According to Marissa DeSantis from Well+Good who took it upon herself to give this theory a go, replacing your morning cup of coffee with just the scents of coffee didn't really cut it for her. She did, however, note that the experience of trying different coffee-scented products for five days — scrubs and perfumes — was a pleasant one. You only have to take a look at the myriad coffee-perfumed products in the market to understand why. There are candles, essential oils, body mists, perfumes, and more. And they smell amazing.
"I wasn't particularly tired or energized, but smelling coffee-like scents definitely wasn't a replacement for drinking actual coffee," DeSantis wrote. In the study involving the business students, the power of a placebo effect is apparent too. The coffee-perfumed room made the students think they'd perform better which could have influenced the results. DeSantis approached the experiment knowing that abstaining from caffeine would be particularly challenging for her.
What, then, are some effective things to replace your daily cup of coffee with?
