Coffee-breaks sabotage employees' abilities "St Claire and Rogers decided to investigate caffeine's effects on work stress after hearing an anecdote at a stress workshop. A man described how he and a group of normally cohesive colleagues went on a business trip to the US.
Unlike in the UK, coffee was freely available and the team over-indulged. Within days their stress levels had escalated and they believe the extra caffeine had disrupted their working relationships, and impaired their working ability.
The Bristol team tested caffeine's effects on 32 coffee-drinkers. They told them they would be given a caffeinated coffee that would boost their performance, or a caffeinated coffee which causes stress-like side-effects, or decaffeinated coffee. However, unknown to the volunteers, only half the drinks contained 200 mg of caffeine and the other half contained none. The subjects then carried out two stressful tasks."
""Certainly in our experience of people drinking coffee there's a tendency for all sorts of personal interactions to get a little more intense. If there was a stressful situation there would be more shouting, yelling, louder talking," he told New Scientist. "This is very interesting confirmation.""
Beware of taking Bristolites to cafes with bottomless cups of coffee - violence, mayhem and talking louder could ensue.
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