Liquids and Their Effect On Our Minds
Usman Athar
CUNY York College
People know that the human mind and body can multi-task voluntarily and most importantly involuntarily. The question that seems to have been unanswered seems to be that does it affect the level at which humans function. For example, does ingesting a liquid, in general, have an impact on the mind the way coffee or caffeinated drinks do? Does the mind work better by not having another function to do at the same time or does drinking something for example help stimulate the mind and keep it working better? There’s been many articles written about the effects of caffeinated drinks like coffee and energy drinks stimulating the mind, but there’s still one aspect missing. The aspect left to explore whether the mind works better or worse in general, with or without an additional process to conquer. Adding the consumption of liquid to the mind’s tasks may or may not help increase functionality.
The work that has been done in the field suggests that energy drinks do indeed help stimulate cognitive performance. The main constant within these drinks is caffeine and “most researchers concur that caffeine seems to be the main compound that drives the stimulatory effects of these drinks” (Howard, 2010).
What’s missing from all these experiments is the lack of control within the subjects overall. The food ingested through the day was not the same. The environment and state in which the subjects were in were not the same.
The way to really understand this question would be test and experiment. In one study, the experimenter had “thirty-five healthy volunteers (16 male, 19 female) participate in two experimental sessions in which they remained awake between 5 p.m. and 5 a.m. At 3:30 a.m. they consumed CAF or placebo in random order under double-blind conditions. Participants completed subjective effects questionnaires and performed computerized attention tasks before and after consuming capsules” (Childs, 2007). The goal was to see if whether capsulated caffeine had any effect on fatigued individuals. In another study, “twenty-four managers who normally consume between 400 and 1,000 mg of caffeine per day participated in all-day quasi-experimental simulations” (Streufert, 1997). What’s important to observe via this study is the best way to experiment would be to set a control and have an experimental variable. It’s important to keep the subjects health in mind as well, as there are certain side effects of caffeine for example that can really impact someone’s health. A study suggests “borderline hypertensive men maintained response to the stressor in the face of an exaggerated BP response to caffeine, suggesting that use of caffeine during behavioral stress may elevate BP in BH individuals to a clinically meaningful degree” (Lovallo, 2006). Moving forward, to ensure everything is even across the board, the subjects that will be used for the study will have to ingest the same kind of food throughout the day. The food will consist of every nutrient the body needs to function at the most optimal level. By having this set constant throughout the subjects, it will ensure that the ingestion of any further liquid will be the only factor effectively influencing the functionality and productivity of the subject. To add to the consistency throughout the subjects, all subjects will have same level of exercise done throughout the day as it effects the amount of nutrients the body needs throughout the day to be in optimal performance. Furthermore, the subject will be tested via game-based interaction to see if they’re more aware, attentive, responsive and accurate.
All tests will happen one after another, per subject. The first test will be with no experimental variable. This simply means that the subjects will play the game-based experiment, normally without any ingestion of any liquid. The data from that trial will be recorded. The second round of the game-based experiment will include the first liquid to be ingested. The liquid would be half a glass of water. Data will be taken at the end of that round. The last round will include the last liquid to be ingested, which will be a half a glass of a caffeinated drink like coffee perhaps. Data will also be collected after that round and then further compared to the other two trials. The data with the highest score will prove to be the most efficient. Furthermore, that data will give us the answer of whether ingestion of any kind during a task that requires full attention will either increase or decrease the functionality and performance of our minds.
Bibliography
Streufert, Siegfried, Usha Satish, Rosanne Pogash, Dennis Gingrich, Richard Landis, John Roache, and Walter Severs. “Excess Coffee Consumption in Simulated Complex Work Settings: Detriment or Facilitation of Performance?” Journal of Applied Psychology 82.5 (1997): 774-82. Web.
Lovallo, William R., Mustafa Al’absi, Gwen Pincomb A., Susan Everson A., and Et Al. “Caffeine and Behavioral Stress Effects on Blood Pressure in Borderline Hypertensive Caucasian Men.” Health Psychology 15.1 (1996): 11-17. Web.
Childs, Emma, and Harriet Wit De. “Enhanced Mood and Psychomotor Performance by a Caffeine-containing Energy Capsule in Fatigued Individuals.” Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 16.1 (2008): 13-21. Web.
Howard, Meagan A., and Cecile Marczinski A. “Acute Effects of a Glucose Energy Drink on Behavioral Control.” Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology 18.6 (2010): 553-61. Web.
