Midday low: climbing stairs instead of drinking coffee

Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.

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When the afternoon slack in performance comes, many rely on caffeine. It might be more effective to climb stairs.

Derek Randolph and Patrick O'Connor from the University of Georgia compared the stimulant effects of caffeine and exercise in an experiment with 18 college students. They all slept less than 6.5 hours a night and stated that they usually didn't have excessive amounts of coffee or more Consume drinks and do little physical activity.

Ten minutes of climbing stairs

The scientists made the women go up and down stairs for ten minutes and compared the effect on another day with the effect of a tablet with 50 mg of caffeine - which corresponds to about a cup of filter coffee - or a decaffeinated placebo.

Using a questionnaire, the researchers determined how tablets and climbing stairs affected the wakefulness of women. In addition, they tested on the computer how responsive and able to concentrate the participants were before and after the respective action.

Climbing stairs beats caffeine

Caffeine and placebo had no stimulating effects. "But after the physical activity the women felt more energetic and dynamic," says O "Connor. But they weren't measurably more concentrated or more productive either.

It was important for the scientists to create an experiment that resembles the situation of an office worker who spends a lot of time sitting at the computer. Therefore, the participants also had to work on the computer.

The researchers also wanted to test a type of exercise that would be easy for office workers to do. "You may not have time to go swimming, but ten minutes can almost always be spare - and there are stairs in most offices," says O "Connor.

How caffeine works

However, the researchers have not investigated whether a larger amount of caffeine would not have the greater and more lasting effect. Because the stimulating effect of coffee has been scientifically proven.

Caffeine works by stimulating the release of the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. This increases blood pressure and makes the heart beat faster. The pick-me-up also docks to the so-called adenosine receptors in the nerve tissue and blocks them. This switches off the effect of the messenger substance adenosine, which acts as a drowsiness signal.

However, those who drink coffee a lot respond less and less to the effects of caffeine. At least they could benefit from some exercise in terms of alertness.

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