School can be a pain, waking up early in the morning means a lack of energy, and lots of homework means staying up later studying and trying to grasp concepts. A lot of students turn to coffee and energy drinks to keep themselves up during class, but does this even help? Some experts have said that these energy drinks can actually make you feel worse rather than better, which is not the intended outcome that people are looking for when they drink an energy drink.

It seems like one of the main reasons so many students turn to coffee and energy drinks is a lack of proper sleep.

“It’s normal for me to stay up until 2:20 in the morning when I have a lot of homework, especially around basketball season,” said Issabella Shelton (‘21). 

Many students have jobs and play sports so they stay up later to finish their work, which can make it more likely for them to turn to coffee or energy drinks to stay awake.

But does this actually help? There have been hundreds of studies about the long term effects drinking lots of highly caffeinated drinks can have on someone. Drinking too much caffeine all at one time is dangerous, and can lead to heart attacks.

A lot of students acknowledge that it does make them feel awful after drinking one, but they admit that for some reason, the energy drinks still help them function. “It makes me feel like crap, but I feel like crap without it,” Noele Lehnhoff (‘22) said. 

Despite the information being out there that informs consumers about the negatives side effects that energy drinks have, there is still going to be a market out there for them. People are still going to buy them because they believe that they cannot go on without them.