If you’ve been at a college campus you might have seen students walking around holding travel mugs full of a dark liquid. This liquid of choice is usually coffee and has become the go-to drink of choice for students of all ages.
The reason for this may be because of the productivity and energy coffee imbues into you when ingested. Many students drink coffee while they study, but the question we will answer today is, does coffee actually help you study and get better grades?
The answer may not surprise you, but yes there are proven benefits to coffee that will allow you to be more productive and ultimately get you better grades. However, keep in mind too much of anything will be a bad thing. This article will also go into how coffee may also deleteriously affect your grades and college life if used incorrectly.
How coffee affects your body
There are many incredible health benefits you can gain from drinking coffee. Today, we will be going over the most important reasons why coffee can affect college students to give them better grades and help them study.
In a time of instant gratification and short attention spans, it is imperative to learn how to stay focused and not get distracted. This is the main benefit that coffee has when studying for a test or preparing for a presentation.
Because of social media, we have all been trained to look at our phones. We get easily distracted by dings and notifications and before we know it we’re scrolling through some feed wasting all of our time. I’ve experienced it, and you probably have too.
Luckily there is a chemical in coffee called caffeine that increases the brain’s ability to concentrate. Caffeine is a mild stimulant that has been proven by medical studies to boost alertness, attention, and concentration.
There has even been a study done that proves that caffeine improves memory performance, particularly when tedious, repetitive tasks are involved. This is directly from this article from the Coffee and Health organization which focuses on scientific information on coffee.
Studying, in my opinion, is one of the most tedious and repetitive tasks and coffee will definitely improve your memory when performing this task. Another thing that coffee does that helps during studying that was already stated was alertness.
Alertness translates into attention to detail while you are studying and you will be able to notice and memorize things that you read that you may not before. There are many times during tests that answer was something I know I glanced over something but did not pay attention to. Coffee probably would have helped me remember what the answer was.
Short term benefits coffee has for students
As a student, there is a high probability that you are sleep-deprived. Believe me, during college I definitely was. This is why I believe coffee is the best drink that students to have in the morning.
Research suggests that the caffeine in coffee can restore levels of wakefulness and can counteract sleep deprivation. As a student cram studying this can help you continue studying after a late night of studying.
Sleepiness due to an altered sleep schedule can also increase the risk of mistakes. However, this doesn’t completely remove the need to sleep, it only delays it. You will still need to get a full night of sleep eventually. Coffee just helps push this time back until after all your deadlines.
Coffee can also improve your mood. If you’re working and studying with other students or in a group project situation having a good mood is important. A good mood can help you communicate with your other team members and smooth over any issues you have with the people you’re working with.
Long term benefits of coffee for students
Here are some reasons you should continue drinking coffee long after you graduate from being a student.
There have been many studies done on the miraculous drink called coffee. More than a few of them have produced some surprising results.
One focus of many scientific studies has shown that regular coffee consumption over a lifetime reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease. This number comes out to a nearly 20% decrease in the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.
There has also been research suggesting regular coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease. Surprisingly with these studies the risk of developing Parkinson’s decreases with increasing coffee intake.
Lastly, there have been studies done that showed regular coffee drinking throughout your life can slow down age-related cognitive decline. This is especially true with women, and the protective effect increases with your age. Of course, regular exercise helps with this as well.
On a different note, other than the neurological protection coffee provides you, it also provides you with social benefits. Many times in my professional life I have gone on coffee chats.
These chats are professional talks done over a cup of coffee. Going to a bar is too unprofessional, but we still wanted a casual setting to talk. You can expect this to happen to you during your professional career as you do outreach and try to connect with others.
Does coffee help you do better on tests and exams
Yes, coffee actually does help you do better on tests and exams.
There have been studies done on this.
Michael Yassa, a professor at Johns Hopkins has done a study that showed a positive effect on memory which can be used on tests to improve your score.
The study did a double-blind test that had participants have some caffeine and take a look at a series of images. Then, 24 hours later they were tested on their ability to recognize the images from the day before.
More members of the group that had caffeine were able to recognize the difference between the items.
This shows a higher level of memory retention and pattern recognition.
Now think of this, but on a test. You want to use every advantage you can get to get the best possible grade. This is why you should drink coffee while studying and before tests to boost your memory retention and recollection to ace your next test.
How coffee can be detrimental to students if used improperly
The last part of this article is going to be about how you should not use coffee.
Using coffee this way may actually be detrimental to your health and your test scores.
What you should not do is use coffee to stay awake and study all night. If you do this I can guarantee you will be left tired and will not be able to remember anything during your tests.
What you should do instead is get a full night’s rest and use coffee in the morning and while you are studying, while keeping in mind when you are going to sleep so your body does not have too much caffeine in it to disrupt your natural sleep cycle.
Moderation is key to any drug, and this includes caffeine. Too much caffeine can result in restless sleep and can cause you to be groggy and low energy the next day. If you’re tired you won’t study and will be likely to get distracted easily.
Make sure to pay back your caffeine and energy debt once your tests are over and don’t continue drinking a lot of coffee when you don’t need to. Let your body reset and go back to equilibrium.
Conclusion
Coffee is a great tool for students when used correctly.
Make sure to drink coffee while studying, and ace your next test for me!
As with all of the best things in life, enjoy your coffee in moderation.
Please check out the other articles in my blog or check out the store to learn more about the coffee beans we roast exclusively for students and educators!