thing to discuss um
Speaker 1: that actually works, So just believing that it does something
Speaker 1: can in certain cases have an effect you believe it.
Speaker 1: So for instance, your heart rate, yes, it does increase.
Speaker 1: But if you know that caffeine and coffee will help
Speaker 1: you to better focus, are you more predisposed to really
Speaker 1: engage in being focused? Um? So. There is a two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven study at the University of East London where
Speaker 1: a group of psychologists examine the effects of caffeine on
Speaker 1: problem solving and emotional responses. And in a double blind study,
Speaker 1: eight habitual coffee drinkers were given cups of caffeinated and
Speaker 1: decaffinated coffees at random. So subjects who received caffeine but
Speaker 1: they were told that they were drinking decaf did not
Speaker 1: show an improved reaction time in the task that they
Speaker 1: gave that the research group gave them, and likewise in
Speaker 1: a measure of reward motivation and something called the card
Speaker 1: arranging reward responsivity objectivity test another way of measuring this.
Speaker 1: The participants who believe they had consumed coffee sorted the
Speaker 1: cards more quickly than those who believe that they consumed decaf,
Speaker 1: So no doubt there is in part a psychological component
Speaker 1: of coffee. Yeah, and I guess it. You know, really
Speaker 1: there has to be in anything you take. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I think you were you. You spoke recently about
Speaker 1: having an ice cream that was Chardonnay flavored. If I
Speaker 1: remember pair popsicle, right, and let's be honest, there was
Speaker 1: probably very small amount of alcohol, if any really, and
Speaker 1: I could taste it, I'm telling well, yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: we should tell everybody I don't drink. So when I had,
Speaker 1: when the reasoning hit my tongue, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: and so it brought back memories of having had reesling.
Speaker 1: And after I finished that popsicle and I finished every
Speaker 1: drop of it, um, I did feel a little bit loopy.
Speaker 1: But then I wondered, yea, what extent is that the
Speaker 1: poucebo effect? YEA, to what extent is it just your
Speaker 1: mind saying, oh this this tastes like reasoning, and therefore
Speaker 1: this is the reasoning effect. I feel, I feel lighter,
Speaker 1: I feel a little a little happier, and maybe I
Speaker 1: shouldn't drive a tractor exactly. Yeah, And I didn't drive
Speaker 1: a tractor that day. Good, But it was on vacation,
Speaker 1: and you're right, I was sort of primed, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was the beach, and I was like, not a
Speaker 1: care in the world. So yeah, the recling effect. So
Speaker 1: over the years, there just have been a raft of
Speaker 1: studies that extol the virtues of coffee, um, from the
Speaker 1: nutrient and antioxidant content to the idea that it could
Speaker 1: lower the risk of type two diabetes, some types of cancers. UM.
Speaker 1: I think there was even one study that had a
Speaker 1: ten percent increase in longevity. So we could spend hours
Speaker 1: and hours on that, but I thought it we might
Speaker 1: make a little bit more sense if we talked about
Speaker 1: some of the real pronounced effects of coffee. And I'm
Speaker 1: talking about coffee in dementia, because animal experiments show that
Speaker 1: caffeine may reshape the biochemical environment side our brains in
Speaker 1: a way that could actually stave off dementia. And this
Speaker 1: is a very big concern as we age, right, because
Speaker 1: dementia seems to be one of those um illnesses that
Speaker 1: seem to become more and more prevalent in our society. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the two big trolls under the bridge when
Speaker 1: it comes to aging and then I going to is
Speaker 1: my body going to fail? Is my mind going to fail?
Speaker 1: Or both trolls going to jump out and get me
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. So, there's a experiment at the University of
Speaker 1: Illinois at Urbana Champagne and mice were briefly starved of oxygen,
Speaker 1: causing them to lose the ability to form memories. Half
Speaker 1: of the mice received a dose of caffeine that was
Speaker 1: equivalent to several cups of coffee. So that's on par
Speaker 1: with what we would consume, right, and then after they
Speaker 1: were reoxygenated, the caffeinated mice regained their ability to form
Speaker 1: new memories faster than the uncafeated And these were these
Speaker 1: were again coffee for mice, right like tiny little cups,
Speaker 1: not like and little cafe tables. UM. So close examination
Speaker 1: of the the animals brain dies, you showed that the caffeine
Speaker 1: disrupted the action of a tendency which we talked about. UM.
Speaker 1: It can be destructive, it turns out if it leaks
Speaker 1: out when the cells are injured or under stress. This
Speaker 1: is something that we've seen in dementia. So the escaped
Speaker 1: adnazine can jump sir, a biochemical cascade leading to inflammation,
Speaker 1: and that can disrupt the function of neurons and the
Speaker 1: neuronal connections right and contribute to neurodegeneration. So we're talking
Speaker 1: about dementia here, and we're talking about again that caffeine
Speaker 1: binding to those adnazine receptors in stopping that in potentially dementia.
Speaker 1: So in a set of humans, researchers from the University
Speaker 1: of South Florida and the University of Miami tested the
Speaker 1: blood levels of caffeine and older adults with mild cognitive
Speaker 1: impairment or perhaps even the first glimmer of some serious forgetfulness,
Speaker 1: which is usually a precursor of Alzheimer's, and then they
Speaker 1: re evaluated reevaluated them two to four years later. So,
Speaker 1: of course, what it was with the big deal with
Speaker 1: all this, the participants with little or no caffeine circulating
Speaker 1: their blood streams were far more likely to have progressed
Speaker 1: to full blown Alzheimer's rather than those who blood indicated
Speaker 1: that they had about three cups worth of coffee a day,
Speaker 1: so in a sense that the use of coffee was
Speaker 1: able to slow down the study approach of dementia and
Speaker 1: or Alzheimer's. Yeah, so, I mean that's that's a great thing, right,
Speaker 1: And like I said, there's a whole raft of studies
Speaker 1: that we'll talk about the benefits of coffee, but these
Speaker 1: are a couple of things that are very promising. And
Speaker 1: I still feel though that coffee is emerging from its
Speaker 1: shadow self. And that's really the studies that came out
Speaker 1: in the early seventies and the eighties saying, oh, coffee
Speaker 1: is awful. And the reason for this is because those
Speaker 1: studies in the seventies, uh, they were talking. They were
Speaker 1: looking at people who were both smoking and consuming coffee,
Speaker 1: and at that time they didn't realize the implications of
Speaker 1: smoking as much as we do now. And the coffee
Speaker 1: and cigarettes went together great there. It's like PB and
Speaker 1: J coffee and cigarettes. So they didn't take out those
Speaker 1: participants who were smokers, and that definitely skewed some of
Speaker 1: the results of the studies that they were looking at.
Speaker 1: And edition they had the one very famous study in
Speaker 1: which rats were giving something like a crazy amount of
Speaker 1: milligrams of caffeine, which caused their offspring to have birth defects. Well,
Speaker 1: the problem with that is that the amount of caffeine
Speaker 1: they were given was not nearly on par with what
Speaker 1: we consume as adults, or certainly like we're talking about them,
Speaker 1: we're having the equivalent of so many cups exactly other experiment.
Speaker 1: In this experiment, the rats were having, uh, the equivalent
Speaker 1: of many, many, many many cups. Like just now toxic
Speaker 1: level talked to the amount of caffeine. So they went back,
Speaker 1: actually and they redid the study with the appropriate amount
Speaker 1: of caffeine, and they found that their offspring were completely fine.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to mention that because I still
Speaker 1: feel like coffee has that a bit of that around it.
Speaker 1: Not to say that coffee can't be bad for you
Speaker 1: if consumed in massive quantities, because it can be. Well,
Speaker 1: I feel like coffee and red wine are both substances
Speaker 1: that so many studies are done on their about their effects,
Speaker 1: uh and you know, doing large part because they are
Speaker 1: both consumed in such large quantities. And then when with
Speaker 1: red wine you have the you know, the verious antioxidants
Speaker 1: that that's sort of up the game for in your
Speaker 1: research related to them. You kind of get blinders after
Speaker 1: a while. You if you hear enough studies about why
Speaker 1: you shoul drink coffee and why it's okay to drink
Speaker 1: quite red wine, you just sort of, you know, check
Speaker 1: it off in your mind where it's like, Okay, these
Speaker 1: are good, I'll just keep doing these. But what happens
Speaker 1: when you drink too much coffee, Well, you certainly become
Speaker 1: addicted to it. Now, some people get caffeine headaches if
Speaker 1: they have too much coffee. I've never suffered from this. Yeah, yeah, apparently,
Speaker 1: And this is according to the American Psychiatric Association's UH
Speaker 1: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The Bible um Psychology,
Speaker 1: some people can experience caffeine intoxication symptoms including restlessness, nervousness, excitement, zomnia,
Speaker 1: flesh face, and gastro intestinal complaints. Well, to me, that's
Speaker 1: kind of a noda, right, and specifically because of the
Speaker 1: coffee monk that we recently saw. Oh yes, what did
Speaker 1: that coffee monks today? Julie? I think that it just
Speaker 1: it's a brown coffee mug. And I think it said
Speaker 1: coffee makes me poop. Yes, And this is the true
Speaker 1: statement it's backed up by scientific research because, uh, there's
Speaker 1: a nineties study titled Effect of Coffee on distal Colon function,
Speaker 1: and the results suggests that drinking coffee can stimulate a
Speaker 1: motor response of the distal colon in some normal people. So, um,
Speaker 1: I think most people can attest to this. And uh
Speaker 1: and actually a stand up comedian, Hannibal Burris had a
Speaker 1: great bit about this in his act. He was talking
Speaker 1: about how he started, um, he you know, stantic me,
Speaker 1: and then he gets a job riding for thirty Rock
Speaker 1: and he'd never consume coffee before. And then he starts
Speaker 1: drinking coffe because he's there in the office all the
Speaker 1: other writers are drinking and he starts drinking it. And
Speaker 1: then he's he's like freaking out. He's like, nobody told
Speaker 1: me about all the pooping that was going to happen.
Speaker 1: That suddenly I drink the coffee and I have to
Speaker 1: run to the toilet. Um. And it's think most people
Speaker 1: can at test that, Yes, you drink some coffee, and
Speaker 1: it can it can really jump start the system. Your
Speaker 1: mind gets excited, but so do the do other parts
Speaker 1: of the anatomy. And uh, so you've got to run
Speaker 1: for shelter. Well, and it's a diuretic, right, so you
Speaker 1: also have to urinate a lot more. In fact, another
Speaker 1: thirty Rock thread here, I don't know if you've read
Speaker 1: Bossy Pants. Yes, do you recall in the part that
Speaker 1: said that that Tina fe is talking about being a
Speaker 1: writer in the culture of writing comedy for TV that
Speaker 1: she noticed that a lot of her male co workers
Speaker 1: had jars Oh yeah, you're in in their office, which
Speaker 1: ended up inspiring a little bit at one point in
Speaker 1: the show where one of the writers, Frank has the
Speaker 1: sun tea and the urine on the test. Well, I know,
Speaker 1: I'm I feel like it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: net benefit. It's net net actually, uh if not net
Speaker 1: net net for me because I drink a lot of
Speaker 1: coffee when I'm in the workplace or working, and even
Speaker 1: in a coffee shop of course, and so I end
Speaker 1: up having to urinate a lot. So that means I'm
Speaker 1: I'm getting out of my seat a lot, I'm walking around,
Speaker 1: so I'm getting extra exercise. Uh. So that's at least
Speaker 1: two nets. I don't know what the third one is.
Speaker 1: So I guess what you're saying is that if we
Speaker 1: didn't have an open office concept here at work, and
Speaker 1: we had walls that you might have jars in your office.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think I would do that,
Speaker 1: but I certainly think we have some coworkers who might
Speaker 1: do it. Absolutely. Yeah. All right, um, so what else
Speaker 1: about caffeine and coffee can we say? Well? The creativity
Speaker 1: element I thought was particularly interesting, And this comes in
Speaker 1: large part from a recent New Yorker article titled how
Speaker 1: Caffeine short circuits creativity, And it's it's really really interesting.
Speaker 1: The idea puts this article looks forward because we generally
Speaker 1: come to accept this idea that coffee is good for creativity.
Speaker 1: We talked about the you know, the idea that when
Speaker 1: we stopped drinking beer and we started drinking coffee, then
Speaker 1: suddenly all this creativity is bounding about and things are
Speaker 1: getting done with the culture we're talking about. You'd have
Speaker 1: that cup of coffee and suddenly you have ideas for
Speaker 1: the day about what's going to happen. Um. And we've
Speaker 1: discussed the things that it does, you know, increase youral firing,
Speaker 1: increased focus. But is this the article points out one
Speaker 1: of the real one of the hallmarks of creativity is
Speaker 1: of course, to have a wandering, unfocused mind. To take
Speaker 1: this concept and pair it with this one, to be
Speaker 1: able to stare out the window and think, think, you know,
Speaker 1: what have what have? What have dinosaurs had for? Or
Speaker 1: what if a pirate had a loose sight leg and
Speaker 1: used it as an aquarium. Yes, it's exactly so we
Speaker 1: we have all these random ideas that might pop up.
Speaker 1: And this is a lot of what it is to
Speaker 1: be creative. But if you were caffeinated to the gills
Speaker 1: and you're you're focused on one task, then you're focused
Speaker 1: on one task and you're not gonna have all these
Speaker 1: random inspirations that are coming to you. Yeah, this novel
Speaker 1: association sens that happen when we daydream. And I recall
Speaker 1: that we did an episode in which we saw a
Speaker 1: study in which, uh, something like our waking hours are
Speaker 1: dedicated to daydreaming. So that obviously helps us tease out
Speaker 1: a lot of problems and comment things in a different
Speaker 1: angle and be extremely creative because again we're making those
Speaker 1: novel associations. But if you are caffeinated all day long,
Speaker 1: then the writer of this article, Maria Kunakova, says, hey,
Speaker 1: you could be actually stripping yourself of creativity. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: don't have that mind wander time. Not, your mind's not wandering.
Speaker 1: And it can also have an effect on sleep, and
Speaker 1: studies have shown that that sleep is important for creative thinking.
Speaker 1: Two thousand nine study in fact, show that people who
Speaker 1: experienced REM sleep performed better on two tests of creative
Speaker 1: thinking than those who simply rested or napped without entering
Speaker 1: the REM cycle. So I found this. Of course, this
Speaker 1: made me sort of think a lot about my own
Speaker 1: creative processes, in my own consumption of daffine. I had
Speaker 1: that that sort of panic moment where I was like,
Speaker 1: oh goodness, maybe I've got to stop drinking coffee if
Speaker 1: it's gonna interfer with my creativity. But I think what
Speaker 1: the difference here is, And maybe you know, it's gonna
Speaker 1: vary with each individual mind, But I feel like I
Speaker 1: definitely have the type of mind that can make those
Speaker 1: those connections, Like I can you know, wonder about a
Speaker 1: pirate with a loose sight leg or a hairy dinosaur.
Speaker 1: But then but it's one thing anybody can sent around
Speaker 1: and just dream off a whole bunch of crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: But but can you then focus on it and do
Speaker 1: something with it. So I feel like that's where I
Speaker 1: need the caffeine. It's it's one thing for me to think,
Speaker 1: what have I blogged about the possible science behind this,
Speaker 1: like weird worm monster I read about, You know, it's
Speaker 1: one thing to think about that, but I need the
Speaker 1: coffee to focus on it and to actually do it.
Speaker 1: So your natural state is to mind flander. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think if I think caffeine, I'm not. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to give caffeine too much credit because it's
Speaker 1: not like if I quit drinking coffee, I would just
Speaker 1: be a complete disaster. I mean I would because for
Speaker 1: a little bit, because I'd get a headache that would
Speaker 1: make me want to curse God and die. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying it's vital to my existence, but
Speaker 1: I do feel like it helps me focus on realizing
Speaker 1: some of the ideas that I get with my wandering mind. Well,
Speaker 1: I put this idea um in front of Holly Fry
Speaker 1: of history stuff, and Holly Fry, if you guys don't know,
Speaker 1: she's extremely creative and she is doing things at all
Speaker 1: hours of creativity like she's just I mean, she's stitching
Speaker 1: together things, she's making I don't know, thumb cozies. If
Speaker 1: she has two minutes, you know, to spare a thumb cozy,
Speaker 1: just all of a sudden poof, it's there. Um, she's
Speaker 1: extremely productive, and so she drinks a ton of coffee,
Speaker 1: and so I put this idea forward to her, and
Speaker 1: then she looked at me, like, what are you talking about? Like,
Speaker 1: I drink coffee at eleven o'clock at night helps me
Speaker 1: to continue with all the projects that I have buzzing
Speaker 1: around in my mind. And then I looked at her fitbit,
Speaker 1: this bracelet that tracks her sleep and in all the
Speaker 1: steps that she takes a cyborg, she's cyborg in addition
Speaker 1: to all this, and I noticed that she had made
Speaker 1: um this rhymestone sleeve for it, because the fitbit itself
Speaker 1: wasn't pretty enough, and the fit that is sitting there
Speaker 1: sparkling underneath the rhyme stones. And I thought, no, I
Speaker 1: don't think that caffeine is taking away from her creativity. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think it ultimately that the the message from this
Speaker 1: study maybe that it's going to vary with the individual,
Speaker 1: and that you should maybe consider not drinking coffee all
Speaker 1: the time. You try to try see what it's like
Speaker 1: without it, it's it's kind of like in the same
Speaker 1: way that coffee has has some similarities to other um,
Speaker 1: psychoactive chemicals and and and drugs and things that alter
Speaker 1: our perception of reality or interface with reality. It's sometimes
Speaker 1: good to treat them, or often I guess you could
Speaker 1: say it's generally good to see those things as like
Speaker 1: a telescope or a microscope, something that adds new perspective
Speaker 1: to life. But isn't the only way that you interact
Speaker 1: with it or glimpse it, right, And you have to
Speaker 1: remember to you that coffee is going to increase your
Speaker 1: performance and thinks and sort of like wrote things that
Speaker 1: you do over and over again. It's not necessarily going
Speaker 1: to make you master a new skill. Um. It might
Speaker 1: give you a little bit more energy for that skill,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that you're going to become the
Speaker 1: conqueror of that UM. So it was really good for
Speaker 1: for bringing everything together, as you say, to a point, UM,
Speaker 1: I should add there's another thing that I do that
Speaker 1: I have found that coffee is not good for me,
Speaker 1: and that is sometimes to relax. I enjoy painting miniatures,
Speaker 1: and I've found that if I do it while drinking
Speaker 1: coffee or right after I drink coffee. I'm just my
Speaker 1: my my hands are too unsteady. I don't have really
Speaker 1: steady hands anyway. And if I have the coffee, then
Speaker 1: it's it's it's not good. Well see And and that
Speaker 1: ought to be a zen like activity anyway, right where
Speaker 1: you don't need to be in the coffee realm exactly
Speaker 1: because you're just doing the one thing. Um. I would
Speaker 1: be very interested to hear from people about how coffee
Speaker 1: affects them. Is I feel like some people are really
Speaker 1: sensitive to caffeine while others can just you know, drink
Speaker 1: it by the gallons. Yeah, And I've known people like
Speaker 1: my my friend Becky uh once claimed that she had
Speaker 1: some espresso chocolate at night and was up all night afterwards. See.
Speaker 1: And then you know as some of the psychosomatic or
Speaker 1: is that really like, is your system that sensitive? I
Speaker 1: believe that some people really are that sensitive to it.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, on that note, let's call over the
Speaker 1: robot and see what kind of listener mail we have.
Speaker 1: Believe this one is another one has to do with
Speaker 1: the sensory deprivation tanks. We've received a lot of cool
Speaker 1: comments on this episode so far these episodes. By the way, UH,
Speaker 1: just a little tip if you are going to go
Speaker 1: into a sensory deprivation tank, do not drink caffeine beforehand. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not a good idea. Yeah, for a few different reasons.
Speaker 1: So this one comes to us from Seth. Seth writes,
Speaker 1: since says Hi, Julian Robert, I recently finished it your
Speaker 1: episode on sensory deprivation tanks and wanted to write in
Speaker 1: with my story. During my sen year at year at college,
Speaker 1: I UH interned at a neurofeedback clinic specializing in a
Speaker 1: d h D behavior modification therapy. One of the benefits
Speaker 1: of working at the clinic was the on site sensory
Speaker 1: deprivation chamber that we call the float tank. I got
Speaker 1: in the float tank as much as I could during
Speaker 1: that year, somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty to sixty times.
Speaker 1: It was fascinating. Um my experience with it was quite positive.
Speaker 1: The first time I got in, I was nervous and
Speaker 1: did not really relax or have any experiences. Apparently this
Speaker 1: was normal. However, each subsequent visit resulted in more intense
Speaker 1: experiences and increased time spent in the tank. I've tried
Speaker 1: to describe my experiences to others and have always fallen short.
Speaker 1: The closest that I come can come to describe it
Speaker 1: is that it feels like deep meditation with the benefits
Speaker 1: of a power cat nap. I would emerge from the
Speaker 1: float tank after an hour and feel as if I
Speaker 1: had slept for three or four hours. I never had
Speaker 1: out of body experiences, but I did feel an overwhelming
Speaker 1: sense of calm and understanding. As a side note, the
Speaker 1: chief clinician at the clinic would sleep for only five
Speaker 1: hours a day, and he would do so in the
Speaker 1: float tank. He stated that he felt yes, he stated
Speaker 1: that he felt as if he had slept twelve hours afterwards.
Speaker 1: So some advice on your future visits or visits to
Speaker 1: the float tank. Visited several times to get a good
Speaker 1: real sense of it. Anxiety about it is normal as
Speaker 1: it is abnormal constructed is it is an abnormal constructed experience,
Speaker 1: and it is not found in nature that we evolved in.
Speaker 1: But it is very enlightening. Thank you for the awesome show.
Speaker 1: Seth Wow. Five hours in the tank. That was that
Speaker 1: was really impressive. Whenever at that because I'm also trying
Speaker 1: to picture this dude, he only sleeps in a in
Speaker 1: a sensory deprivation tank and only does so like five
Speaker 1: to six hours a night. Been going to put this
Speaker 1: out there that he must not have a close significant
Speaker 1: other unless well maybe maybe they sleep together, or maybe
Speaker 1: they exist solely in the astral plane. That's how beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. But well, I can see now know why
Speaker 1: those five hours would would bear out something that felt
Speaker 1: like twelve hours, because it is the most relaxing thing
Speaker 1: that I've ever done in my life. So I can't
Speaker 1: imagine sleeping through the evening in one of those cool
Speaker 1: All right, Steth, Well, thanks for right man. Uh for
Speaker 1: As for the rest of you, yet, we would love
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts on scencessory deprivation tanks, on Harry dinosaurs,
Speaker 1: on pirates with blue site peg legs, and generally about creativity,
Speaker 1: About coffee, About your coffee consumption, Um, if you've recently
Speaker 1: started drinking coffee, what kind of changes have you noticed
Speaker 1: in your physiology and in your thought process? Have you
Speaker 1: recently stopped drinking coffee? Tell us about that nightmare. We
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. How can you get
Speaker 1: in touch with this, how can you find as well?
Speaker 1: The mother ship as always is Stuff to Bow Your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. You're stuffed to bow your Mind on
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Speaker 1: and over on YouTube our channel is Mind Stuff Show
Speaker 1: and you can always drop us a line at blow
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Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com