2012年4月12日 Beer me up

Article:

http://medicaldaily.com/news/20120411/9496/alcohol-solving-skills-analytical-thinking-creativity-study.htm

Drinking Alcohol May Significantly Enhance Problem Solving Skills

Scientists found that men who drank two pints of beer or two glasses of wine before solving brain teasers were quicker in delivering correct answers.

Drinking alcohol may enhance a person’s problem solving skills, according to a new study. 

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.

Scientists found that participants with a BAC of 0.07 or higher solved 40 percent more problems than their sober counterparts and took 12 seconds to complete the tasks compared to 15.5 seconds by teetotal participants.  

While the latest findings go against the traditional beliefs that alcohol impairs analytical thinking and rational thoughts, lead author Professor Jennifer Wiley of the University of Illinois at Chicago discovered that alcohol may enhance creativity problem solving by reducing the mind’s working memory capacity, which is the ability to concentrate on something in particular. 

“Working memory capacity is considered the ability to control one’s attention,” Wiley told the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS). “It’s the ability to remember one thing while you’re thinking about something else.” 

While the latest study found that alcohol may enhance creative problem solving, previous research found that increased working memory capacity actually led to better analytical problem-solving performance. 

Researcher from the current study published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition also found that people who drank alcohol and had a blood alcohol level of 0.07 or higher were worse at completing problems that required attentional control but better at creative problem solving tests. 

However, the surprising discovery was that participants with a BAC of 0.07 or higher solved 40 percent more problems than their sober counterparts and took 12 seconds to complete the tasks compared to 15.5 seconds by teetotal participants. 

Wiley said that the key finding was that being too focused can blind a person to novel possibilities and a broader, more flexible state of attention may be helpful for creative solutions to emerge. 

“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.” 

Wiley noted that the findings only apply to people who had only a few drinks and not when people drink to extremes. 

“The bottom line is that we think being too focused can blind you to novel possibilities, and a broader, more flexible state of attention is needed for creative solutions to emerge,” 

Other experts said while the findings were interesting and made sense, they stressed that sleep is probably just as beneficial for enhancing creativity. 

Past research showed that people who were allowed to sleep after being given a problem were also more likely to come up with a creative solution compared to those who stayed awake.

Beer me up!

Articles like this remind me that drinking regardless of what anyone says is part of our culture, society, and communities. And more over, part of life! If you have not been drunk at least 4 times, buzzed 4 times, and feeling great 4 times from beer, you will/may never understand why this article has meaning. 

Of course, it also depends on how far you spread these things out and whether or not you're a biased person. A teetotaler might read this article and say, "Well I don't care what they find out, and I don't believe that..." Who are they to say that? Are they a scientist? Who is anyone to say, "Your work is bullshit." Until evidence can prove otherwise, the data cannot prove its theory without a shadow of a doubt. Whenever an action or theory or objective provides a shadow of doubt, it's hard to believe if it's true or not, so of course more data needs to be taken or steps need to be taken so that the actions or theory comes without doubt or next to none.

With that said, I think alcohol does help. It helps me at least, and anyone who disagrees with that obviously hasn't drunk a few with me at least 3 or 4 times (at home, bars, outside, etc).

Beer allows for gender equality
because everyone can get drunk

Some people might say, "I don't want to drink that much." Why? What is "that much."? Not even the article explains what a "few" drinks means. We do know this, they didn't say "one" drink. They did not say, "a couple" or two drinks. They said a "few," which means 3 or more.

So why not drink? Why try to be in control all the time, when the only person you can control is yourself? And even if you control yourself, are you as yourself controlling yourself or just suppressing yourself? Is a small part of you controlling the rest of you? Or is the large part of you controlling the smallest? The same could be said with the application of alcohol or anything else for that matter. Do I let something inanimate and small like alcohol, control my life? Or do I control the alcohol? But like most things in life, it should be scrutinized on a case-by-case basis. And taken in moderation, which is something only you can decide for you.

Either way, the article is awesome, and basically reminds me why beer is awesome, important, but also, surprisingly, not necessary. We don't need beer, but it's nice to know we have a choice, and having a wide selection of beer makes the choice a lot nicer. Especially when we can share our choices with the ones we love.