Abstract
People’s ability to concentrate on a job gets distracted by numerous things, for instance, noisy environments headaches and psychological problems. The external factors can be in control, but it is hard to keep internal elements like staying on an empty stomach under control. Can a person’s focus be fostered by eating more?
Glucostatic theory propelled research on the effect of food intake on a person’s focus. It explained that humans became hungry when their glucose level; reduced and aft eating they become satisfied (Pinel, Sunaina, and Darrin, 1105). The theory held some water with that glucose is the brain’s ultimate processor. When the energy-matter got looked into with an experiment of food deprivation for more than 36 hours the specimen shows signs of melancholia, irascibility, sluggishness, lower heartbeat rate and high incapacity of staying focused. On the other hand, an investigation found that fasting for some days leads to irritability, apathy, and weakness of the muscles. Thenceforth, researchers looked into how cognition relates to nutrition, and in the past few years, the impacts of deprivation of food on insight and comprehension have relatively met lesser attention. Perception is not affected much by missing a single meal in a day.
Studies on middle age women and men, 9 to 11 year-olds, obese people and got conducted to determine the cognitive responses among the different age groups. The reactions were the same among the groups: they all became less cognitive and focused when they got starved for a while. The researchers studied on simple reaction time, reaction time, recognition memory, a free recall, problem-solving accuracy two-finger tapping, and intelligence quotient and many of the results revealed that most cognitive functions are not affected by a short-term period of starvation but long hours of fasting(Green, and John, 246 ). However, the deduced findings seem half-baked because of the lack of proper investigation on cognitive functions like staying power and concentration.
Up to date, no apparent research has tested focus in spite of its importance in cognition. Perseverance is the best indication that the test when assessing progress in one’s thinking and learning capabilities, determination aids in cracking very multiplex tasks. It is evident that cognition is better placed when the concentration is the critical factor of observation when interpreting the relationship between cognitive performance and deprivation from food. The current studies help us in understanding the way a short period of food starvation can affect concentration and determination when undertaking hard work. More specifically, our participants who got denied eating for about 24hours were presumed to perform dismally in focus and perseverance task than the ones who were dismissed for 12 hours.
Method
Participants included a total of 51-undergraduate volunteers that is 19 females and 32 males; these are some of the students who received little credit in their college course. 3.19 was the low college point average grade in this case. The students who were on particular medication, dieting or menstruating got excluded from the process. Those who had struggled or were struggling with eating difficulties were also excluded. The last group that was exempted was the caffeine and nicotine addicts.
Materials
A digital numbers-matching test on (www.psychtests.com/tests/iq/concentration.html) was used to measure the concentration speed and the student’s accuracy, and it consisted of 26 lines of 25 numbers each. After 6 minutes the students who were participating looked for their pairs of digits in each rule that summed up to ten. A calculation was done out of 120 to determine the scoreline. A puzzle which contained five octagons having a stencil of a specific object with either a flower or an animal was used to measure perseverance. The five formations ought to be pilled on each other in a particular manner to form a rabbit-like silhouette. All three shaped got altered to make the task almost impossible to achieve. The number of minutes taken by the participants on the puzzle before giving up was the scores for their perseverance.
Procedure
Initially, when they met, the participating students showed an informed consent and every accord paper had a designated identification number and ordered for student’s grade point average. Participants were told that they would receive notification about their assignments by telephone or e-mail. Instructions sheets were provided to the students, and these written instructions were as well read aloud for they explained the condition for the experiments, clarified all guidelines for the food starvation duration and also showed the location and time of testing. Randomly the participants were assigned to any of the conditions by the application of a matched –triplets model gauged on the grade point average tabulated during the first gathering. The model or instead design kept in check the individual personal difference in cognitive capability. After two days, the students were reminded of their tasks and how it is done. They were also told not to eat anything after 10 a.m. because they belonged to a food-deprived group.
Participating students belonging to the first control section got examined at dawn in a specified computer lab when deprivation process began while the ones in the 12-hour ones were reviewed in the mid-morning on the very day.
The others in the 24-hour section got examined at mid-day on a subsequent day. The participants arrived at the lab for testing at the assigned time, a written instructed which is read aloud and given to each of them. An unlimited duration is given to the participants as they solve the puzzle so that no influence can be observed. A student could be going on with the mystery even 30 minutes after another had given up.
Results
Attentiveness and focus statistics from a control-class participant were let go off with that he never entirely completed that experiment while perseverance evaluation from another control-class contender got banished since she left the test time earlier than expected. Manipulation check question showed that every contributor precisely understood her or his state of deprivation and ought to follow set guidelines to the latter. The average concentration score was 78 percent over an average 24 minutes. The prediction was that a participant in the 24-hour deprival category performed dismally than the one in the 12-hour bunch. When gender got considered as a determinant, the results ended up to be null and void because generally or with specific sex has little or no impact on deprivation instances (Kiss et al., 228), So food deprivation affects perseverance profoundly as the as the number of hours increase.
Conclusion
The study purposefully determines how various levels of deprivation from food related to perseverance and concentration while performing strenuous tasks (Hickman, Cory, and Louis, 215). And successfully it decided that the longer the participants stayed without food, the lesser concentration they have and significantly the lower their perseverance in doing tasks. The findings assert that focus is not to a profoundly affected by short-term deprivation of food. When a strenuous job that needs utmost tenacity is involved, the normality of the tests changes because the focus is hindered by denial for a short time due to loss of energy in a hard manual job, The capability of staying focused reduces tremendously in a short period.
Work Cited
Green, Michael W., Nicola A. Elliman, and Peter J. Rogers. “Lack of effect of short-term fasting on cognitive function.” Journal of Psychiatric Research 29.3 (1995): 245-253.
Pinel, John PJ, Sunaina Assanand, and Darrin R. Lehman. “Hunger, eating, and ill health.” American Psychologist 55.10 (2000): 1105.
Hickman, Karen L., Cory Stromme, and Louis G. Lippman. “Learned industriousness: Replication in principle.” The Journal of general psychology 125.3 (1998): 213-217.
Kiss, P., et al. “Changes of PACAP levels in the brain show gender differences following short-term water and food deprivation.” General and comparative endocrinology 152.2-3 (2007): 225-230.
