A Cuppa Joe

you know, a standard coffee machine? Yeah. I don't know if someone asked me if if our coffee machine had been seasoned, and I was like, what do you mean season and apparently like if you brew a certain amount of times then infuses your coffee with a better flavor. Yeah. Seasoned is often a term for gross stup, you know, like, yeah, that's there enough stuff growing in or on your kitchen implement to give it as the desired flavor. Then yes, yea, it is seasoned. What about you? We we use um,

just like we have a standard Mr Coffee. Um, We've tried to use different you know, perculators and stuff and never quite works out. When I was coming back to Mr Coffee and then I also bring out the French breasts if I want to do something a little nicer. I knew you had the fancy pants when it came to coffee, that is not No, I don't even begin to have fancy pants because there are so many complex

ways of making coffee. There's so many different cold brew devices, and of course pour over is the big thing these days. And uh, I'm I'm really I mean, I'm not a straight up, you know, instant coffee drinker. I'm not I'm not a tencent cup kind of a guy, but I'm I'm definitely far from fancy. Well, all I know is that, um, there was like a month here at how stuff works when our our bean supply got really low, and you you were the person who blaze the trails and saying

we must fortify the being supply. So I know it's important to you. Coffee is important to me. I I drink coffee every day, and if I forget to drink it, my my body is quick to remind me that I forgot to drink it. And uh, and I like a good cup of coffee, but I'm just not not as as picky as a lot of people are. And uh, and maybe my tasting coffee is just not as nuance. But but I do love love a good cup of coffee. Well, I mean, this is one of those things that you

could discuss this for hours and hours. You can talk about shade grow and you can talk about fair trade. We're not going to talk about those aspects, nor are we going to talk about the different ritals um that exist. All fascinating, but we're gonna to kind of go into what coffee is doing to your brain in some of the benefits of coffee. And uh, first I wanted to point out something about coffee, or caffeine in particular, that it is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance on Earth.

I don't think that's surprising. In North America, around adults report using caffeine every day, eighteen billion dollar business in the US, and there are more than sixteen billion pounds of coffee beings produced per year in the US. That is a lot of psychoactivity. And the number one consumption of coffee in the United States Gas No New York City. Oh yes, that would that would make a lot more sense. Yeah, um, coffee one oh one. Here, let's go through some of

the basics for you guys. Yeah, so coffee beans of course, So these come from from the coffee plant and theise are you know, seeds found in the pit of a cherry sized fruit on the coffee plant. And if you just if you've had the experience, if you've visited like a coffee farm and had the chance to try them, you can't just does not taste like coffee if you just pick it up in sweet right, like sweet sweet

and a little you know, bitter. It's it's not something where you would just feel like snacking on them, like you're not getting a it's not like eating a blueberry, and it's not like eating a coffee bean. And presumably though you'd get a bit of a caffeine rush just from this. Yeah, because the earlier methods, if you go back in time, you know, did not involve slow roasting

coffee beans. Um. One that I ran across, uh, and this is actually from the house Stuff Works article on coffee um is that early East African tribes would mix the coffee berries and that's again they unhold beans called a coffee cherry with animal fat forming energy balls. So you could think of it as a as a primitive power bar, except except maybe a little less gross. Yeah. I was just thinking about that. I was a kid,

you not. I was thinking about the wrapper that would go around that, like animal fat, big lump of fat and coffee bear is just poked in and you just you just shot down the whole thing and then you're good to go. Handcrafted. Yeah, there you go. Um. Yeah, So I think the interesting thing about that too is that the beans are actually seeds. We call them beans um and coffee trees. They are woody perennial evergreens, and

they are grown in tropical climates and seventy different countries. Uh. These climates, these countries, the areas are known as the bean belt. So I already mentioned the some some early East African tribes. You have some stuff on goat herders as well. Yeah, the is and this is again from how Coffee Works, our article that we have on house

supports dot com. There is an Ethiopian legend whearing coffee is discovered by a goat hurder named Caldi, who found his goats frolicking and full of energy after eating the

red berries. And uh, Caldi tried the berries for himself, and lo and behold, he also started frolicking around, and after witnessing the strange behavior of this goat hurder and his goats, a monk took some of the berries back to his fellow monks, and then they stayed up all night long and they were alert and behold the coffee beans powers were revealed. They also became rather big, of course, in in the in the Islamic world, and kind of flowed with the expansion of Islamic culture and uh and

some people say whirling dervishes. Actually um of early Islam especially had were fueled by coffee. Whirling dervishes. Of course. I think everyone's seeing footage films of this where there's the they wear these kind of flowing garments, they go into these swirling patterns and it's really really beautiful stuff.

At least a lot of coffee would make sense. Yeah, I mean, apparently during the thirteenth century, coffee was extremely popular with Muslim um communities because of its stimulant powers. So you can see how they also appealed to this monks with the with the goat herder who discovered it,

because what do you do with those stimulant powers? Um, It can be very useful during really long prayer sessions, and so the story behind this, according to Tory Avy, who is writing for PBS and her article The Caffeinated History of Coffee, is that coffee plants, they did not exist outside of Arabia or Africa until the sixteen hundreds when this guy named Baba Boudon, an Indian pilgrim, left Mecca with the legend says, fertile beans fastened to a

strap across his abdomen smuggle him out, smuggled him out and established a new and competitive European coffee trade, which leads perfectly to the Age of Enlightenment exactly. So, I think everyone's heard this story before. This is the idea that, uh, you know, in human history, um, water wasn't always the best thing to drink. It wasn't always the purest um. So drinking water to maintain your hydration level might make

you fabulously sick. Better off trusting good old fashioned beer. Now, the thing about drinking beer all day is that, aside from from really probably making you feel bloated um most of the time, you're also going to be intoxicated most of the time. You're gonna take long naps, You're going to vomit in the streets and uh, and generally you're

probably not going to get that much done. I mean, some individuals have have a really you know, high work rate when they're inebriated, but I think they're the exception that proves the rule. And you have to remember to that we're talking about the six We were talking about societies in which you know that the seasons sort of ruled them a lot more than than our modern technology rules us right now. So there were periods of time, you know, in the winter, for instance, where there wasn't

anything to do. There wasn't any farming to do, so what would you do? Yeah, and at night you're limited by how many candles or torches can you lie? You know what I mean. It's the limitations were placed something by their environment and by the seasons. So you would pass the time perhaps drinking some meat, some good old meat, and snoring a lot. And although you might have communed at a tavern, you would still all be sitting around sort of like, you know, half polluted in your mind

and half asleep. But the whole the coffee trade and the coffee houses that began to spring up in Europe, because here's something else I can drink all day and uh and not necessarily get sick on. And it also also has an influence on my my state of mind. All of a sudden, people are chatting and they're awake, and they are, you know, talking about all these different ideas and focus on them. They're focusing and they're from all different socio economic backgrounds, so you're not just getting

one perspective here. And uh, this is what a lot of people credit for helping to usher in the age of enlightenment. In fact, there is a book called Uncommon Grounds, The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World by Mark Pendergrass. He makes that claim as well as author Stephen Johnson, who has a great ted talk about creativity and cites coffee as being one of the fonts of creativity and energy. Yeah. Now, of course one of

the things. Today you go into a coffee shop, like I find this especially the case when I go into your coffee shop, because we each have coffee shops, yeah, fairly close to each other that are there our own turf. I know better than to go to Julie's turf unless I'm invited, because that's that's where she's working and then likewise, you don't show up on my turf. No, not even when the power is out. The other week, I was like, man, I can't get a Robert's coffee shop. Which places will

come out? But but when I go to your coffee shop, and I mainly bring this one up because your coffee shop cans have more people in it. There are a lot of people just working with headphones and there's some people collaborating. But it seems like, you know, within our modern technological age, um, maybe we're less likely to do a lot of you know, collaborating with people, uh in these coffee shops. But then again, we're connected to people

outside of it. And I think if you're like me, there are certain individuals you you chat with every day, uh, you know, you know, by email and by g chat and what have you. Um, you know, being a friend or my wife, and I can often tell when they've had their caffeine because that's when they're reaching out to me with all of these ideas and cool stuff and they're really excited about something and uh, and if our caffeine levels match up, then we're able to go back

and forth. If not, I might be like, oh, I'm gonna put you on ignore for a little bit because because I'm I'm trying to catch up on my edge. You know. Yeah, yeah, this happens. I think especially on the weekends. I noticed this with my husband because I'll drink a lot of caffeine. I'll but it isn't it. And then we'll listen, they will get ike and people time to you won't And he's like, whoa, I'm still in my first cup. So yes, we know it is powerful, powerful stimulant um and it has had a lot of

influence on the modern world. Let's talk about what is in a cup of this stuff? Yeah, magic demons that that course through your blood and chew on the creative portions of your brain. Exactly. Yeah, just they just roost right in there. Um Patrick, did you Stow writing for Wired? In his article What's Inside a Cup of Coffee? Really details exactly what's in there. And I don't know that we're going to go through every single thing that is in there, but we wanted to hit the big ones

because it's pretty fascinating. Um, here's the big dub one water content. Turns out that point seven is water at one point to five is soluble plant matter. Okay, so you're mostly paying for for water for water, Yeah, caffeine another element um But this is interesting, actually an alkaloid plant toxin. It's found in other plants, and it is meant to be a natural pesticide. Oh so that's the reason it was developed or the reason it evolved in

these plants exactly. That's why caffeine is in there to say, But to the bugs, hey I'm toxic. If you chew on me, you will die. Now, what happens to the human brain with that same sort of element we will find out in a moment. It's also also worth pointing out that it operates in the brain the same way that amphetamines such as cocaine and heroin do. Yes, which which is maybe a bit of a no brainer. But caffeine, of course, is a much milder stimulant than those drugs.

Even even a lot of caffeine, you're not going to get the same effect that you would get off of somebody doing a much of heroin or coke, obviously, right, But what else is on this list stuff in the Wired article? Okay, we have to ethel phenol, and this creates a tar like medicinal odor in your morning coffee. There it's also this is awesome, a component of cockroach along arm pheromones, chemical signals that warn the colony of danger. The same chemical. Then there's also a clinic acid, and

this gives coffee it's slightly sour flavor. Uh, And it's also one of the starter chemicals in the formulation of tama flute. There is also something called a subtle methyl carbonyl and according to the article, it's that rich buttery taste in your daily jolt, which comes apart from this flammable yellow liquid, the same liquid that gives real butter its flavor and is a component of artificial flavoring and microwave popcorn. And then we have left the best for last.

It's future scene, right, which sounds lovely. It sounds like something you want in your daily cup. Yeah, it's an organic chemical compound and it's related to cadavering, and both are both are produced by the breakdown of amino acids and living and dead organisms. So Digesto and his article actually describes the smell as Satan's outhouse. And now that I'm why would Satan have an awful outhouse? I think

It depends on your interpretation. He might have a really clean out well that because I think you your version is a benevolent satan or you know, or maybe it's like constantly crate cleaned by um, you know, by by the suffering damned. I don't know. I can see that, Yeah, I can see that. Well, in that case, then they might be that that might be a component of it. Yeah, but I'm I'm hijacking the discussion with non scientific data here.

Thankfully that the amount of future scene is just miniscules, so it's a scant levels that that wonderful outhouse smell. All right, we're gonna take a break, and when we come back, we're going to talk a little more about us specifically. The most one of the really exciting things here is is how does coffee affect creativity? And you might be surprised at some of what we have to say about that. And yes, we will also talk about coffee's ability to, shall we say, ramp up the digestive system.

All right, we're back. We're talking about coffee. We're talking about the effects that coffee has on the body and on the mind. So, uh, let's get to it. What what's next? Time the click. All right, so we're gonna talk about the chemical changes in our brain, because this is what caffeine is doing. It is gaming the brain, and uh specifically, it is crossing over the blood brain barrier. And now this is that the interface between the brain and the body's circulatory system that is meant to take

to keep out all the bad chemicals. But caffeine can cross into the brain and when it does, it becomes an impostor of sorts. Now when I say impostor, I mean that it is taking on the identity of something called identazine. No. Identazine is this byproduct of um all those neurons firing. It creates this substance in the brain. And the build up of adentazine is actually monitored by your nervous systems. Your nervous system says, oh, there's a

lot of adentazine accumulated here. This is going to tip off this whole reaction in our body that says that we need to take a nap or go to sleep or even wake up. Adenazine is part and parcel of how we manage our body clock. And what happens is that that caffeine sneaks in and it looks chemically similar to adnazine. So it takes adentazine's place in the adenazine receptors. It bonds to the receptors, and what happens is that

it blocks that adnazine from bonding with those receptors. And now your body, your brain doesn't know what's going on. It doesn't have the sort of signals that it might get from those receptors saying whoa, we need to slow down the body. So that's how caffeine can bond with those receptors and change your level of energy even when you're you really should be tired. This is how you get that that like the PM boost to finish studying for the test the next day. Yeah, exactly, because you

are tricking your body into thinking that it's not tired. Yeah. Very sneaky, don't you think. Yeah, it is. There's a lot more, a lot more sneakiness involved than you know,

would initially think. Now, this also causes increased neuron firing and a lot more just pup you going on in the brain as the ideas fire around and uh and and you start making plans for the day, the book you're gonna write, the ikea trip, you're gonna make all that that's right, because all of that increased neuron firing is causing the petuitary to gland to sort of wake up and go, wow, that's a lot of activity going

on there. There must be an emergency. And then the adrenal glands get on, get in on the game, and of course adournaline is produced, and your pupils dilate, your heart rate increases, your your airways open up, among a lot of other things. But yeah, this is what gets you into that one. Ideas have to come out of my room right now. Yeah, so you got boosting energy, decrease fatigue, and it enhances physical, cognitive, and motor performance.

It aids short term memory, problem solving, decision making, and concentration. These are all great reasons to have a cup of coffee. But the question is, is some of the psychological you mean, like the Paucebo effect exactly where I say, all right, I'm no good till I have my morning cup, and I'm just by believing that I'm no good till I have my morning cup. Yeah, I mean, we we talked

about the power of the placebo. The placebo effect absolutely works. Um, whatever kind of quack uh you know um medicine, you're taking your magic being you're swallowing. That's a whole another story. But the polcebo effect the ability to believe in something's positive or negative effect in the in in some cases you know, there's all no sebo thing to discuss um that actually works, So just believing that it does something can in certain cases have an effect you believe it.

So for instance, your heart rate, yes, it does increase. But if you know that caffeine and coffee will help you to better focus, are you more predisposed to really engage in being focused? Um? So. There is a two thousand eleven study at the University of East London where a group of psychologists examine the effects of caffeine on problem solving and emotional responses. And in a double blind study, eight habitual coffee drinkers were given cups of caffeinated and

decaffinated coffees at random. So subjects who received caffeine but they were told that they were drinking decaf did not show an improved reaction time in the task that they gave that the research group gave them, and likewise in a measure of reward motivation and something called the card arranging reward responsivity objectivity test another way of measuring this.

The participants who believe they had consumed coffee sorted the cards more quickly than those who believe that they consumed decaf, So no doubt there is in part a psychological component of coffee. Yeah, and I guess it. You know, really there has to be in anything you take. I mean, like I think you were you. You spoke recently about

having an ice cream that was Chardonnay flavored. If I remember pair popsicle, right, and let's be honest, there was probably very small amount of alcohol, if any really, and I could taste it, I'm telling well, yeah, okay, so we should tell everybody I don't drink. So when I had, when the reasoning hit my tongue, I was like, oh, and so it brought back memories of having had reesling. And after I finished that popsicle and I finished every drop of it, um, I did feel a little bit loopy.

But then I wondered, yea, what extent is that the poucebo effect? YEA, to what extent is it just your mind saying, oh this this tastes like reasoning, and therefore this is the reasoning effect. I feel, I feel lighter, I feel a little a little happier, and maybe I shouldn't drive a tractor exactly. Yeah, And I didn't drive a tractor that day. Good, But it was on vacation, and you're right, I was sort of primed, and you know, it was the beach, and I was like, not a

care in the world. So yeah, the recling effect. So over the years, there just have been a raft of studies that extol the virtues of coffee, um, from the nutrient and antioxidant content to the idea that it could lower the risk of type two diabetes, some types of cancers. UM. I think there was even one study that had a ten percent increase in longevity. So we could spend hours and hours on that, but I thought it we might make a little bit more sense if we talked about

some of the real pronounced effects of coffee. And I'm talking about coffee in dementia, because animal experiments show that caffeine may reshape the biochemical environment side our brains in a way that could actually stave off dementia. And this is a very big concern as we age, right, because dementia seems to be one of those um illnesses that seem to become more and more prevalent in our society. Well, one of the two big trolls under the bridge when it comes to aging and then I going to is

my body going to fail? Is my mind going to fail? Or both trolls going to jump out and get me exactly exactly. So, there's a experiment at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne and mice were briefly starved of oxygen, causing them to lose the ability to form memories. Half of the mice received a dose of caffeine that was

equivalent to several cups of coffee. So that's on par with what we would consume, right, and then after they were reoxygenated, the caffeinated mice regained their ability to form new memories faster than the uncafeated And these were these were again coffee for mice, right like tiny little cups, not like and little cafe tables. UM. So close examination of the the animals brain dies, you showed that the caffeine

disrupted the action of a tendency which we talked about. UM. It can be destructive, it turns out if it leaks out when the cells are injured or under stress. This is something that we've seen in dementia. So the escaped adnazine can jump sir, a biochemical cascade leading to inflammation, and that can disrupt the function of neurons and the

neuronal connections right and contribute to neurodegeneration. So we're talking about dementia here, and we're talking about again that caffeine binding to those adnazine receptors in stopping that in potentially dementia.

So in a set of humans, researchers from the University of South Florida and the University of Miami tested the blood levels of caffeine and older adults with mild cognitive impairment or perhaps even the first glimmer of some serious forgetfulness, which is usually a precursor of Alzheimer's, and then they

re evaluated reevaluated them two to four years later. So, of course, what it was with the big deal with all this, the participants with little or no caffeine circulating their blood streams were far more likely to have progressed to full blown Alzheimer's rather than those who blood indicated that they had about three cups worth of coffee a day, so in a sense that the use of coffee was able to slow down the study approach of dementia and

or Alzheimer's. Yeah, so, I mean that's that's a great thing, right, And like I said, there's a whole raft of studies that we'll talk about the benefits of coffee, but these are a couple of things that are very promising. And I still feel though that coffee is emerging from its shadow self. And that's really the studies that came out in the early seventies and the eighties saying, oh, coffee is awful. And the reason for this is because those

studies in the seventies, uh, they were talking. They were looking at people who were both smoking and consuming coffee, and at that time they didn't realize the implications of smoking as much as we do now. And the coffee and cigarettes went together great there. It's like PB and J coffee and cigarettes. So they didn't take out those participants who were smokers, and that definitely skewed some of the results of the studies that they were looking at.

And edition they had the one very famous study in which rats were giving something like a crazy amount of milligrams of caffeine, which caused their offspring to have birth defects. Well, the problem with that is that the amount of caffeine they were given was not nearly on par with what we consume as adults, or certainly like we're talking about them, we're having the equivalent of so many cups exactly other experiment. In this experiment, the rats were having, uh, the equivalent

of many, many, many many cups. Like just now toxic level talked to the amount of caffeine. So they went back, actually and they redid the study with the appropriate amount of caffeine, and they found that their offspring were completely fine. So I just wanted to mention that because I still feel like coffee has that a bit of that around it. Not to say that coffee can't be bad for you

if consumed in massive quantities, because it can be. Well, I feel like coffee and red wine are both substances that so many studies are done on their about their effects, uh and you know, doing large part because they are both consumed in such large quantities. And then when with red wine you have the you know, the verious antioxidants that that's sort of up the game for in your research related to them. You kind of get blinders after

a while. You if you hear enough studies about why you shoul drink coffee and why it's okay to drink quite red wine, you just sort of, you know, check it off in your mind where it's like, Okay, these are good, I'll just keep doing these. But what happens when you drink too much coffee, Well, you certainly become addicted to it. Now, some people get caffeine headaches if

they have too much coffee. I've never suffered from this. Yeah, yeah, apparently, And this is according to the American Psychiatric Association's UH Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The Bible um Psychology, some people can experience caffeine intoxication symptoms including restlessness, nervousness, excitement, zomnia, flesh face, and gastro intestinal complaints. Well, to me, that's kind of a noda, right, and specifically because of the

coffee monk that we recently saw. Oh yes, what did that coffee monks today? Julie? I think that it just it's a brown coffee mug. And I think it said coffee makes me poop. Yes, And this is the true statement it's backed up by scientific research because, uh, there's a nineties study titled Effect of Coffee on distal Colon function, and the results suggests that drinking coffee can stimulate a motor response of the distal colon in some normal people. So, um,

I think most people can attest to this. And uh and actually a stand up comedian, Hannibal Burris had a great bit about this in his act. He was talking about how he started, um, he you know, stantic me, and then he gets a job riding for thirty Rock and he'd never consume coffee before. And then he starts drinking coffe because he's there in the office all the other writers are drinking and he starts drinking it. And

then he's he's like freaking out. He's like, nobody told me about all the pooping that was going to happen. That suddenly I drink the coffee and I have to run to the toilet. Um. And it's think most people can at test that, Yes, you drink some coffee, and it can it can really jump start the system. Your mind gets excited, but so do the do other parts of the anatomy. And uh, so you've got to run for shelter. Well, and it's a diuretic, right, so you

also have to urinate a lot more. In fact, another thirty Rock thread here, I don't know if you've read Bossy Pants. Yes, do you recall in the part that said that that Tina fe is talking about being a writer in the culture of writing comedy for TV that she noticed that a lot of her male co workers had jars Oh yeah, you're in in their office, which ended up inspiring a little bit at one point in the show where one of the writers, Frank has the

sun tea and the urine on the test. Well, I know, I'm I feel like it's a it's a it's a net benefit. It's net net actually, uh if not net net net for me because I drink a lot of coffee when I'm in the workplace or working, and even in a coffee shop of course, and so I end up having to urinate a lot. So that means I'm I'm getting out of my seat a lot, I'm walking around, so I'm getting extra exercise. Uh. So that's at least two nets. I don't know what the third one is.

So I guess what you're saying is that if we didn't have an open office concept here at work, and we had walls that you might have jars in your office. I don't know. I don't think I would do that, but I certainly think we have some coworkers who might do it. Absolutely. Yeah. All right, um, so what else

about caffeine and coffee can we say? Well? The creativity element I thought was particularly interesting, And this comes in large part from a recent New Yorker article titled how Caffeine short circuits creativity, And it's it's really really interesting. The idea puts this article looks forward because we generally come to accept this idea that coffee is good for creativity.

We talked about the you know, the idea that when we stopped drinking beer and we started drinking coffee, then suddenly all this creativity is bounding about and things are getting done with the culture we're talking about. You'd have that cup of coffee and suddenly you have ideas for the day about what's going to happen. Um. And we've discussed the things that it does, you know, increase youral firing,

increased focus. But is this the article points out one of the real one of the hallmarks of creativity is of course, to have a wandering, unfocused mind. To take this concept and pair it with this one, to be able to stare out the window and think, think, you know, what have what have? What have dinosaurs had for? Or what if a pirate had a loose sight leg and used it as an aquarium. Yes, it's exactly so we we have all these random ideas that might pop up. And this is a lot of what it is to

be creative. But if you were caffeinated to the gills and you're you're focused on one task, then you're focused on one task and you're not gonna have all these random inspirations that are coming to you. Yeah, this novel association sens that happen when we daydream. And I recall that we did an episode in which we saw a study in which, uh, something like our waking hours are

dedicated to daydreaming. So that obviously helps us tease out a lot of problems and comment things in a different angle and be extremely creative because again we're making those novel associations. But if you are caffeinated all day long, then the writer of this article, Maria Kunakova, says, hey, you could be actually stripping yourself of creativity. Yeah, and don't have that mind wander time. Not, your mind's not wandering.

And it can also have an effect on sleep, and studies have shown that that sleep is important for creative thinking. Two thousand nine study in fact, show that people who experienced REM sleep performed better on two tests of creative thinking than those who simply rested or napped without entering the REM cycle. So I found this. Of course, this made me sort of think a lot about my own

creative processes, in my own consumption of daffine. I had that that sort of panic moment where I was like, oh goodness, maybe I've got to stop drinking coffee if it's gonna interfer with my creativity. But I think what the difference here is, And maybe you know, it's gonna vary with each individual mind, But I feel like I definitely have the type of mind that can make those those connections, Like I can you know, wonder about a pirate with a loose sight leg or a hairy dinosaur.

But then but it's one thing anybody can sent around and just dream off a whole bunch of crazy stuff. But but can you then focus on it and do something with it. So I feel like that's where I need the caffeine. It's it's one thing for me to think, what have I blogged about the possible science behind this, like weird worm monster I read about, You know, it's one thing to think about that, but I need the coffee to focus on it and to actually do it. So your natural state is to mind flander. Yeah, I

think if I think caffeine, I'm not. You know, I don't want to give caffeine too much credit because it's not like if I quit drinking coffee, I would just be a complete disaster. I mean I would because for a little bit, because I'd get a headache that would make me want to curse God and die. But beyond that, and I'm not saying it's vital to my existence, but I do feel like it helps me focus on realizing

some of the ideas that I get with my wandering mind. Well, I put this idea um in front of Holly Fry of history stuff, and Holly Fry, if you guys don't know, she's extremely creative and she is doing things at all hours of creativity like she's just I mean, she's stitching together things, she's making I don't know, thumb cozies. If she has two minutes, you know, to spare a thumb cozy,

just all of a sudden poof, it's there. Um, she's extremely productive, and so she drinks a ton of coffee, and so I put this idea forward to her, and then she looked at me, like, what are you talking about? Like, I drink coffee at eleven o'clock at night helps me to continue with all the projects that I have buzzing

around in my mind. And then I looked at her fitbit, this bracelet that tracks her sleep and in all the steps that she takes a cyborg, she's cyborg in addition to all this, and I noticed that she had made um this rhymestone sleeve for it, because the fitbit itself wasn't pretty enough, and the fit that is sitting there sparkling underneath the rhyme stones. And I thought, no, I

don't think that caffeine is taking away from her creativity. Yeah, well, I think it ultimately that the the message from this study maybe that it's going to vary with the individual, and that you should maybe consider not drinking coffee all the time. You try to try see what it's like without it, it's it's kind of like in the same way that coffee has has some similarities to other um, psychoactive chemicals and and and drugs and things that alter

our perception of reality or interface with reality. It's sometimes good to treat them, or often I guess you could say it's generally good to see those things as like a telescope or a microscope, something that adds new perspective to life. But isn't the only way that you interact with it or glimpse it, right, And you have to remember to you that coffee is going to increase your performance and thinks and sort of like wrote things that you do over and over again. It's not necessarily going

to make you master a new skill. Um. It might give you a little bit more energy for that skill, but that doesn't mean that you're going to become the conqueror of that UM. So it was really good for for bringing everything together, as you say, to a point, UM, I should add there's another thing that I do that I have found that coffee is not good for me, and that is sometimes to relax. I enjoy painting miniatures, and I've found that if I do it while drinking

coffee or right after I drink coffee. I'm just my my my hands are too unsteady. I don't have really steady hands anyway. And if I have the coffee, then it's it's it's not good. Well see And and that ought to be a zen like activity anyway, right where you don't need to be in the coffee realm exactly because you're just doing the one thing. Um. I would be very interested to hear from people about how coffee

affects them. Is I feel like some people are really sensitive to caffeine while others can just you know, drink it by the gallons. Yeah, And I've known people like my my friend Becky uh once claimed that she had some espresso chocolate at night and was up all night afterwards. See. And then you know as some of the psychosomatic or is that really like, is your system that sensitive? I believe that some people really are that sensitive to it.

All right, Well, on that note, let's call over the robot and see what kind of listener mail we have. Believe this one is another one has to do with the sensory deprivation tanks. We've received a lot of cool comments on this episode so far these episodes. By the way, UH, just a little tip if you are going to go into a sensory deprivation tank, do not drink caffeine beforehand. Yes, yeah, that's not a good idea. Yeah, for a few different reasons.

So this one comes to us from Seth. Seth writes, since says Hi, Julian Robert, I recently finished it your episode on sensory deprivation tanks and wanted to write in with my story. During my sen year at year at college, I UH interned at a neurofeedback clinic specializing in a d h D behavior modification therapy. One of the benefits of working at the clinic was the on site sensory

deprivation chamber that we call the float tank. I got in the float tank as much as I could during that year, somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty to sixty times. It was fascinating. Um my experience with it was quite positive. The first time I got in, I was nervous and did not really relax or have any experiences. Apparently this was normal. However, each subsequent visit resulted in more intense

experiences and increased time spent in the tank. I've tried to describe my experiences to others and have always fallen short. The closest that I come can come to describe it is that it feels like deep meditation with the benefits of a power cat nap. I would emerge from the float tank after an hour and feel as if I had slept for three or four hours. I never had out of body experiences, but I did feel an overwhelming

sense of calm and understanding. As a side note, the chief clinician at the clinic would sleep for only five hours a day, and he would do so in the float tank. He stated that he felt yes, he stated that he felt as if he had slept twelve hours afterwards. So some advice on your future visits or visits to the float tank. Visited several times to get a good

real sense of it. Anxiety about it is normal as it is abnormal constructed is it is an abnormal constructed experience, and it is not found in nature that we evolved in. But it is very enlightening. Thank you for the awesome show. Seth Wow. Five hours in the tank. That was that was really impressive. Whenever at that because I'm also trying to picture this dude, he only sleeps in a in a sensory deprivation tank and only does so like five

to six hours a night. Been going to put this out there that he must not have a close significant other unless well maybe maybe they sleep together, or maybe they exist solely in the astral plane. That's how beautiful. That's beautiful. But well, I can see now know why those five hours would would bear out something that felt like twelve hours, because it is the most relaxing thing that I've ever done in my life. So I can't imagine sleeping through the evening in one of those cool

All right, Steth, Well, thanks for right man. Uh for As for the rest of you, yet, we would love to hear your thoughts on scencessory deprivation tanks, on Harry dinosaurs, on pirates with blue site peg legs, and generally about creativity, About coffee, About your coffee consumption, Um, if you've recently started drinking coffee, what kind of changes have you noticed in your physiology and in your thought process? Have you recently stopped drinking coffee? Tell us about that nightmare. We

would love to hear from you. How can you get in touch with this, how can you find as well? The mother ship as always is Stuff to Bow Your Mind dot com. You're stuffed to bow your Mind on Facebook and tumbler are, twitter feed is blow the Mind and over on YouTube our channel is Mind Stuff Show and you can always drop us a line at blow the Mind at discovery dot com. Um For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com