Essay: How Does Caffeine Effect Lifestyle?

It is six o’clock in the morning. Suddenly, your phone lights up and you wake up to the most annoying sound in the world: your alarm clock. You went to bed at twelve-thirty the night before due to piles of homework and studying. You’re feeling weak and have no energy, so you sluggishly make your way downstairs to make yourself a strong cup of your favorite coffee. Just the smell alone, of the coffee brewing, makes you a little more awake and alert. This is how many people’s mornings start. We claim we can’t function until we’ve had our cup of coffee, our caffeine for the day. In fact, according to an article from Medicine Net, a website last updated in 2018, the average American consumes 280 milligrams of caffeine every day. Some people even consume as much as 600 milligrams of caffeine daily! If you have ever drank a cup of coffee, tea, a can of soda or eaten a chocolate bar, you’ve consumed caffeine. So, what exactly are we consuming, and what effects does it have on our lifestyle? Today, we will discover the history of caffeine, discuss how caffeine can affect our health, and explore what makes coffee, the strongest source of caffeine, so popular. To begin let us first dive into the fascinating history of caffeine.
According to an article written by Anne Marie Helmenstine called “Caffeine Chemistry,” published by ThoughtCo in September 2017, Friedrich Ferdinand Runge, a German chemist, first isolated the caffeine molecule in 1819, but humans have been consuming caffeinated plants since the Stone Age. Caffeine is an alkaloid, which simply means it is colorless. Even though caffeine is often associated with the color brown because of caffeinated products like coffee and chocolate, caffeine, in its purest form, is actually a white powder. C8H10N4O2 is the chemical formula for caffeine. Simply meaning, it is made of Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and Oxygen atoms. Caffeine is also a stimulant, which is something that temporarily increases the efficiency or activity of the body. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, copyright 1994-2009, caffeine is a methylxanthine stimulant or a naturally occurring stimulant. These types of stimulants are used to get rid of drowsiness and fatigue. This is why many people often drink a cup of caffeinated coffee in the morning, especially if they got little sleep the night before. Now, that we have a clear understanding of what caffeine actually is, let’s take a look at how caffeine affects our health.
Caffeine is a stimulant that effects the entire body, but, according to an article by Alina Petre, published in May 2016, caffeine mostly effects the brain. Yes, we feel more energized, but two or three cups of coffee is not a substitute for sleep. Consuming caffeine tricks your brain into thinking you’re not tired by blocking the effects of adenosine. Adenosine is a neurotransmitter the builds up throughout the course of the day, causing you to be more tired, making you want to go to sleep. Caffeine stops adenosine receptors in the brain from being activated. This is why drinking a caffeinated beverage about an hour before you go to sleep is a bad idea. Many people claim that it doesn’t affect their sleep, and on the surface, it may appear not to. You may fall asleep just as quickly as you normally would, with or without caffeine. However, even after your body has fallen asleep it may take hours before your brain catches up, causing you to be in a deep sleep for less times, causing you to actually be more tired in the morning then you might expect.
In general, many people must be cautious not to consume too much caffeine. Caffeine in moderation is not bad, and you have no reason to feel unhealthy or at risk simply because you like a little pick-me-up in the morning. According to the Mayo Clinic, for most healthy adults, 400 milligrams of caffeine daily is safe. That’s about how much caffeine is in four cups of coffee. Not bad right? However, it is important to keep in mind your personal limits. It’s good to know how your body responds to even the slightest amount of a caffeinated drink. If you meet or exceed the safe limit of 400 milligrams, you may begin to experience headaches, insomnia, nervousness, irritability, restlessness, frequent urination or inability to control urination, an upset stomach, your heart rate may increase significantly, and you may experience muscle tremors. You may be more sensitive to the negative effects and experience these side effects without even going over 400 milligrams based on your genetics, body mass, age, medication use, and health conditions. This is why it is important to know what your body can handle. Now that we’ve looked at how caffeine affects our health and keeps us awake, let’s discuss the most popular way to consume caffeine: coffee.
According to an article by the Huffington Post, last updated in 2015, Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee every day and import more than four billion dollars’ worth of coffee each year. I think it’s safe to say, we are obsessed with our coffee. But why is that? What makes coffee so appealing? According to an article by Jeffrey M. Jones, published by News Gallup in 2013, forty percent of Americans don’t get enough sleep each night. The average American gets 6.8 hours of sleep every night. The recommended amount of sleep is eight to ten hours. Since many Americans aren’t getting enough sleep, in order to feel fully awake we often look to coffee to make us feel more awake in the morning.
There is also a large social element that plays into coffee’s popularity. We often use coffee shops as a common meeting place. People read, study, and catch up with old friends in coffeehouses. According to an article by Brentin Mock, published by City Lab in January 2017, in the 1990’s Starbucks had 425 coffee shops across America, and by 2005, 10,241 shops were open. In a little less than fifteen years 9,816 coffee shops opened in America! Coffeehouses became an important part of our American culture, and to this day, coffee is the most popular way to obtain our daily caffeine.
Caffeine consumption is growing and greatly affecting our culture. Today we discovered what caffeine is and where it came from, we explored how caffeine affects our health, and discussed how coffee has become a major part of American culture. Sometimes it’s hard to get enough sleep, especially as a student or working adult. We work for eight hours and always manage to bring work home that may take us another two or three. So, if you need a little caffeine every now and then, you now know what exactly you’re consuming and how it may affect your performance throughout the day, and you don’t need to feel guilty about having a little extra of your favorite cup of joe.