Whoa, New Research Suggests Drinking Heaps Of Coffee Is Bad For Your Grades

You know how coffee is an extremely delicious hot beverage? And it’s the only thing that gets you through those extremely laborious take home exams, study sessions and 2500 word essays? How it’s your life saver? Your warm cup of salvation?

Well. We have some devastating news.

A recent survey conducted by US mattress company Best Mattress Brand found that the more coffee students drank, the worse their grade point average.  The study surveyed 1000 US college students and found that those who drank one cup of coffee had an average GPA of 3.41 out of 5.0, those who drank two cups had an average of 3.39, three or four 3.38 and five or more 3.28. Yep, it’s not looking good for us coffee fiends.

In fact, those who drink no coffee at all (how?) have the winning average GPA of 3.43 out of 5.0. Sucks when the nerds are right.

They also found that students who get less sleep have a poorer GPA on average, too. Those who got eight or more hours of sleep have an average GPA of 3.48 compared with an average of 3.31 for students that get less than 5 hours of rest.

The survey also broke down sleeping habits per discipline. Interestingly, education, humanities and social science students get the most shut eye, whereas visual and performing arts students don’t get enough.

Of course, this study is more relevant to US college students than us uni students here in Australia. But it’s still an interesting insight into how caffeine – our study staple – can actually have a more negative impact than we realised.

At the end of the day, you know yourself better than anyone. If you think your coffee consumption is having a negative impact on your grades, head here for our advice on cutting down. But if you’re doing fine on one or two cups a day, that’s OK too.

(Lead image: Jimmy Kimmel Live/NBC)

h/t Teen Vogue