Have you ever noticed the world seems much brighter after you’ve had your morning coffee? No surprise there, since the effects of caffeine have long been associated with mood boosting and cognitive function. But there’s another way caffeine primes us for positivity. Researchers have found that caffeine supercharges our brain’s ability to process positive stimuli. So we are literally elevating the positive after that morning cup!

The connection was observed by researchers at the University of Buchum in Germany as they were studying the role of caffeine in dopaminergic transmission in the brain. As our input of caffeine increases, they say, we create a positivity advantage in our left hemisphere (the area most associated with language). So after a bit of coffee we’ve heightened our brain’s ability to recognize and process words with positive connotations, a relationship that was not found with neutral or negative words!

Put plainly, after a boost of caffeine we can process faster and more accurately positive information. Researchers found that as little as 200 milligrams of caffeine (or, about two cups of coffee) will do the trick. Great news for the coffee lovers among us!

About the study

In a research experiment, Kuchinke and Lux gathered 66 healthy participants who reported “normal” caffeine consumption (on average, 1.58 cups of coffee per day). The participants were split between a caffeine group — those provided with a 200-milligram caffeine tablet — and a placebo group that received a sugar tablet.

Each group consumed their tablet 30 minutes prior to a word recognition test in which actual words with varying connotations (positive, neutral or negative) were presented amid pseudo-words, strings of letters that look and feel like real words but have no lexical meaning. Participants had to quickly and accurately recognize the actual words, then rate them on a Likert scale from 1 (calm) to 7 (highly arousing).

The results indicated that the caffeine group performed significantly better when evaluating positive words. There was no difference in the recognition of words that were either neutral or negative.

* Lars Kuchinke, Vanessa Lux. Caffeine Improves Left Hemisphere Processing of Positive Words.