The Wall Street Journal today focused in on various studies today around “coffee breaks” and their benefit (or lack thereof) to performance. They found that performance on memory and attention tests improved by 20% after subjects paused for a walk through an arboretum. When the same people strolled down a busy street, no cognitive boost was found. Interestingly, a 10 minute break in a quiet room to look at pictures of a nature scene had similar (but not as significant) results, while looking at pictures of a city street in the same quiet room did not. And the coffee itself? Men who drank more than their usual amount of coffee actually performed worse when working on a group assignment.