For Long-Term Benefits

How Sugar Can Enhance Your Prospects

If you're about to try to negotiate a pay rise, it might be a good idea to have a sugary drink beforehand. It helps you concentrate on long-term rewards, reason your case for longer and more aggressively, according to a study published recently in Psychological Science.

Researchers at the University of South Dakota asked 65 students to answer a series of questions in which they had to choose between getting a smaller sum of money to morrow or a large sum in the future.The participants responded to half the questions on an empty stomach and the other half after consuming a sweetened drink. Within 10 minutes of drinking a sugary soda, participants interest in a larger, future reward was higher, said Xiao-Tian Wang, one of the psychological scientists who led the study. "It's like when you eat or if your blood sugars are high, you can probably wait for longer to eat.The cognitive impact on your mind is that you are able to wait longer to get a bigger reward, "Wang said.

Having a higher blood sugar level made participants less impulsive. "On the other hand, having a diet drink low on calories made people more impulsive and go for the immediate, smaller reward," Wang said.