ALANI ADDICT: Student chugs energy drink while doing homework.
Photo courtesy of The Wall Street Journal
The academy is overrun by students entirely dependent on energy drinks for survival. As finals season looms like an overbearing mother, students are becoming increasingly concerned for their friends’ health and well-being. Numerous cans of liquid death (not to be confused with Liquid Death) are spotted daily in the library, lounges, and classes. Whether it be a Monster that unabashedly incorporates the consumer danger into its marketing or a Bloom selling lies of “wellness” and “clean-energy”, the nutrition labels admit the truth: it’s all the same chemical soup.
Despite baseless claims of “good tastes” or “fruity flavors”, energy drinks are not nearly delicious enough to justify their harms. In fact, others have described the taste as akin to “battery acid” and “as if your stomach rejected any sort of food, and instead of being upset, decided to personally attack you”. Kayla Kouahou ’28 feels very strongly about this topic.
Although the cans do have alarming amounts of caffeine in them (averaging 200 milligrams per drink), most symptoms are the result of the other chemicals unique to energy drinks alone. While there are studies demonstrating common side effects (elevated heart rate, jitteriness, etc.), one doesn’t have to look further than EA’s own campus to see for themselves. If a student had a dime for every encounter with a twitchy peer possessed by the spirit of an Alani, they’d be Mansa Musa reincarnated.
The extensive health risks of energy drinks call your reasons for consumption into question. Are you truly so swamped that you have to stay up until 2 am? Or, more believably, have you been scrolling on Instagram Reels for the past hour? Either way, there is a solution for your conundrum.
For procrastinators: It looks as if your overheating phones are finally melting your brains, seeing as how nobody can write an essay without the help of chatGPT or read anything informative without split screening Subway Surfers. It is not cute to be rereading the same sentence 4 times or claiming to be taking an hour long ten minute break. You have been curating a Spotify playlist titled “study” for the past hour. That’s no longer preparation–that’s giving up!
If you, in an impressive show of immense inner strength, do not fall in the previous category, don’t fret. Most likely, you’re drinking energy drinks because, as a genuinely busy and heavy workload-carrying student, you have to stay up late to study. As such, caffeine may be necessary, and that is where tea, coffee, and other alternatives come into play.
Coffee can easily contain the same amount of caffeine as energy drinks, without the nasty consequences of the unpronounceable added chemicals. For those who don’t want large quantities of caffeine in their drinks but are still in need of an energy boost, tea is a perfect option. If you’re a performative male, matcha is the perfect caffeinated option for you. Remember, there is a world beyond energy drinks. You just have to be brave enough to take the first step.