If you don’t need to drink that stuff, don’t.
I’ll never forget a moment in my Freshman year of college: it was the first day of a long weekend, everyone was all jazzed up to have some fun. I left my room to go use the bathroom, and when I pass by the communal trash bin, what do I see? The bin literally filled to bursting with empty Four Loko cans. That dorm was a powder keg of energy, and immediately took cover in my room for the duration of the weekend for fear of the melee that was to come. Mankind is not meant to wield that kind of power.
Joking aside, energy drinks are a catch-22 of the nutritional world. When you down one, you’ll get enough fire in your belly to sprint through all of New York City, but when that heat wears off, not only will you feel like a walking corpse, but you may have contributed to expediting your body’s gradual decay. As the consumption of energy drinks has risen in the past decade, so too have occurrences of heart and liver problems.
At the same time, life is rarely so kind as to wait until you’re fully lucid in the morning before it starts slinging mud at you. I’ve had multiple sleepless nights counterbalanced by a morning energy shot; if it wasn’t for that shot, I wouldn’t have been able to get through the day. The name of the game, as with so many other nutritional subjects, is balance and moderation.
Energy drinks should not be casually consumed the same way one drinks a glass of water or a cup of juice. They should only be used when you are in dire need of energy for the purpose of getting through the day, and even then, you definitely shouldn’t down the whole can in one go. A single tall can be gradually nursed for almost a month if you do it right. Oh, and if possible, try to get healthier energy drinks with natural ingredients. If you absolutely have to put that stuff in you, the least you can do is get some B vitamins.
