Coffee x Performance in Esports
Many people consume coffee on a regular basis, and so do esports athletes. However, in their case there may be another reason besides enjoyment for why they do it. And it likely has to do with performance. Let's hear what the science says.
• Caffeine is known to have many positive benefits. But do they carry over to video games?
• Esports athletes had 3 mg/kg of caffeine 1 hour before playing and completing tests.
• "That study revealed that caffeine can improve attention, reaction time, and shooting ability..." [1]
• Players also improved in their ability to solve problems.
• Caffeine can also have negative consequences people should be aware of, especially when consuming over 400 mg.
Did you ever notice that most esports athletes have a cup next to them when playing? Sure, this is to stay hydrated, right? Right. However, some of these cups appear to be from the coffee shop next door. But why is that? Are pro players addicted to caffeine or is there another reason for it? There may be. So today, let's talk about coffee.
Caffeine is a popular supplementation for athletes of all levels and may improve energy, mood, cognitive function, attention, reaction time, etc. etc. Some research has shown that having 3 mg/kg of caffeine 1 hour before playing an FPS game can improve the ability of players to visually search for items, alertness, reaction time, and accuracy.
However, how these kinds of results were measured do not necessarily represent what players actually do in-game. Just because you click faster after having a nice cup of coffee doesn't mean you can transfer that reaction time into the game.
Today's study took a closer look and had esports athletes have their visual search and shooting abilities tested in-game with and without caffeine involved.
☕ A nice and soft hot brew.
Compared to the placebo trial, the players who had 3 mg/kg of caffeine 1 hour before the test had significantly shorter reaction times. It took them less time to complete a visual search (e.g., if you want to find an enemy player on the screen when turning a corner), had better kill ratios, accuracy, and shorter average time to target.
Moreover, the participants had better results in the Stroop Test. What's the Stroop Test, you may ask? I bet you know what it is once you have a look at the figure below. It measures the delay in reaction time between your initial response (e.g., reading the word) and cognitive (correct) answer (saying the actual color). It is frequently used to test a person's problem-solving ability.
🥡 The Takeaways
"Concentrations of 3–6 mg/kg caffeine are considered safe and helpful for the performance of E-sport players." [1]
It should be clear that having a coffee will not have you break into the heavens of your favorite game's ranks. However, it might give you a slight edge where reaction time and accuracy play a bigger role (e.g., CS, LoL, and Dota2).
However, the authors of the study also outlined that overdoing caffeine is a bad idea. Everything below 400 mg—for instance 250 mg—appears to be alright and produce the desired positive effects. But, doses of 500 mg may cause tension, nervousness, anxiety, irritability, nausea, tremor, palpitations, restlessness, dizziness, and more. That's not what you want, especially in important situations such as job interviews, presentations, exams, etc.
This also carries over to the game. One study found that 5 mg/kg increased blood pressure and heart rate, while also decreasing the shooting performance of players. At the extreme, very high doses are even fatal (80-100 mg/kg).
Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a great week. Cheers,
Christian 🙂
References
[1] Wu et al., 2024
