Op-Ed: Energy now, crash later

Energy drinks are often used by Lightridge students to stay up late and stay awake during the day. In recent years it has become more and more common to see students carrying around some sort of energy enhancing drink. For some this means coffee, for others it means Red Bulls, Monsters, or Celsius.

There is a lot of pressure on students to perfectly balance academics, extracurriculares, and a social life. Sometimes it seems like the only way to do this is to have extra energy. For many students, energy drinks have replaced sleep. My first experience with energy drinks kept me up for hours. My heart started to beat faster and faster. The sugary taste was pleasant and reminiscent of juice rather than the unpleasant flavor I expected. It is easy to see why students turn towards this, for a way to deal with an unmanageable workload.

Despite students thinking that the drinks will be helpful, they cause a number of problems impacting both mental and physical health. Energy drinks are often high in sugar that can lead to weight gain, even drinks with zero sugar that are artificially sweetened with chemicals have the same effects. One of the most detrimental effects that directly affect students is that they can cause headaches and increase anxiety.

“With headaches and anxiety you might even come to the clinic more often,” said Nicky Oxendine, Lightridge school nurse. “Then you are going to miss instructional time. Your anxiety again may keep you home and your going to stay at home because you’re too anxious to come to school. If you’re taking energy drinks towards the end of the day you’re not going to sleep well.”

Energy drinks can also cause crashes, leading to students feeling drowsy throughout the day.

“The idea of taking an energy drink in the morning is to give you a jolt of energy,” said Oxedine, “ but unfortunately it’s going to give you that energy and then you’re going to crash later. Often it’s got very high sugar so you get a big peak of sugar and then you crash and you’ve got no energy at all.” If life can be compared to the ocean then sleep is the boat that keeps you going. Energy drinks are just a life raft, and here’s the thing, you can only hold onto a life raft for so long.

How do we fix this? What type of environment must be created so students don’t feel the pressure to constantly have all of this energy? It starts with having realistic expectations. Let’s make a clear distinction: realistic is not always synonymous with lowering. However, it is important that students understand that social media is curated. The old notion of keeping up the Joneses is on steroids for our generation. The “Joneses” are everyone we follow. I’ve started to make the conscious decision of spending less time on social media and only following people that I genuinely enjoy. I’ll be honest this is hard, and sometimes I struggle, but it’s worth it.

Another must is that students have to get the proper amount of sleep. This is something that I struggle with, not because I have mountains of assignments, but because I procrastinate.
According to The American Acdemy of Sleep Medicine tenergeers should sleep 8-10 hours per 24 hours. However, many students don’t get this amount, in fact according to the Child Mind Institute 60-70% of American teenagers live with sleep debt. Sleep debt is defined as not getting adequate sleep for multiple days. Having enough sleep to not feel the need to have extra energy is challenging. However, it is an important step.

Most importantly the social pressure of being perfect has to stop. This goes hand in hand with social media. Personally this means living in the moment. Wanting to experience things with a clear mind instead of on caffeine.

Like most things, energy drinks are okay in moderation. I urge everyone who is constantly drinking energy drinks to think about why.