Roughly a year and a half ago I drank my first energy drink. Original Monster energy. I wasn’t particularly tired when I took the first sip, but after drinking a can I felt a boost of energy. One that I had never felt before. Fast forward to my junior year, I began to take on more responsibilities than I ever had before. Advanced placement classes, joining video production, robotics meetings, getting my license, and getting my first job all occurred within this year. While taking on all of these responsibilities, I decided to turn to energy drinks as a way to get me through the day. This quickly evolved into a daily habit, sometimes drinking two of them in a single day. After I let this go on from January, the start of robotics season all the way to May for our AP exams, I began to notice some negative effects it was having on my health. Regardless of the positive and negative scientific data published about energy drinks, I couldn’t deny the adverse effects I was feeling. Here are a few reasons why I decided to cut back and why I think a young person should avoid energy drinks altogether.
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- I simply don’t need them – Taking on these new responsibilities, I turned to energy drinks because I thought I needed them to push through everything. However, the year prior I was arguably putting the same if not more energy into activities I was participating in. I was on the basketball team, so I would go to practices or games, then head to robotics right after. I never caved to energy drinks that whole year. The fact of the matter is that I just don’t need them in order to function on a daily basis.
- I felt anxious – When I first drank energy drinks, I felt a boost of energy that made me feel determined to get stuff done. After a while, I began to genuinely enjoy the taste of them, even drinking them solely for enjoyment. However, after a while I began to feel anxious, especially in social situations. When going out with friends my palms would become sweaty, I’d feel overheated, begin to slightly shake, and I wouldn’t really be able to focus on those around me. This would kill my mood in social situations, and ultimately led me to decide not to drink them around others.
- My heart rate increased – It’s no secret that energy drinks result in an increased heart rate. This wouldn’t happen to me every time I drank one, but when it did it would scare me a little bit. I’d become conscious about the fact that it was beating faster, and then the anxiety from this realization made it beat even faster. I would become a little shaken by this and try to stop drinking them after experiencing this.
- They didn’t improve my focus – At least in my experience, energy drinks could give me more energy, but they definitely did not improve my focus. Although I would mainly drink them as a way to push through on school assignments, they did not help me focus at all when trying to concentrate. The energy drinks would simply keep me awake and able to keep working, but I would still make the same arithmetic mistakes. They didn’t make me lock in.
- I became nauseous – When drinking energy drinks, especially on an empty stomach I became very nauseous. If you are going to drink energy drinks I’d recommend eating something substantial before you do. Especially when drinking more than one energy drink, this sense of nausea became heightened.
After witnessing this list of adverse effects, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t recommend them to other students, especially those at younger ages. While I haven’t entirely quit drinking energy drinks, I have definitely cut back on them. At the very least consider my experience before you go ahead and turn to energy drinks when life gets hectic.
