Friday mornings at an airport can be chaos. It’s the start of the weekend, lots of people returning home or just wanting to get away for a mini-escape, and this is exactly how it was yesterday. All flights to all destinations were full, the check-in queues were massive, and lots of people were missing flights because of a new airport motorway that had just opened up that morning.
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As you can imagine there were lots of frustrated, disgruntled and unhappy passengers.
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Now after ‘Disgruntled Passenger Number 6″ – I was starting to feel a tad stressed and a bit tired of being the receiver of such aggression. There are days when I kind of feel like I’m just a highly paid punching bag (well, I don’t know about the “highly paid” bit). Anyway, by mid morning most of us felt like we desperately needed a good cup of coffee to help alleviate the stress.
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Well that was what I thought until yesterday. You see I had just finished reading an article from Yuri Elkaim’s
Eating For Energy book the night before, highlighting the negative effects that coffee has on the body if you are stressed.
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Some of these included the following:
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* Coffee actually intensifies stress causing an average 40% increase in adrenaline. This results in increased blood pressure, heart rate, perspiration, nervousness, and irratibility.
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* Coffee increases the secretion of stomach acid by 400%, contributing to gastritis and peptic ulcers.
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* According to a British Medical Journal, coffee drinkers have a 50% higher risk of heart attack.
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* Coffee causes a significant loss of nutrients – magnesium, potassium, calcium, zinc, and B vitamins.
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* Coffee is a major source of cadmium which is a heavy metal that has been linked to cancer and immune suppression.
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Now if you’re a woman – the facts are even scarier.
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* Coffee is linked to ovarian cancer, bladder, and kidney cancers.
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* According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, coffee increases the risk of miscarriage and can double the rate with just 1 cup per day!
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* Coffee reduces fertility. More than 1 cup per day makes a woman half as likely to conceive (American Journal of Epidemiology).
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So next time you’re feeling stressed – don’t go for a latte, 1/2 cap, flat white, mocha, full strength Expresso or whatever – because you may as well stick your hand in a power point!
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Instead, reach for a Green Tea which contains the natural mood enhancer Theanine, which has been shown to reduce mental and physical stress and promote a feeling of relaxation.
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Ahhh … now that’s the kinda thing that I’m looking for. Perhaps we should give out complimentary cups of Green Tea to passengers as they arrive at the airport?