Under The Microscope: Can chewing gum sharpen focus‪?‬ Radical Wellness

Hey guys it’s your girl Britt and today we’ll be taking a closer look at some of the studies cluttering your news feed. Today, let's talk about how chewing gum can sharpen focus. I’ve been hearing this for years and I finally decided to look into it. To my surprise, it may be true. A scientific article  from 2015, which is linked in the show notes, discussed 4 separate studies testing this hypothesis. The first study investigated gum and mood. The second study investigated force of chewing on mood and performance. The third study investigated the effects of chewing gum a full work day on performance and post work mood. The fourth study, investigated performance during the work-day, overall well being, and measurements of cortisol and heart rate at the end of the day. All four study findings suggested that chewing gum while working can increase alertness and productivity. Now, I am going to point out a problem with the studies. The first study only consisted of 100 participants, 81 of those were female. The second study consisted of 56 adults, 42 of those were female. The third study consisted of 126 participants, 87 were female. The fourth study consisted of 30 university students, 23 of those were females. So not only are the study numbers low, but the participants were mostly female. That’s not to say their findings were incorrect, just skewed toward a specific demographic. Personally I feel like this is a great starter study. 
 
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449949/#:~:text=Consistent%20with%20multiple%20studies%20examining,be%20increased%20by%20chewing%20gum.