It’s easy to brew, provides you a lift in the morning, and now it appears that just one cup of coffee might help you multitask.
When they saw the numbers one or two on a screen, researchers instructed 35 participants to hit various buttons. When they heard two separate noises playing at the same time, they were given two more buttons to hit.
Those who conducted the experiment without first drinking a cup of coffee took 0.68 seconds longer to touch numerous buttons than those who only focused on one task. Those that were given a cup of instant black coffee took 0.54 seconds longer to complete the task.
Dr Andre Szameitat, who led the study from Brunel University, said that coffee drinkers ‘may be pleased by the results’. But he stressed that the study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, was only small and said more research was needed.
‘The findings certainly suggest their coffee habit may help them juggle the competing demands of everyday life, including work and everything else.
‘However this is a small study not taking into account people’s levels of sleep deprivation, or whether they were regular coffee drinkers, so more research is needed.’
The study asked people to avoid caffeine for four hours before the experiment.
Those then allowed coffee had three teaspoons of it in a standard mug, without milk or sugar.
The coffee-drinkers saw a reduction in their speed just like other people when asked to switch from one task to doing two simultaneously.
But that speed reduction was slashed by 21 per cent, researchers found.
People given coffee slowed down by 0.54 seconds, while those denied the caffeinated drink slowed down by 0.68 seconds.
The experiment involved people pressing two different buttons on a computer keyboard with their right hand depending on whether the number one to two came up on a screen.
Then they were also asked to press two different buttons with their left hand depending on whether they heard a high-pitched or low sound through headphones.
The sounds and numbers came at the same time, to mimic the difficulties of doing several things at once in everyday life.
It has been suggested that caffeine makes people more alert by boosting chemicals in the brain which help to improve organisational skills.
The study, which involved a total of 274 people, also found those who play video games, and have trained their brains to multi-task, are better at doing it.
Bilingual people, who constantly switch between languages, slowed down less when multi-tasking too.
Very neurotic people, who can become stressed, anxious and overwhelmed, slowed down more than other people when asked to multi-task, as did people with dyslexia.