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Just the smell of coffee could be enough to wake us up in the morning, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that the aroma of coffee helped restore brain activity in sleep-deprived rats to normal or near-normal levels.
The finding, published in New Scientist, has led to suggestions that factory owners should pump the smell of coffee into the building to revive flagging workers unable to have a cup. A team of Japanese scientists took a group of 30 rats and deprived half of them of sleep for 24 hours.
Half of those kept awake were then exposed to the smell of roasted coffee beans - and showed almost the same level of awakeness as those not deprived of sleep.
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