You know you’ve done it — stayed up too late and relied on coffee to get through the next day — but new research suggests that caffeine can only do so much.
That cup or cups of coffee may keep you awake the following day, but your performance is likely to be subpar, especially when it comes to more challenging tasks.
“Caffeine will likely improve your mood and alertness and may help you to attend to simple tasks, however, it will do little to improve more complex tasks,” said study author Kimberly Fenn, an associate professor of cognition and cognitive neuroscience at Michigan State University’s Sleep and Learning Lab.