This Is Your Brain On Caffeine

By: Sarah Mann

Posted: 12/13/09

Sarah Mann - Editorial - "This Is Your Brain on Caffeine"

There is a drug that is slowly sweeping colleges campuses nationwide, known as "caffeine." It received some attention in the media, although newscasters only covered it briefly before jumping back to more traditional evil drugs like cocaine, meth, and Miley Cyrus songs. Overdosage side effects include insomnia, nausea, headaches, shaking limbs, and even tachycardia (irregular heartbeat and palpitations).

I admit to taking this drug. I've knowingly ingested it on several occasions. Some friends of mine are addicted to it. Even my own father takes a dose every morning. It's okay, I figured, because it small amounts, it doesn't hurt. It increases alertness and battles tiredness.

Well, yes, but to a point. The problem with caffeine is that it's become a sort of panacea to deal with everything from long drives to waking up too early to pulling all-nighters for tests and exams. If you peek in on the Columns Office at 5 in the morning on a Monday, you'll probably see me in there chugging Cherry Cokes, sucking down every drop of caffeine like a starved mosquito in search of blood (if I'm not there, I had to run over to Pleasants to use the bathroom. That's another side-effect of caffeine - it's a diuretic).

Many of us are guilty of that too-much-of-a-good thing rule: Caffeine helps us in small doses and so we thought it'd be even better in bigger doses. We bought Monster Energy Drinks, 5-Hour Energy shots, and case upon case of Red Bull (I have yet to find my promised wings). We chugged Amp and Full Throttle, Jolt and Rockstar. But have any of us looked at how much caffeine is actually in those things?

According to energyfiend.com, it's a lot. Monster Energy Drink contains 10 milligrams (mg) of caffeine per ounce of liquid in a 16 ounce bottle. It's not the worst offender, though. Jolt Energy has 11.9 mg of caffeine for every ounce, but that's child's play compared to 5-Hour Energy, which contains a whopping 69 mg per ounce.

The 69 mg is a lot, but so is our caffeine intake from other sources. Even a plain old Starbucks coffee is around 20 mg per ounce, which is even more than in energy drinks.

So, enough of me harping on the amount of caffeine in everything. You know where this is headed - it's going to turn into a plea to be careful of your intake during finals and to please go to the hospital if you experience any of those side-effects that I mentioned before. Yeah, it is all of that, but it's a little something more, too.

This is me begging you to get sleep. This is me asking each and every one of you not to walk into your exam bragging about how you only got two hours and 14 minutes of rest last night, and how you're not going to sleep tonight either. I'm pleading with all of you to not kill yourselves in pursuit of a grade and to listen to your poor, overworked body when it's screaming at you to shut your eyes, at least for a little bit. I don't want anybody experience tachycardia or any of those other symptoms associated with overdose.

Besides, I'm driving home on Tuesday and I don't want any of you zombies on the road with me.