Hearing things? Blame your extra cuppa
 

Jun 07, 2011 6:09am


STRESSED-out office workers who turn to extra cups of coffee to get through the day can end up hallucinating, study warns.


A La Trobe University study has found stressed people who have consumed five cups of coffee can exhibit signs of hallucination.


Professor Simon Crowe from the School of Psychological Sciences examined the effect of stress and caffeine on 92 participants.


Prof Crowe found stressed people who had consumed about 200mg of caffeine during the day were more likely to imagine hearing things.


"What we did is we brought people into the lab while listening to White Christmas and then told them we were going to play some white noise," he told MX.


"We also told them that within the white noise there may be parts of the White Christmas song and if you hear it, press the button.


"We didn't include White Christmas in the white noise but found that more people who were very stressed and had high levels of caffeine heard White Christmas.''


In an office environment, a caffeinated worker would be on edge and not correctly interpret situations, Prof Crowe said.


"They'll respond more to subtle cues but misidentify those cues.


"For instance, they may (mistakenly) believe that someone around the water cooler is talking about them and they will tend to overreact."

Interesting read.

Interesting. Glad I don't drink coffee ;-p

Sure it's not just the stress?
Stress REALLY messes with the mind in a big way.
And I know, I'm full of it and surrounded by it at work right now.

I can't drink coffee anyway. If I do I get really bad insomnia, and the super agitated jitters.

Ah, now that explains why Barry always comes to say hello after my Starbucks trip....

Right? :S

Hmm... I dont dribk coffe or anything like so with stimulant, yet, I feel that way to. Maybe cause I am a bit crazy. But I guess I could of figured that. Stress can do soo much and especially messes with the mind and sense organs. Still interesting I would say.

Maybe it just makes people more impressionable, rather than flat out 'hallucinating'. Seems a bit of an extreme way to put it to me.