Wake up and smell the coffee…

The old adage, "Wake up and smell the coffee" is all wrong it should be, "Smell the coffee and wake up." In a study published in New Scientist, researchers discovered that just the aroma of a fresh cup of java is enough to restore brain activity in sleep deprived rats to near normal levels. The findings have led to suggestions that factory owners should pump the smell of coffee into the building to revive flagging workers who don’t like the taste or can’t stomach the bitter brew. "The results indirectly explain why so many people use coffee for staying up all night," say the study authors from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba, Japan. "In other words, the stress caused by sleep loss via caffeine may be alleviated through smelling the coffee aroma."