There is a lot of stuff out there about how horrible coffee is for you, but I can tell you right now, it is the best thing on a cold morning when you are half asleep. Coffee is what drives the general populace to their 9 to 5 jobs, and college students to study those all-nighters. Not only has it become a staple in American society (thank you, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts), but let's face it; anything tastes good with enough sugar and flavored creamer.

Here are five reasons why everyone should drink coffee.

1. "Coffee is the number one source of antioxidants"

According to the article on this website, www.eurikalert.org, coffee is the number one source of antioxidants. This article is based on a study done by the Univerity of Scranton (PA) in 2005. The study leader, chemistry professor Ph.D. Joe Vinson, claims, "Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close."

2. "A whiff of coffee can wake you up"

Yes, there have been studies on this, and yes, it was done by real scientists. Han-Seok Seo, study leader from the Seoul National Univeristy in South Korea, has conducted studies to see if the aroma of coffee can help rats that have been stressed by sleep deprivation. The rats, who were allowed to sniff the coffee, "expressed proteins that have healthful antioxidant properties known to protect nerve cells from stress-related damage." So yes, coffee helps with stress.

3. "Coffee drinking associated with lower risk for alcohol-related liver disease"

Arthur L. Klatsky, M.D. and his colleagues at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland, CA performed a study that tried to link coffee drinkers with the decreased risk of alcohol-related liver disease alcoholic cirrhosis. The study showed that for "each cup of coffee they drank per day, participants were 22 percent less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis."

4. Coffee is actually linked to a lower risk of depression and suicide??????

A study done by the American Academy of neurology came up with this: "This large prospective study suggests that frequent consumption of diet sweetened beverages may increase depression risk among older adults, whereas coffee consumption may lower the risk."

Another study from the Harvard school of public health collected data from three large US studies and discovered "the risk of suicide for adults who drank two to four cups of caffeinated coffee per day was about half that of those who drank decaffeinated coffee or very little or no coffee."

..... Even I didn't know that.

5. Coffee can make you a BETTER athlete

Scientists at the Coventry University in England had 13 fit young men do exercises with and without caffeine in their systems. They found that with caffeine, "the person felt more able to invest effort,"and "they would put more work into the training session and when the session was finished... they were more psychologically ready to go again."

The basic moral of the story, people should drink coffee all the time. I mean who doesn't want an adorable leaf tree-thing in their cup?

I mean seriously...