
The Cognitive Benefits Of Chewing Gum - cwan
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/the-cognitive-benefits-of-chewing-gum/
======
cromulent
At some point many years ago, gum was a startup. I would have loved to hear
the elevator pitch:

    
    
      So, we have a sticky product that you put in your mouth and chew.
      We call it "Gum".
    
      It's a food?
    
      No, you just chew it for a while. Then, you throw it away.
    
      Throw it away? Where are you going to sell it?
    
      Everywhere - gas stations, supermarkets, corner stores.
    
      OK, I might pass. Let me know how it works out.

~~~
brandall10
Chewing gum has been around for thousands of years, first to be commercially
sold in the mid 1800s. So it had somewhat of an established test market :)

Interesting aside, Wrigley didn't start off selling gum - originally it was
packaged for free with their baking soda. The gum became more popular than the
baking soda and well... they did a fairly profitable pivot.

Around half a century later Topps was a manufacturer of chewing gum, having
roots in the tobacco industry (things you chew?). By this point in time gum
was sold by itself, and there were many players in the industry. In an effort
to increase sales they began packaging cards with the gum and well...

~~~
compman775
Did the baking soda ever affect the taste of the gum?

------
lurker17
<http://mudcat.org/detail_pf.cfm?messages__Message_ID=364502>

Credit to Ogden Nash, it seems.

    
    
        The gum-chewing girl and the cud-chewing cow
        Seem somewhat alike, yet different somehow.
        Ah, yes, there it is! I see it all now!
        It's the intelligent look on the face of the cow.
    

Ironic.

~~~
gruseom
That is far too metrically clumsy to be by Ogden Nash.

~~~
shrikant
Whoops sorry for the accidental downvote..

------
peregrine
Often times I find myself playing with pens, chewing on
gums/pencils/paper/toothpicks, generally playing with anything I can get my
hands on, especially when trying to listen to people or think carefully. As a
kid I was always yelled at for playing with things too much, or touching
things or having to get a tactile feel for things in order to learn them.

Personally I feel like in order to truly understand things I need to get a
'feel' for it and having multiple sources of inputs into my brain helps a lot.
So reading/listening to someone speak/seeing someone speak/playing with it for
fun/doing work with it are all things I need to do if I want to have a strong
understanding.

This tends to be a weakness for me in my courses because I have a tendency to
take longer to pick up abstract mathematical concepts than my classmates. The
advantage is in the next course, say calc II, I usually have a deeper
understanding and am able to make up for it. I am not sure if this is a result
of me doing more work with the subjects or if its because I was able to learn
it in more 'ways' than they were.

Chewing gum doesn't seem to work for long periods, in my experience, because
the gum looses flavor and or changes consistency so much that it just barely
distracts me. If it doesn't change it tends to fall into the background. If
thats the case I start to 'play' with it in my mouth making shapes, or folding
it, all things to keep my brain busy.

------
hammock
Reminds be of the study showing doodling also benefits cognitive function
(<http://www.bakadesuyo.com/does-doodling-make-you-smarter>).

It's not hard to imagine how physically occupying yourself in some way,
whether it's doodling or chewing gum or diddling your thumbs or playing with a
pen, frees up your mind to concentrate on a mental task.

~~~
flinty
Can you elaborate on the last line you wrote?

~~~
artmageddon
That was probably a reference to this link:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3058626>

~~~
hammock
Yeah, that's what I was thinking of.

------
Too
Actually just smelling mint has been shown to increase performance for tasks
requiring concentration. Maybe there's some correlation there. The article
only mentions sugar vs nosugar gum.

~~~
ludicast
Some fighters brush their teeth before a bout.

------
chadgeidel
I've found that chewing gum keeps me more alert when driving late at night.
Obviously I don't plan trips around this habit, but it works great in a pinch
since I require significant amounts of caffeine for the same effect.

Edit: Additionally it helps mild upset stomach. Beware! Anecdotal evidence! I
read somewhere that saliva "counteracts" the acid in your stomach. Can't find
the evidence now.

~~~
electromagnetic
Any non-acidic liquid will help reduce acid-related upset stomach. Water
works, but I'd assume the constant increase in gum probably has a longer
effect than the temporary effect you get from a sip of water.

I've never heard of saliva doing anything more than diluting your stomach
acid, but I've never really tried to find if it does or doesn't. So I'll leave
that for another commenter.

~~~
chadgeidel
I seem to remember reading that saliva is slightly basic (pH > 7.0) A quick
Googling reinforces this. Not that it means anything. I am not a doctor or a
medical professional.

------
jaetldev
I know a better benefit. Since I started chewing gum (brand x - contains
Xylitol) I have better teeth.

I slowed down my coke/dew consumption and eat gum instead after every meal
after a glass of water. Believe me, having fresh breath makes a huge
difference. Yes... cognitive in my case :)

------
eatmyshorts
As a sufferer of Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMJ -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporomandibular_joint_disorde...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporomandibular_joint_disorder)
), I know that I, and many others, grind their teeth when under large amounts
of stress. Could it be that my body has already adapted to the chewing motion
as a mechanism for improving cognitive performance? (Due to stress, I grind my
teeth, both when sleeping and when awake, which contributes to my suffering
from TMJ)

~~~
twstws
I occasionally grind my teeth at night, enough to give me migraines the next
day. A doctor suggested gum as a remedy, and it seems to work. I guess his
theory was that it worked the muscles enough to 'wear them out' by the time I
went to bed.

Whatever the reason, it suggests that we do get some benefit from exercising
our jaw beyond eating. Maybe we evolved to eat tougher stuff than the typical
modern diet.

------
gojomo
I've seen similar results regarding simple eye movements side-to-side, as an
aid to certain mental/emotional processing. Generally, perhaps simple rhythmic
motor tasks, and maybe especially those associated with the senses of
communication (seeing, speaking, eye-contact), have a spillover benefit for
concurrent thinking.

~~~
gwern
I saw one result for memory performance in right-handed people (
<http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ#saccading> ) - was that what you saw? Doesn't
seem connected to emotional processing.

~~~
gojomo
The emotional result I was thinking of is the use of 'Eye Movement
Desensitization and Reprocessing' (EMDR) for PTSD treatment.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_desensitization_and_reprocessing)

Here's an example of eye-movements improving certain kinds of recall:

[http://www.livescience.com/1473-moving-eyes-improves-
memory-...](http://www.livescience.com/1473-moving-eyes-improves-memory-study-
suggests.html)

By one view of memory – recall makes memories stronger – the EMDR result might
seem paradoxical. Making traumatic memories stronger helps? But there's also
the theory that recall is really recall-and-re-store, perhaps modified, so
maybe EMDR helps recast the same memories to be less loaded. Per Wikipedia
there's still some controversy over EMDR.

------
losvedir
Hm, it's a weird angle, but I'm pretty sure that's a photo of "Bubble Gum
Alley" in my hometown of San Luis Obispo, CA.

It's been there for decades, gradually accruing a disgustingly large amount of
gum on the walls (sometimes several layers deep).

~~~
pkamb
It's the Pike Place Market gum wall in Seattle. Proof is in the "Market
Theater" sign barely visible in the top right corner.

