The research is in: Caffeine boosts your mental and physical performance in
alifeofproductivity.com
alifeofproductivity.com
The last time I quit coffee for a long period time was around the end of college. It was really rough at first, but I started sleeping really well every night. I slept for 12 hours the first day, but I started to feel incredibly rested. I was able to just relax and read books. I felt more introspective and began to realize things inside of me that I had been distracted from. I felt more like me. I didn't have the highs that coffee brought, but I didn't have the lows brought by over-consumption, anxiety and sleep deprivation, headaches from withdrawal when I didn't have enough.
Of course, something got me back on it, I'm still drinking coffee, and it's even harder to quit now.
Here's a list of the long term effects:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/97493-caffeine-longterm-ef...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/20888549/
Sad that we live in a world where it seemingly needs to be so ubiquitous.
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-caffeine-can-cram...
(tl;dr a wandering mind is good for creativity. Caffeine stimulates focus and inhibits mind wandering)
It's not quite a slam dunk though - the mind wandering is supposed to happen before the creative act. So I see no reason why going for a walk, then sitting down to write with a cup of coffee, should have any negative effects whatsoever.
I'd assume the study would have told these people not to consume caffeine until they arrived at the study. If these people were regular caffeine users the positive effects could just be that the caffeine they were given alleviated the withdrawl symptoms of going without caffeine all day until the study.