Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Energy Addictions

I'm really tired.  I ended up staying up till 1 a.m. again last night because Snackers wanted me to read the first two chapters of the book I'm writing to him.  Sunday night I stayed up too late because Snackers went to a big 48 hour music festival here in Vegas and drank a dozen or so Rockstar energy drinks that they were giving away for free at a promotional booth and then came home with more energy than any one man has a right to have.  I kept saying "Goodnight hunny" and he'd say goodnight back and then just as I'd feel myself start to doze off he'd start talking again. lol

When energy drinks first came out, way before RedBull, Rockstar and all of the others that we're familiar with, there was a skinny green and black can with the words ENERGY printed on it in acid green letters.  My older sister and I were in our teens, still living at home, and for some crazy reason we decided to split one at around 7 p.m.  I remember that we both stayed up all night long talking and going into fits of laughter that were so bad we couldn't breathe.  My mom kept coming into our room to literally BEG us to be quiet and go to sleep because our parent's room was right across the hall from our room but we just couldn't stop.

Honestly, I think that if a person drinks enough energy drinks they might as well take meth or speed.  Maybe the energy drink doesn't quite have all the negative side effects of drugs like rotting teeth and bad skin but if you drink enough of it over an extended period of time maybe it does.  I certainly believe that energy drinks can be addictive - lots of things can be addictive and we don't even think of them that way because if they modify our body's natural chemistry our bodies usually try to compensate.  If we take too many antacids, for example, our stomach might start producing more stomach acid to compensate and then we're stuck with a habitual case of heart burn which might lead us to take more antacids (this happened to my mother).  Chapstick and eye drops can be the same way.

I'll tell you one thing, Snackers was "coming down" yesterday and it looked an awful lot like someone trying to detox while having a hangover at the same time.  That convinced me more than anything that those energy drinks can be dangerous if over indulged.





Food:
150 oz of water
1 cup of coffee w/creamer
1 Healthy Choice lunch
1 chicken and broccoli pot pie
1/2 serving sunflower seeds
1 piece of a chocolate bar
---------------------------------------
Daily Caloric Intake: 947





Activity:
100 jumping jacks
Walking: 1/2 mile
Cleaning/Laundry and fixing the dryer

3 comments:

  1. I read in the ingredients of those things that so many of them are loaded with caffeine and with my high blood pressure I never tried them. Messing with the body's systems has never seemed wise. If we are tired, our bodies are telling us to rest - we shouldn't override that. I know we overextend ourselves at times but there has to be a better way than endangering our health.

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  2. I agree. I'm a pretty big fan of coffee, though, however coffee is quite a bit different from most energy drinks.

    Back in school there was a kid who did a paper on energy drinks. It was amazing how bad they are for you -- and how if you drink only 1 per day the effects are cumulative because it takes more than 1 day for the effects of 1 of them to wear off completely. I don't remember actual #s but it was something like by the time you are 10 or 20 days in, you have a pretty significant increased risk of heart attack.

    Bad stuff. I won't say I never drink them anymore... but I drink maybe 1 or 2 per year.

    Too bad, cuz I think Redbulls taste great.

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  3. I am not a fan of them but I will admit to being guilty of having had one now and then when I really needed the extra boost. There are two primary factors, IMO, when it comes to energy drinks.

    1) I love coffee too but the boost in coffee is a natural element in natural quantities. Energy drinks are loaded with unnatural quantities of caffeine, sugar, and other things that - each on their own might not be so bad but adding them all together makes them much more volatile.

    2) When you actually "need" an energy drink you are more than likely exhausted. Let's face it, exhaustion is our body's way of telling us we're not getting enough of something: sleep, relaxation, meditation, ... whatever. Once in a blue moon to "override" that internal biological error code might not be so bad but to do so repeatedly through the use of energy drinks is like refusing to allow your computer to reboot when it needs to. Sooner or later something's gonna fry.

    I'd love to have tweaker-like levels of energy every day and be running around like a mad woman accomplishing everything that needs to get done like a Santa Clause on crack but that's just not how I'm wired. I can naturally train myself to have more energy by gradually pushing myself to do more and by maintaining a proper diet and exercise routine but cracking out on energy isn't much better than juicing up on steroids in my opinion and we all know that those started out as a "OTC boost" once upon a time and then we learned more about them. I have a feeling that energy drinks are headed down the same road. It all boils down to the human need to chemically induce abnormal physiology in ourselves.

    Borg implants and nano-probes are the Red Bull of the future. lol

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