I have spent the last month slowly replacing my blood stream with Mountain Dew.
Yes, I confess to replacing sleep with caffeine. That’s not uncommon; coffee drinkers have been doing it for years. Now the market for energy drinks in America is thriving, which is especially obvious on a college campus. Monster, Full Throttle, Red Bull, Mountain Dew…it’s the Super Coffee of the 21st century. Hyper-caffeination in 12 ounces. As far as my mother knows, I don’t drink energy drinks (yes, there’s a lot my mother doesn’t know about me). She says that they’re bad for your heart. As usual, I ignore her and chug my liquid caffeine concentrate.
Last week, my friend had a couple of tests. You know what that means…no sleep, full attention to studying, using the last fiber of energy, which leads to the energy drink. After 3 days and lots and lots of Red Bull, he started shaking. OK, not really shaking, but he was trembling. We were laughing at him trying to write because his hand was shaking so badly. He said he felt funny,like his heart was racing in overdrive. It wasn't scary, we weren't trying to get him to PUSH or anything, but he couldn't control himself. The only possible source we could figure for his reaction was that he had consumed an awful lot of energy drinks, and it was making his system race uncontrollably.
The average cup of coffee has 7.13 mg/oz of caffeine. That's a lot, enough to get most of America to use it to jumpstart their morning. A Red Bull has 9.64 mg/oz. Monster has 10.00 mg/oz. Full Throttle has 9.00 mg/oz, while Fuel Cell has 90.00 mg/oz. That's an awful big kick to your system. Every once in a while, that might be OK, but most people who drink them chug them like water. Caffeine speeds up your body's normal functions, but your body also adjusts to it. The more often you drink caffeine, the more you have to drink to feel the effects. So for the people who chug religiously, their systems are in a constant state of hyperactivity.
Like I said, the energy drink market is on a rise in America. I think in a few years, we will start to see the effects of it. We'll see the people who thrived on energy drinks versus those who didn't, and there will be a definitive difference between the two groups.
1 comment:
The scary thing about what you just wrote was that it sounded an awful lot like drugs. I am a big energy drink consumer and I now get headaches when I don't have my caffeine. It's true that the more you have, the more tolerant you become. Red Bull does nothing for me and I could probably drink 5 cups of coffee right before bed and still get to sleep. I think we Americans need to slow down and take some time out before we run ourselves into the ground with our high speed lives.
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