By Brianna Rayner
Staff Writer
The alarm clock explodes with obnoxious beeps. It’s five a.m., time to wake up. She rolls out of bed and tromps down the stairs. With the kitchen light blinding and one eye open she starts preparing the coffee maker. She has completed the first step of her daily routine. Without her cup of joe it would certainly be difficult to keep both eyes open.
Coffee is a drink served hot or iced, made from the roasted and ground bean-like seeds of a tropical shrub. To some people coffee is what makes staying awake possible. What most coffee drinkers don’t realize is when drinking coffee you’re basically setting oneself up for a day of highs and lows. The “high” is the hyper feeling a little after consuming the coffee. When the artificial high dies down, many people may reach for more coffee or something sugary to get another lift, leading to daily fluctuations in energy and alertness, and possibly to eventual chronic adrenal exhaustion–the “low.”
Believe it or not, coffee has many negative effects including stress, tension, heart burn, ulcers, restlessness, mild insomnia, trouble concentrating and mild stomach pain.
According to the the 1999 to 2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 73 percent of American children consume coffee without understanding the risk.
One recommended alternative is juice for its healthier energizing kick without the caffeine crash. Natural sugar triumps man-made sugar, while dependence on caffeine results in further dependence on it.
While juice is not as commercialized or popular among high school students, it is a healthier and cheaper beverage to consume to stay awake through the morning hours; rather than buying individual cups of coffee, purchasing cartoons of juice is a much cheaper method that also has beneficial outcomes.
Coffee, while providing a temporary lift-me-up, ultimately harms growing students’ healths. In the meantime, local coffee shops continue seeing the familiar faces of tired students looking forward to a cup of morning joe.
