Energy drinks are a popular beverage the can improve your overall alertness, concentration, and energy. Since you’re here, you may already be familiar with or are having energy drinks as part of your daily routine to give yourself a boost.
While you may be accustomed to using energy drinks, you might be wondering: are energy drinks addictive?
Energy drinks have essential nutrients that boost your physical and mental capacity. These include a handful of herbal extracts, caffeine, sugar, amino acids, and B vitamins. All of these contribute to the needs of your body. That said, energy drinks could get addictive, especially if you make it a habit, triggering body addiction and dependence.
Read on to explore what energy drinks can offer, what makes them addictive, their potential side effects and how to prevent them.
Let’s get started. . .
What are Energy Drinks?
Energy drinks are refreshing beverages that are used to increase your overall mental performance and energy. It also enhances your body to increase your productivity and awareness in your environment. Drinking energy drinks feels like you are giving your body electricity to manage and perform all your tasks.
Some of the top energy drinks that you can have are the following:
- Red Bull
- Monster
- Rockstar
- Full Throttle
- NOS
- REIZE (Personal Favorite)
Most energy drinks have something in common, which is caffeine. It’s the primary mover of all energy drinks. Caffeine is a brain stimulant that makes energy drinks a power-boosting beverage.
For reference, check out the comparative table of the caffeine content of the popular energy drinks.
| Caffeine Content | |
| Red Bull | 80mg |
| Monster | 160mg |
| Rockstar | 160mg |
| Full Throttle | 160mg |
| NOS | 160mg |
| REIZE | 50mg |
Energy Drinks Ingredients
The primary mover in energy drinks lies on its ingredients. It provides all the nutrients, and the essential boost in your body. Here are the things that you should know about the energy drink ingredients.
Caffeine
Caffeine is a chemical mostly found in coffee, energy drinks, tea, and other products. It works primarily in improving your mental alertness and physical performance.
Caffeine also works best in maintaining and improving your activeness and alertness. It enhances your strength and minimizes body fatigue which leads to long-term endurance. Caffeine also improves your short-term memory, making you on the go and be the best version of yourself, whether at work, school, or even for a workout.
However, due to the fact that caffeine is a powerful stimulant, use of energy drinks poses a significant risk for developing a dependency on the substance.
As a point of reference, the FDA recommends a daily caffeine limit of no more than 400mg. Having more than that could lead to negative side effects, such as:
- Jitteriness
- Insomnia
- Anxiety
- Fatigue
- High blood pressure
Besides that, excessive caffeine can lead to a caffeine crash as well. If you’re interested to learn more about the issue and how to manage a caffeine crash, check out this article.
Taurine
Taurine is a type of amino acid that occurs naturally in your body. It serves as a building block of all proteins stored in your body, which are used to repair the tissues and maintain growth.
Taurine also helps in managing your metabolism. It also balances the electrolytes in your body, making you move freely and effectively. It also supports the development of your brain and the entire nervous system and manages the calcium levels of your cells.
B Vitamins
B Vitamins are a group of essential nutrients that serves an important role in your bodily systems and organs, ensuring that all your cells are functioning according to their role. They help you convert the food that you eat into energy, keep your cells healthy, and create new blood cells in your body.
To give you a better idea, here’s a summary of the functions and roles of individual B-vitamins in your body:
| Role | |
| Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) | It helps your body convert carbohydrates into energy. It also plays an important role in managing your metabolism. It keeps your nerves, muscles, and heart in balance. |
| Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) | Riboflavin helps your body absorb the nutrients in your body and ensures that your tissues are in perfect shape. It breaks down the carbohydrates and converts them into energy. |
| Vitamin B3 (Niacin) | Niacin helps your body convert the food that you eat into energy. It maintains your protein and fats making your nervous system, skin, and hair healthy. |
| Vitamin B5 (Panthothenic Acid) | Vitamin B5 helps you convert food into glucose and breaks down cholesterol. It also helps your body form red blood cells. |
| Vitamin B6 | Vitamin B6 plays an important role in your metabolism and central nervous system. It improves your immune system and creates neurotransmitters. It helps you transmit signals effectively in your body without delay. |
| Vitamin B7 (Biotin) | It helps your body metabolize the fats, proteins, and carbohydrates that you consume. |
| Vitamin B9 (Folate) | It helps you create red and white blood cells in your bone marrow. It also helps you convert carbohydrates into energy. |
| Vitamin B12 | It keeps your overall brain function healthy and coordinated. It also makes your nerve tissues healthy while keeping the production of red blood cells. |
Guarana Extract
Guarana extract is oozing with antioxidants that protect your cells and maintain their perfect state. It helps you reduce fatigue and keeps you in good shape in managing your tasks and daily functions. Guarana extract helps you improve your focus. It is also a good ingredient for helping you learn quickly and better.
Guarana extract is also related to your overall health. It boosts your energy, making it a good match to caffeine.
Energy Drink Addiction
Addiction can happen without you noticing it. It can start as a habit and then develop into something that you cannot resist. The same goes for energy drinks.
There are different factors in how addiction happens, some of which are personal history and brain chemistry. The factors in energy drinks that play a huge role would be the presence of caffeine and sugar.
It increases your dopamine level, making you feel good and energized, which in turn, leads to a dependence on energy drinks to achieve these effects.
Despite all the good things that energy drinks offer, there is a downside. If you consume energy drinks, you feel pleasure because it gives you some refreshment. However, the more you consume, the less refreshing you feel. It means you need to consume more to satisfy your needs.
Once you continually increase your consumption, it leads to dependence. It can be addicting psychologically. Some might also feel that they cannot survive the day without drinking energy drinks.
So, keep your consumption at a minimum level to lessen the possibility of dependence and addiction.
How Do you Know you are Addicted?
There are some symptoms that you should watch out for that signal addiction. Here are the things that you need to pay close attention to:
- You cannot start the day without a sip of energy drinks;
- You feel tired, and unmotivated if you don’t have a taste of your energy drink;
- You find it hard to concentrate and focus on your usual chores without your energy drink;
- You find it hard to feel motivated with your usual amount of drink;
- You don’t feel energized on your usual amount of energy drink;
- Your daily dose doesn’t affect you or refreshed you anymore;
When you notice any of these symptoms, try to minimize your consumption.
What Happens When You Suddenly Drop Energy Drinks?
Know that quitting your addiction is not as easy as one-two-three, because it can develop some withdrawal symptoms.
It’s important to understand that withdrawal symptoms vary for every person as it depends primarily on individual psychological makeup and the number of energy drinks you are consuming.
Here are the common symptoms of a withdrawal syndrome that you should be aware of:
Fatigue
This is prominent if you develop a dependency on your energy drink. You will feel fatigued more than you ever used to before when you don’t grab a sip of an energy drink, leading you to be unmotivated with your work or daily tasks and activities.
Change of Mood
Energy drinks serve as an essential mood booster. It is because of the chemicals that complete it. When you stop drinking an energy drink, your serotonin levels drop that greatly affects your mood negatively. You feel more irritated and anxious with everything that you do.
Insomnia
One of the common withdrawal symptoms is insomnia. This is attributed to the caffeine content of energy drinks, which greatly affects your body. If you stop consuming energy drinks, your body undergoes changes making it hard for you to sleep.
How to Manage Energy Drink Withdrawal Symptoms?
One of the primary reasons why people find it hard to quit their addiction is the presence of withdrawal symptoms. How it works is that it makes you feel anxious, unmotivated, and fatigued when you don’t have energy drinks.
So, how can you manage the withdrawal symptoms?
If you’re serious and want to ensure that you don’t get any negative side effects if you stop, consider the following processes as a remedy:
Minimize your Consumption Slowly
Quitting mindlessly can make withdrawal symptoms worse. It means that you will end up going back to your usual consumption and worsening your condition.
So, if you are determined to stop your addiction, start by minimizing your consumption. Start by having a clear picture of how much you are consuming and how much you can cut off your consumption. For example, if your body is used to drinking five cans of energy drinks a day, cut it down to three or two a day.
Set your Target
Cutting off your addiction would require great willpower. To overcome your addiction successfully, you’ll need to list down a set of goals, starting with the little steps, and gradually progress to the bigger goals.
Remember that you can’t do anything successful merely by having the thought. It should be equipped with a plan. It also serves as motivation and a reminder of what you want to achieve in the future.
Drink lots of Water
Some energy drinks can cause dehydration. To counter this, you’ll need to drink lots of water as you would feel extreme headache, fatigue, and even worsen the symptoms of withdrawal if you’re dehydrated.
In short, staying hydrated and drinking lots of water can help you minimize the withdrawal symptoms.
Balanced Diet
In most cases, having withdrawal symptoms, you would feel drained and sluggish every time you don’t consume energy drinks. To counter this situation, you need to eat more nutritious food and maintain a proper diet.
Having a good combination of foods can help your body supply enough nutrients, minimize the possibility of illness, as well as improve your mood throughout the day.
Note that your body needs food that can supply enough energy. And you will only get this on healthy foods. Choosing wisely what food you will consume can fuel you up all day and increase your overall productivity.
REIZE (10 out of 10)
REIZE energy drink has only 50mg of caffeine. It’s more sensible than other energy drinks on the market, but don’t ever think that gives you a limited boost. It’s made of taurine, B-vitamins, and essential extracts that give you a boost and energy all day. It’s also sugar-free, making it a healthier choice too.
If you’re looking for a more sensible energy drink, REIZE can be your best option. It’s also affordable as you can have it delivered in front of your doorstep for only about a dollar per serving, which means that it wouldn’t put a hole in your pocket much.
Try REIZE today, and you’ll find it the better choice in comparison to the more highly-caffeinated energy drinks out there.