Excessive amounts of energy drinks?

It's exam time, and for the past three or four weeks I've been drinking lucozade to keep me going while revising. I don't normally drink the stuff, but I've been exhausted so often lately that I've needed the lift.

Unfortunately I feel like I almost require it by the end of the day - and I'm concerned of the effects it's going to have on me. Today for example, I've had 3 bottles of it already, and I've got another two to hand if I need them. I know this is really bad, but I normally have two a day, at the most.

My exams finish at the end of the week, and I intend to drop them as soon as I finish, but I'm worried that I'm going to have caused myself some kind of damage in the time I've been drinking the.

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Reply 1

Captn

They haven't killed me yet

Reply 2

Anonymous #1

Woops, meant to say 'drinking it' at the end :redface:

Reply 3

tans8701

mate its lucozade not cocaine

Reply 4

guardian

You can look at energy drinks and the effects of caffeine and taurine in many different ways but I myself am a caffeine addict and it hasn't had a necessarily massively negative effect on me yet and I've been drinking excessive caffeine for a long time. Caffeine can be good for you but too much of it can be bad for you. It's a stimulant and therefore increases the number of positive cells within the brain, therefore making you more happy. However, too much caffeine can result in being overly tired and that is a symptom which I suffer from a lot. I tend to focus more on the effect of sugar than caffeine as sugar is bad for the teeth of course. I tend to get diet energy drinks if I feel the need to have them. I have recently been cutting down on energy drinks and despite being overly tired and feeling the need to have them in order to increase my awareness and concentration, it has worked.

The risks of caffeine is that it increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes and it does increase your heart rate therefore increasing your alertness. Think about it positively though and you'll be fine. Think of how many people are addicted to caffeine and how long they are surviving for, it's nothing to worry about.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 5

Jessica_94

you need to go to rehab, your consuming way too much caffeine, id have some blood tests and xrays aswell if i was you, just to check every things still in working order

Reply 6

Octohedral

I've been thinking the same - Monster is cheap in Sainburys, and the juice one tastes so good :tongue:

I don't honestly know. I've never had bad effects from energy drinks, and I shouldn't think a few weeks a year will kill you. However, last year I overdosed on coffee a couple of times during the exam period (around 8-12 cups in a night), and that gave me quite bad palpitations.

Just keep an eye on it, and as long as it's only during exams you should be fine (not healthy, but fine). Trust me, your body will tell you if it wants to start rejecting caffeine.

Good luck in your exams :smile:

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 7

Iqbal007

Original post by Anonymous

It can slightly affect you, but after exams when you stopped having them,you'll be seriously feeling tired, just rest up for the next few weeks.

Reply 8

Anonymous #1

I'm not so bothered about the caffeine as the sugar - a single bottle is about 80% of the GDA and I've been having a fair few every night for a month.

Reply 9

Di_mi_tris

When i was writing exams i've once drunk 2 espressos and one sugarfree red bull! I couldn't sleep for 2 days!!!Good days!!

Reply 10

Hearty_Beast

I doubt it's too bad for you, particularly short term (though honestly, I would definitely reduce when you can... though don't risk your exams by quitting now)
As someone above said, the sugar's probably the main problem, except possibly addiction/reliance.

But how can you afford so much?! That must be well over £5 a day on energy drinks!

Reply 11

qgujxj39

It might sound silly, but I find the main thing that suffers from consuming energy drinks is my teeth.

Reply 12

fuze-mo25

Original post by Anonymous

you know lucozade has like 58% of the sugars your supposed to have in a day?

so say you eat averagely and then drink 3-4 bottles thats 3 times as much sugar that your supposed to have in a day!

so yh really isn't healthy

Reply 13

Anonymous #1

Original post by Hearty_Beast

There's a place near mine that sells them for about 60p each. Normally I don't spend much more than £2 a day, and I usually avoid them the day before an exam so that I manage to sleep :tongue:

Reply 14

spacepirate-James

You can get tolerant to drinking lots of energy drinks. This, obviously, means that you need to drink more to reach the same threshold.

Other than that you're thinking about all the side-effects of caffeine: irritability, dehydration (from being a diuretic), insomnia, heart effects etc...

Although lucozade is one of the better energy drinks out there, have you maybe thought about switching to something else like tea? It a lot of people it can be a mental thing more than a physical thing i.e. right amount of sleep, breaks etc... :smile:

Reply 15

megara

My dad used to work nightshift in Sainsbury's. A guy there used to drink 3x Red Bull cans every night (3/7 nights a week.) One night he dropped down dead from a heart attack, because the excess caffeine was making his heart rate crazy. Be careful is what i'd say.

Reply 16

Lambo_93

Just to clarify, lucozade, relative to 'energy drinks' has far lower amounts of caffeine, it's the high glucose concentration which will cause very steep peaks and troughs in your blood glucose levels which you want to avoid.
Just try eating starchy food to keep your energy up instead of relying on quick boosts. While the information you retain, or the quality of your performance in exams will be poor when you are in the dip of blood glucose.

Lucozade - 46mg per 380ml
Red bull - 80 mg per 250 ml

Reply 17

guardian

Original post by fuze-mo25

Yeah, sugar for me is the main concern with energy drinks.

Reply 18

College_Dropout

It hardly effects me, i have about 2 cups of coffee, couple of cans of 475ml red bulls and occasionally a can of rockstar or monster aswell as some energy gum thing which i have forgot the name of. Although i do remember when i was younger i used to have a bottle of powerade everyday, a couple of weeks into it, i found it very hard to get sleep for a period of about a week.