For a higher GPA, drink less coffee - study
Coffee intake correlates with your GPA. Source: Shutterstock

Students who drink more coffee per day are likelier to get lower grade point averages (GPAs), a new research by Best Mattress Brand suggests.

Jeffrey Ellenbogen, assistant professor of neurology, sleep medicine at Johns Hopkins University (not affiliated with the survey) said, as quoted by USA Today:

“If one is a daily consumer of caffeine or feels like they can’t function without it, that’s a time to take a big step back and look at the quality and quantity of sleep.”

While occasional coffee drinkers will get a boost in cognitive function when taking it before an exam, those who are dependent on it will experience an opposite effect, according to Ellenbogen.

In a survey of more than 1,000 current college students, researchers with Best Mattress Brand (affiliated with the makers of Amerisleep and Astrabeds) found as students drink more daily cups of coffee, the lower their GPA becomes.

Those who drank a cup of coffee per day scored a GPA of 3.41 while those who drank twice of that scored 3.39, according to the survey data. Students who chugged five or more cups of coffee per day had an average GPA of 3.28.

https://twitter.com/USATODAYcollege/status/903067384369512448

Those who drank two or more cups say they only got between five and six hours of sleep. The recommended hours of sleep for college students should be more than eight hours, according to Sleepless at Stanford by the Stanford University Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Center. Anything less will cause a sleep debt that could lead to risks of accidents and impaired performance.

“If a college student is drinking four or five cups of coffee a day, they are probably going to need help from some sort of health care provider,” Ellenbogen said, adding that they can try cutting out those evening java drinks first as they would be the one most likely to disrupt sleep.

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