Many people enjoy a delicious cup of coffee for breakfast or lunch. While it’s known that caffeine gives people an energy boost, it also has a hidden benefit. Recent research has found that it improves your visual skills.
A test was conducted with 21 young people who didn’t consume a lot of caffeine. They either took a caffeine pill or a harmless placebo.
The ones who ingested the caffeine were more effective at detecting moving targets and minute details. When given visual tasks, they were also more accurate and faster.
The ones who took the placebo pill were vastly inferior, skill-wise, while the caffeine was in effect. They were both slower and less accurate.
In short, the young people who had caffeine received a temporary boost in visual processing.
Limitations
While you can certainly take advantage of caffeine for a boost, researchers don’t recommend consuming too much caffeine in a day. It may prevent deep sleep and cause sleep disruption.
Sleep disruption can affect your nervous system, increase inflammation rates, and contribute to weight gain.
Thus, having a cup of coffee is good, but too much will cause other health problems that aren’t worth the slight visual advantage.
Staying Alert
It may seem like a good idea to increase your caffeine consumption, but remember that coffee isn’t the only source of caffeine. Other foods like chocolate and protein bars may have it too. In all, we recommend consuming moderate amounts for the visual processing boost.
