Your Brain On Beer vs Coffee

Let’s just pretend that there aren’t already enough not wholly accurate metaphors that describe the college experience and try to entertain this one: getting your degree is like walking a tight rope with a beer in one hand and coffee in the other. Even if you don’t drink and aren’t that keen on coffee. Well you really don’t even have to be a college student either. The point I’m trying to make here is that there is a delicate balance concerning when to relax and when to get down to business.

This raises some interesting questions though. With the knowledge that we have about drugs like alcohol and caffeine, despite their drawbacks it seems that there is supposedly a way to responsibly maximize their benefits. If that’s true then it makes you wonder, are we missing our full potential by not taking the right drugs at the right time?

Well it would seem that way in theory, but there are plenty of people who are doing great things without the help. Then you have someone like Charles Bukowski. He was featured in an infographic last week about sleep habits and productivity. While being the latest to wake up every morning at noon (which even that seems a little early for him) he was also one of the more productive writers and a very committed alcoholic. There is a natural tension and release in life that can be intensified by drug use, but whether or not this is conducive to a more fruitful lifestyle is a very difficult question.