Can coffee ease pain triggered by prolonged sitting at work?

Coffee, one of the world’s popular beverages, can actually do a lot more than give you a kick-start in the morning! It can ease physical pain!

A morning cup of coffee has been found to help relieve and even prevent soreness in neck and shoulders triggered by long sitting hours in front of the computer, finds an intriguing new study.

Caffeine is added to some pain-killers like aspirin and paracetamol, because of its powerful analgesic properties. Experts theorize that caffeine blocks something that helps promote pain receptors in the body.

Study detailsr
In a bid to determine whether coffee drinking can ease pain caused by prolonged hours at work Norwegian researchers from the University of Oslo conducted a study. They recruited 48 volunteers including 22 suffering chronic neck or shoulder pain and 26 healthy people.

The subjects were allowed to drink one cup of coffee to offset any effects of lethargy. Nineteen of the participants chose to drink the beverage while the remaining 29 abstained from it.

As a part of the study, for the next 90 minutes, the volunteers performed computer tasks, involving correction of typographical errors on a document using only the mouse.

The computer task was undertaken non-stop and the participants' levels of pain were closely monitored during the course of the experiment.

Observations by the researchersr
And at the close of the study, all the participants experienced soreness in their shoulders, neck, arms and wrists muscles, but coffee drinkers rated their pain as less intense.

The researchers concluded, “The results revealed a significantly lower increase in pain development for the subjects who had consumed coffee approximately one and a half hours before the task, compared to those who abstained.

“Several other studies have found attenuated pain during exercise after caffeine administration. But we are not aware of any that have examined the effect of coffee on naturally-occurring pain during work of very low-level muscle activity, as during computer work.”