Enhance Your Problem Solving Skills by Drinking Beer

April 13, 2012 By IdeaConnection
Image by digitalart
Image by digitalart

There are many ways to boost your brain power to help you to think faster, improve your memory and enhance your creativity. Mind mapping, solving logic puzzles, exercise and power naps are a few that spring to mind.

And according to recent scientific research there’s another way to get smarter, and that’s to drink alcohol. A new study has found that men can sharpen their minds with a cool couple of beers inside them. Contrary to popular belief the refreshing libation actually improves cognitive ability.


“Scientists found that men who either drank two pints of beer or two glasses of wine before solving brain teasers not only got more questions right, they also were quicker in delivering correct answers, compared to men who answered the questions sober, “reports Medical Daily.

The study, which is published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition, was carried out by scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  They found that men with a blood alcohol content of 0.07 or higher solved 40 percent more problems than their sober counterparts and took 12 seconds to complete their tasks compared to the 15.5 seconds of the non-drinkers.

Pour Yourself Another

Lead author Professor Jennifer Wiley believes the reason why alcohol improves the mind is that it creates a more flexible state of attention which is more conducive to creative thinking.

“We have this assumption, that being able to focus on one part of a problem or having a lot of expertise is better for problem solving,” Wiley said. “But that’s not necessarily true. Innovation may happen when people are not so focused. Sometimes it’s good to be distracted.”

It does not the follow that the more you drink the more creative you will be; the study found that the brain boost applies to people who’ve only had a few drinks. Cheers!


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