File this under: No Shit Sherlock. Coffee drinkers who drink coffee in the morning are happier and more energetic than coffee drinkers who don’t drink coffee in the morning. These are the findings of a new study on the effects of caffeine consumption, and honestly if that’s what they wanted to know, they could have just asked.
To be fair, that wasn’t the only takeaway from the latest study on coffee to be published in the journal Scientific Reports. Per Medical Express, the goal was to determine how caffeine consumption at various points in the day affects mood, both positively and negatively. For it, psychologists from Germany’s Bielefeld University and the UK’s University of Warwick followed 236 young adult coffee drinkers in Germany. Over the course of two to four weeks, participants were tasked with completing short questionnaires seven different times a day about their mood and whether or not they had consumed caffeine in the last 90 minutes. The questions would be answered via smartphone, thus allowing the researchers to examine caffeine consumption in everyday life as opposed to under lab conditions.
They found that those who consumed caffeine in the morning, defined as occurring 2.5 hours after waking up, showed a significant association with higher feelings of happiness and enthusiasm than in the instances where the same individuals didn’t any caffeine during the same timeframe. These positive feelings waned as coffee consumption creeped later into the day.
They also found that drinking coffee was associated with decreased feelings of sadness or being upset relative to uncaffeinated instances during the same time. The impact was less than that of the morning coffee’s positive effect but the correlation held regardless of when in the day the consumption occurred.
These results were equally present regardless of typical consumption levels or mental state. Lead author Justin Hachenberger states, “We were somewhat surprised to find no differences between individuals with varying levels of caffeine consumption or differing degrees of depressive symptoms, anxiety, or sleep problems. The links between caffeine intake and positive or negative emotions were fairly consistent across all groups.”
The researchers were quick to note that the findings don’t necessarily mean caffeine can’t adversely affect those with anxiety or sleep issues. It is likely the case that those with these sorts of reactions to coffee likely avoid drinking it, thus they were not included in this study.
Still, for coffee drinkers, drinking coffee in the morning is a mood-enhancing necessity. Not that you needed a group of psychologists to tell you that. But it’s nice to hear anyway.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
