Lattes, Cappuccinos, Mochas, Caramel Macchiatos, Espresso, Americanos, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and Coffee .... are all bottomless for the month of November. Buy any drink and receive unlimited in-store free refills.
Should a slip in the daily routine prevent you from quaffing your "cup of ambition," you probably don't need a caffeine researcher to tell you what will happen next—you will start to feel sick. In a case of science proving what anyone who has skipped their morning coffee ritual knows, researchers declared that withdrawal from caffeine (the world's most popular stimulant) constitutes an official disorder. A Johns Hopkins Medical School study that reviewed over 170 years of research concluded that caffeine withdrawal is a verifiable syndrome, wherein at least half of regular caffeine users will experience withdrawal if denied their habitual dose. Even those who drink as little as one cup a day are at risk of experiencing withdrawal symptoms including headaches, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, depression and irritability, or even flu-like nausea and muscle pain.
As a result of the research review, "caffeine withdrawal" will likely be included in the next edition of the DSM, or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the bible of psychiatric disorders. While some have argued that the DSM pathologizes normal human predicaments, lead researcher Roland Griffiths, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins, says the disorder's inclusion in the DSM will help physicians and psychologists to be more sensitive to the cause and presence of these sometimes debilitating symptoms.
Caffeine withdrawal unleashes such wide-ranging aches and pains because it acts to prohibit a major neurotransmitter called adenosine. "Adenosine is responsible for a variety of activity in the central and peripheral nervous system," says Griffiths.
"All the effects of taking caffeine are opposite of the effects of adenosine." For example, while adenosine, which depresses the nervous system, dilates the blood vessels in the head, caffeine restricts them. Withdrawal from caffeine reverses the effect with a vengeance, increasing normal blood flow through vessels, and causing a pounding headache.
As with any addictive substance, there is a reason we get hooked on caffeine in the first place. While coffee's rich aroma stimulates the senses, its caffeine revs up the brain and boosts alertness and mood.
"Caffeine is a mild stimulant," says Griffiths, "and particularly for people who don't use it regularly, it's a wonderful drug for combating fatigue and restoring mental performance. It also enhances exercise endurance." Once caffeine hits the bloodstream, the mind is quicker and memory improves.
But while coffee addicts fervently attest to caffeine's benefits, and claim they can't talk to their coworkers or turn on their computer without it, as their tolerance to the stuff increases, they mistake benefits they feel. For them the stimulatory effects have more to do with avoiding the bad effects of withdrawal, says Griffiths. "There are great benefits if you're not a regular user, but the effect that daily users attribute to caffeine is really reversal of withdrawal symptoms."
Despite having christened a new disorder, Griffiths doesn't believe everybody needs to quit caffeine consumption. "There is nothing wrong with being physically dependent on caffeine, unless the person has a condition that is worsened by caffeine, such as anxiety, insomnia, panic, and heart problems, or if they are pregnant," he says.
In fact, coffee's pros probably outweigh its cons. The Harvard Women's Health Watch reviewed the various effects of coffee on the body, and judged the drink to be beneficial, when sipped in moderation. Regular coffee drinkers show a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, gallstones and colon cancer. And they show improved cognitive function and are less likely to develop Parkinson's disease.
For those who do want to quit without bringing on the wrath of caffeine withdrawal, Griffith recommends that junkies first take a careful inventory of exactly how much caffeinated foods and drinks they consume, and then gradually replace those with decaffeinated versions, over a period of a few weeks or a month. And for coffee adherents who find the line at Starbucks prohibitively long, you may soon be able to ask for a note from your doctor excusing you from the day ahead.
"Psychologists report in Science that you’re more likely to think warmly of someone else if you’re holding something warm in your hand like a mug of coffee or tea. The experimenters, Lawrence Williams of the University of Colorado and John Bargh of Yale, gave cups of either hot or iced coffee to people and asked them to rate someone’s personality based on a packet of information. The ones who held the hot cup rated that individual significantly higher for “warmth” than did the subjects holding the iced coffee."
"But what has this addiction to caffeine and comfy sofas done to our society? Has it drawn us together, as the coffee houses of the 18th century once did? Or has it emphasized the isolation of city life that preoccupies sociologists today? It is a question with which Eric Laurier is deeply familiar. Three years ago this social geographer published the first fruits of a £140,000 research project entitled “The Cappuccino Community” which studied the phenomenon of the modern café."
One of the strangest quirks of doing business here is the "call back." The "call back" is defined as anyone or any company who promises to phone you back and then never actually does or intended to do so. It happens daily and can pose a certain hurdle to getting things done. What makes this even more quirky is the fact that 90% of the time a "call back" is promised but not delivered even when an agreement of purchase has already been agreed upon. Sometimes it seems that the company is in fact going out of their way to not make a sale rather than simply accepting the money and delivering said product/service. The icing on this not-so-tasty cake is that it is just as common among big foreign companies that have branches within China as it is with local companies.Though few U. S. coffee-drinkers knew it, a threat hung over them last week. There was a possibility that soon their coffee cups might not be refilled at the asking, even that they might not be filled at all. The blockade of revolutionary forces in the great Brazilian coffee port of Santos by the Federal Government was threatening the chief source of U. S. coffee. Slipping out after the blockade was established, the last coffee boat from Santos docked in Manhattan Aug. 4 with 13,200 bags aboard.
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