Shocked by the crazy amount of caffeine-loaded foods i'd seen out and about in the find a seat task, I thought investigating the lure and appeal of them would make a good focus for my research. My original plan was to look specifically at independent cafes in leeds, and how we could promote small business in favour of avoiding more monolithic brands such as Starbucks or Costa - based on my pleasant experience in Mrs Athas; However Fred pointed out that the sheer amount of independent cafes in leeds was a sure fire sign that really - they didn't really need that promotion. There must surely have been a reason so many coffee shops could manage to stay open in such a concentrated area when we're going through such a bad recession?
When looking into the health benefits and detriments of caffeine, I was expecting to find something similar along the lines of nicotine - in the respect of being horrifically bad for you but one of those things that people couldn't quite seem to kick. However, I was really surprised to find out that if you drink a steady amount of a long term period of years, it's actually meant to have some health benefits. A lot of the downsides of caffeine come from drinking it erratically; because its a drug and its addictive, you have to drink it on a frequent basis, otherwise the withdrawal symptoms synonymous with not drinking caffeine - the headaches, the anxiety, all seem to be amplified.
Again much like nicotine in cigarettes, the caffeine element of most caffeinated drinks isn't really the most harmful element to them most of the time - usually the frightening amounts of sugar, especially in coke and energy drinks have a better chance of poisoning your system than the caffeine would.
As someone who never drinks energy drinks ever, I chose to drink one and document the effects it had on me through the course of the day after drinking it. I wasn't really expecting much of a difference but after an hour or so I definitely started to notice one - I found it difficult to concentrate, I was talking and doing things with little consideration to them and through a group crit this was pretty much what I didn't need at all. I imagine someone who drank them constantly would be pretty immune to these effects, and I can see why people would drink them to get that kick of energy - but it didn't feel like a healthy sort of energy, I felt like my system was running on some artificial speed it wasn't really ready to handle (which essentially is what energy drinks do) I felt pretty grim and fragile in the aftermath of drinking it. All of this explains why people feel the urge to repeatedly buy and consume these despite them being incredibly unhealthy.
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