"뜨거운 차나 커피 마시고 사람만나면 좋은 인상 준다" A little warmth goes a long way – the science of hot drinks

콜로라도 볼더대 연구진 발표

 

사진=dailycoffeenews.com

 

서리가 내리기 시작하는 '삼강'이 지나고 겨울의 문턱 '입동'을 앞둔 요즘, 따뜻한 차나 커피 한 잔을 찾는 이들이 부쩍 늘었다.   그렇지만 뜨거운 음료가 쌀쌀한 날씨에 언 몸을 녹여줄 뿐 아니라 정신적으로나 신체적으로 건강에 탁월한 효과가 있다는 사실을 아는 이는 많지 않다.   최근 가디언에 따르면 미국 콜로라도 볼더대 연구진은 새로운 사람을 만나기 전에 뜨거운 커피를 마시면 상대방으로부터 좋은 인상을 받게 된다는 결과를 유명 학술지 사이언스에 게재했다.   이는 온도 변화를 인식하는 뇌 부위인 섬엽이 다른 사람에 대한 판단을 형성하는 기관이기 때문이다.   물리적 따뜻함을 느낄 때 앞에 있는 사람에 대해서도 긍정적으로 인식한다는 것이다. 실험 참가자들도 차가운 커피를 들고 있을 때보다 뜨거운 커피를 마셨을 때 처음 만난 상대방의 성격이 배려심이 많고 관대하다고 생각하는 것으로 나타났다.   또 뜨겁고 단 음료가 감기 환자들에게 '플라세보 효과'를 가져다준다는 연구결과도 있다.   감기 환자들에게 각각 고온과 실온 상태의 과일주스를 마시게 한 영국 카디프대 감기센터의 실험에서 뜨거운 주스를 마신 참가자들은 기침, 재채기, 콧물, 인후염, 오한, 피로 등의 감기 증세가 두드러지게 완화된 것으로 조사됐다. 특히 코 속의 공기 유량이 변화되지 않았음에도 불구하고, 뜨거운 주스를 마시고 코막힘 증세가 나아졌다고 응답한 환자들이 많았다.   이에 대해 론 에클스 교수는 "심리적 효과가 있었던 것"이라면서 "음식료의 온도가 높을수록 단맛을 강하게 느끼게 되며 뇌 속에 만족감을 갖게 하는 물질이 활발히 분비된다"고 설명했다.   그 외에도 뜨거운 음료는 체온 조절의 역할도 하는 것으로 알려져있다.   오타와대 연구진에 따르면 더울 때 뜨거운 음료를 마시면 처음엔 더 더워지는 것 같지만, 식도나 위 속의 열 감지기관이 체온과 음료의 온도가 같다고 인식하면 땀 배출을 도와 체온을 낮춰준다. 반대로 추울 때 따뜻한 음료를 마시면 체온을 높이는 효과가 있다. [헤럴드경제=강승연 기자] sparkling@heraldcorp.com

 

A little warmth goes a long way

- the science of hot drinks

 

A scientific study showed that just holding a hot drink made people more likely to rate

others as friendly. Photograph: JGI/Jamie Grill/Getty Images/Blend Images

 

Very little in life can’t be improved with a hot drink. They can warm us or

cool us down.

They help numb pain when we’re ill. They even help us see the best in

other people

 

Few situations aren’t vastly improved by putting the kettle on.   The phrase alone is almost as soothing as the resulting drink: an invitation to sit down, talk and put off whatever trials lie ahead. Hot beverages are relied upon for waking up, punctuating workdays, gaining favour, welcoming home, relieving poorliness and lulling to sleep.   They can be cheering, reviving, relaxing, cooling (if you’re hot) and warming (when you’re cold). And they soften the pace of life. You can’t guzzle a hot drink, it has to be taken slowly (making it the perfect way to measure out breaks), and while you’re sipping and blowing and waiting for that optimum comfortable drinking temperature, you can inhale and warm your nose with the aromatic vapours.   Spreading the love Holding a hot drink can even make you friendlier. An experiment conducted at the University of Colorado Boulder, published in the journal Science, found that “participants who briefly held a cup of hot (versus iced) coffee judged a target person as having a ‘warmer’ personality (generous, caring)”. These people were asked to hold a hot coffee or an iced coffee belonging to someone before being introduced to them – they had no idea that holding the drink was even part of the test. And the results were just as the researchers had hypothesised, partly based on a body of research into the significance of the insula being the part of the brain in which judgments about others are formed, and also where we process warmth, as in the agreeable temperature range. A person’s perceived warmth of character, along with their competence, says the study, “accounts for a large proportion (82%) of the variance in people’s evaluations of social behaviours”. Psychologists also reckon the effect is to do with positive associations from early parental warmth and its associated nourishment; it could even be a womb thing. Hot drinks run deep.   Warming and cooling Imbibing hot liquid can be cooling and warming. If you’re hot, it may warm you up a little, but when it reaches thermosensors in the oesophagus and stomach, these react as though the entire body is as hot as the drink, and turn up the sweat flow so much that, provided your clothing allows it to evaporate, you’ll end up cooler than when you started. Or, at least, this was deemed the most likely explanation for this effect in a study by Anthony Bain at the University of Ottawa’s Thermal Ergonomics Laboratory. Conversely, if you’re chilly after sitting still for hours on end, grabbing a tea to warm your cockles is an obvious solution. “When already cold,” says Bain, “it is unlikely that the hot drink will warm you beyond the threshold to elicit sweating – so the drink will mildly warm you.”   Piping hot placebos Professor Ron Eccles is the director of the Common Cold Centre at Cardiff University. You will have read about his work before because everyone’s obsessed with beating colds. In 2008, he decided to study the effect of hot drinks on colds. He gave bunged-up sufferers cups of either hot or room temperature Robinson’s apple and blackcurrant cordial. “What surprised us,” says Eccles, “was how effective the treatment was. Both drinks were beneficial, but the hot drink was much more beneficial.”   It provided “immediate and sustained” relief from coughing, sneezing, runny nose, sore throat, chilliness and tiredness and the subjects even reported a significant improvement in nasal airflow. But when Eccles’s team measured nasal airflow, they discovered that it remained unchanged. “Remember,” says Eccles, “symptoms are what we feel, and what we feel can be influenced by our mood, our expectations, our culture, all sorts of things.” But there were, he suspected, physiological effects, too. For example, the sweet taste was stimulating receptors in the mouth that, he says, “are well documented in the literature to influence both the sensation of pain and the sensation of cough”. This is to do with taste nerves and cough nerves entering the brain stem around the same point, and because sweet taste releases morphine-like compounds in the brain. But what gives the hot drink an advantage in this respect is that taste is enhanced by heat. The taste receptor that picks up sweet, bitter and umami tastes sends a stronger electrical signal to the brain when food or drink is warmer.   Mug up One clear signifier of humankind’s emotional dependence on hot drinks is the ubiquity of the special mug. We become attached to our own drinking vessel of just the right degree of chunkiness, weight, feel and hue, although heavier crockery generally makes its contents more satisfying. “It seems people conceptualise their internal mental worlds by analogy to the physical world,” says Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, assistant professor at the Marketing and Consumer Behaviour department at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “For example, in one of my studies, people expected to feel fuller when holding a heavy versus a lighter bowl, containing exactly the same amount (and type) of yoghurt.” This explains why I am surgically attached to my mammouth china tankard. The day it went missing in the office, I was so upset I went on strike and sent out one of those pathetic rabid global emails about it. Do you have a special mug? Is your life mapped out in hot drinks? Follow @amy_fleming theguardian

 

 

 

 

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