Ever wonder why you can’t even fathom starting your day without the luxurious relief from your loyal morning coffee? Or your cup at 3 pm, 5 pm or 10 pm. . . Yes, coffee for creators is an all-day favorite. But why is that?
Why is caffeine addiction so appealing and why do we keep perpetuating our dependency on it if we know it might not be the best for us? Hell, I mean, creative types flock to coffee shops nowadays. Don’t you ever wonder why your barista is always so sexy and artistic? What about coffee draws the likes of creatives and why is it so attractive?
Caffeine seems like your ticket into the creative community. It almost feels as though you must not be creative enough or love your craft enough if you don’t rely on such vice.
Coffee Brain
While you’re sipping your favorite drink, what’s really happening is that your adenosine receptors that tell your body you need rest are being blocked, according to Creative Something. They are responsible for telling your body it is exhausted and should stop what it’s doing for sleep. So coffee and caffeine in general trick your brain into thinking it’s not actually tired, which allows you to continue on with your activities. You’re not really gaining energy but merely gaining the idea that you’re not tired.
You’re not really gaining energy but merely gaining the idea that you’re not tired.
Nevertheless, feeling like you can continue on is enough to encourage productivity and give you that boost when you drink coffee, no matter if it’s all a trick. You accomplish more when you feel energized. If you choose to lose the caffeine and false energy, you may experience earlier signs of fatigue. Those signs ultimately impede how much you are able to accomplish.
Coffee Boost
Productivity ultimately encourages self-worth and confidence. Accomplishment leads to not only self-gratification and pride, but a confidence boost in your abilities. Your mind starts believing that you can achieve whatever you set out to, which can benefit you to great lengths in the future.
Another aspect of creativity deals with idea generation. However, there’s a major difference between generating ideas and executing them. Coffee is a tool to help creatives actually execute their ideas.
A brilliant idea is almost worth nothing if it cannot be applied in practice. The focus you feel after consuming coffee or caffeine in general lends to your abilities to follow through and complete a project from ideation to fruition. This leads to actual results instead of mere ideas.
According to Inc., “coffee is enormously helpful to the creative process because it suppresses unwanted and unnecessary insights and instead helps you focus on the work at hand.” Your mind is no longer burdened with distracting thoughts that prevent you from completing a task.
For those fearing that the inhibition coffee creates on wandering thoughts might negatively impact their creativity, studies by Darya Zabelina, assistant psychology professor at the University of Arkansas, show that “drinking coffee also doesn’t make [thinking] worse, so keep drinking your coffee. It won’t interfere.” To clarify, your wandering thoughts aren’t as responsible for your creative production as you may believe them to be.
Coffee Shops
These reasons bring about the idea of why creatives find themselves gathering at coffee shops or environments that involve coffee. It, in fact, has some scientific reasoning to it. A 2012 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research showed that “a low-to-moderate level of ambient noise” can actually boost creativity. Coffee shops typically maintain a volume level of around 70 decibels, said FastCompany. A University of Illinois researcher found that people actually experienced greater “creative performance” at the 70 decibels than at the lower 50db. A quiet environment may not always be the answer to work in as we once believed.
It’s important to remember that there needs to be moderation in everything, so while there have been stated benefits to coffee consumption, do not overdo it. Excessive caffeine can lead to increased stress levels— which will not improve creativity. However, your romantic affinity towards coffee is valid. It’s simply intoxicating from its smell to its taste. Steven Wright sums it up well by saying “a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee at all.”
Featured image source from: Unsplash.com
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