Early mornings, stressful exams, afternoon activities and more are examples students use to justify their large amounts of caffeine consumption. ADM Students love a good energy drink. Some students stop by Casey’s in town on their way to school, but many wake up extra early to travel 15 minutes to Waukee and 15 minutes back to Adel just to get their preferred caffeinated beverage for the day, typically from Starbucks or Hyper.

Most caffeinated beverages average to have 150-200mg of caffeine per serving. According to Riley Children’s Health at Indiana University Health, the recommended amount of caffeine for a teen, aged 12-18, is less than 100 mg. This raises the question: What are the drawbacks of regularly consuming more than that?

People who drink caffeinated drinks every day experience shaking, heightened anxiety, and headaches from withdrawal. Carter Tryon, Earth Science and Biomed teacher at ADM, expresses his deep hatred for caffeine: “I feel that it is a crutch… I think [caffeine is] just as bad for the body as something like nicotine.”

Caffeine is the most readily available and accepted drug worldwide. As a matter of fact, most drinks at the convenience store are caffeinated. Soda, teas, coffee and of course, energy drinks, are just a few examples of beverages you would find at your local Mega Saver. Heck, there’s even caffeine in chocolate.

But why is caffeine so bad for the body? Well, Tryon put it best: “It is a stimulator of the brain and it does affect our attention span. Your brain thinks it needs it,” he continues, “It constricts your blood vessels… it reduces blood flow around your brain… [caffeine] stimulates the heart to have narrowed blood vessels.”

Now, let’s address each of these claims in order.

Caffeine negatively impacts attention span

While caffeine will make you more alert, your body learns to rely on it. As you drink caffeine every morning in class, you build a habit within your body to stop relying on itself but rather rely on the chemical it receives every day for 5 months. You may experience symptoms of withdrawal from caffeine, such as headaches, inability to focus, irritability and more.

High schoolers struggle with attention span already through the excessive and pervasive use of social media and screens in general. Caffeine is just another way to bog down on that already waning attention span.

Ben Perman, history teacher at ADM, recently quit drinking energy drinks and switched to black coffee instead. In previous years, Perman was very well known for his daily energy drink, typically being Reign, which has 300mg of caffeine per can.

When quitting, Perman shared that he felt “more tired.” Even though he is not drinking energy drinks, Perman is still drinking roughly 120-140 mg every day from his coffee.

Caffeine constricts blood vessels and reduces blood flow to the brain

People frequently argue that they drink caffeine because it subsides a constant headache that they have. Well, the reason that it does this is that it reduces the blood vessels around your brain. According to Mayo Clinic, “when caffeine is taken in combination with pain medicines, such as aspirin, ibuprofen or acetaminophen, it increases the absorption and strength of the medication to provide faster relief.”

This explains what people mean when they use what I call the “headache excuse” to continue with their caffeine addiction. Sophomore Kinsey Shaw shares that without caffeine, she experiences headaches and even feels sick: “If I don’t drink it, then I feel sick. I feel like I get hit by a bus,” Shaw said.

Shaw shares that she has tried to quit caffeine in the past, but she felt sick for a full week before giving up on quitting.

Earlier in April, a teen girl named Larissa Nicole Rodriguez died from overconsumption of caffeine. She had no pre-existing heart conditions of any sort, yet her intense caffeine consumption cut her life short. Rodriguez made having an Alani a part of her daily routine, as do many high schoolers.

Junior Izzy Book is a long-time, huge caffeine consumer–in fact, the last time she remembers going a day without an energy drink is back in her freshman year. Book shares that she has approximately 14 energy drinks in a weeks span, meaning 2 each day, and occasionally an additional smaller drink.

Book shares, “I like the flavor of them, and I feel like it’s a habit. Like I can’t not have them. Then it’ll give me headaches if I don’t have them.” Book’s friends share their concern with Book regularly and persistently, yet Book makes no effort to change her habits.

With this addiction, it’s a little bit difficult to hide it from her parents, but Book shares that her parents buy her packs in bulk from Costco, and “they dont know that I drink two a day… I just take them out of the fridge when they’re not looking,” Book said. Headaches are persistent if she hasn’t had her caffeine for the day yet.

Caffeine is a drug. Plain and simple. It is no different than something like nicotine or alcohol. Alcoholism is a disease carried down through family, and it’s a hard disease to have. Alcoholism is the chronic need and want to drink alcohol all the time, despite social or occupational consequences.

While alcoholism specifically relates to alcohol consumption, it is not strictly alcohol that people experience this for. I have several recovering alcoholics in my life, they share that the urge for consuming alcohol may dissipate, but the urge to consume something as intensely as they previously consumed alcohol is strong, and many of them continue this through different drinks such as juice, sparkling water or soda.

I have seen this in my own home, through my dad. I have seen him go through different phases of being “addicted” (in the lighter sense of the word) to different things and drinks, such as LaCroix, cranberry juice, tea and more.

As someone who has alcoholism on both sides of my family, I can feel that it is easier for me to become attached to things like caffeine and it is because of this that I know that I need to practice self-control now, so I don’t lose myself in the future to something worse.

I urge students to seriously limit their caffeine intake to at least the daily limit of 100 mg. In my experience, I’ll admit that I recently quit caffeine (literally in the middle of April) because of the things I’ve learned from researching this topic.

The whole reason I ever drank caffeine is honestly just because I liked the taste of the drinks, similar to Book. At first, drinking a Celsius in the morning gave me a huge boost. However, as time went on, I noticed that I stopped feeling the effects as much, especially at smaller doses. A can of Dr. Pepper used to be enough caffeine to keep me awake all night but now I think I would need an entire Alani and an 8.4 fl oz Redbull.

I have “cut off” caffeine several times since I started drinking it– regretfully in sixth grade–but never completely. Since I quit caffeine, I have saved a LOT of money. Almost four dollars at Casey’s every morning for a Monster? RIDICULOUS. Now, I focus on drinking at least one of my 40-oz water bottles a day and if I wake up in the morning more tired than usual, I grab fruit instead of a drug.

So, you want to quit? Stock up on some Ibuprofen and pick up a new stress-relieving hobby. While grabbing your pain-reliever, here are some alternative drinks to have as an alternative to your caffeine.