Wake Up and Smell the Herbal Teas!
We’ve all done it. It’s the morning, we’re on auto-pilot, still groggy from sleep, we trudge through our early morning ritual of waking, dressing and when we get to the kitchen the first thing we do is switch the kettle on. The very smell of fresh, hot coffee seems to rejuvenate and many people swear by the rush of energy that caffeine brings. But is it the only solution? Can there be another way? Caffeine, a naturally occurring chemical stimulant, is a drug and increases concentration and reaction speed. It does this by blocking something called adenosine, a chemical which makes you naturally sluggish and drowsy. When you feel like your mind is racing after one too many espressos, you’re a lot closer to the truth than you might think. It isn’t a new drug either. Though extremely popular in the twenty-first century, the discovery of caffeine’s energy boosting powers had been recorded as early as twelve hundred years ago. Though it didn’t become a British staple until the eig...
