CAFFEINE! Don't Let This Happen To YOU!
Posted: Thursday, September 01, 2011
by Octavia Hansen
Octavia Hansen
Caffeine: C8-H10-N4-O2; A crystalline compound found in tea and coffee plants; a stimulant of the central nervous system; alkaloid; 1, 3, 7-trimethylxanthine. This a molecule of evil. Every day evil. This is an addiction. There are more than one-hundred-seventy million addicts in the United States -- odds are, YOU are one of them. Your addiction comes from a very popular source. You consume it every day; you'd feel ill without it; you'll have a hard time quitting - if you ever do.
Think it's only in coffee? Guess again. Much like salt, it's becoming an everyday additive, sometimes simply included in a compound of products (anything covered with chocolate), sometimes chemically added for that wide-awake feeling. RED BULL, JOLT Cola, Mountain Dew, energy drinks and diet pills. Only recently has beer laced with caffeine been taken off the market. Who needs wide awake drunks?
Now marketers are cashing in on your addiction by adding it to other products: chewing gum, lip balm, mints, candy, sunflower seeds (is that still health food?) and most recently soap - the boost is supposed to come through your skin.
Caffeine is a legal, over-the-counter additive that MAKES you come alive. Literally. It passes into the bloodstream almost as rapidly as if you inhaled it. Once caffeine is in your system, it will stay there from one to eight hours, depending on: the initial amount of caffeine, if you keep boosting it with more caffeine, and what else you put into your body (food, water, sugar). To keep up with increasing demands to stay awake and alert, there are products with EXTRA caffeine.
If you need that much of a boost to stay awake, more sleep is the real answer -- assuming you can get there after pumping up your system.
Though it is naturally occurring in coffee, it is a synthesized additive in everything else. Don’t fool yourself. It takes coffee to?make coffee ice cream, and it’s concentrated for more flavor. Color is NOT an indication of content. Green tea has almost as much caffeine as coffee.
When Should You Say “STOP!”? As with most addictions – right now would be best. Decide you're going to quit? It's tough. Not only is it available everywhere but there are withdrawal symptoms if you go cold turkey: headaches, fatigue, jitters, sometimes nausea, diarrhea and tremors - shaking body parts: hands, legs, feet, and eyelids. Some side effects include palpitations, sleeplessness and cramps.
In your twenties, maybe your thirties, your body can recover from the daily effects of caffeine. Your kidneys, unfortunately, get the full force of filtering the stuff from your body every day.
As you age (past forty -- your body?quits growing and simply maintains) it not only disrupts your sleep patterns but becomes a strain on your liver, raises your blood pressure, makes an irregular heart beat, along with upsetting your stomach and heartburn.
At any age: it's a diuretic . . . Feeling under pressure? Your bladder and kidneys are feeling the effects of dehydration and losing water fast makes skin wrinkle. These symptoms, added to smoking make you look ten years older fast. Your body can deal with some of it, but the more caffeine, the more wrinkles. I am quoting some of this from Dr. Sanjay Gupta, from his article in Time Magazine.
Contrary to advertisements, Coffee WILL NOT: Bring a family closer together for the holidays, sober up a drunk (this only makes them wide awake), will NOT calm your boss, never saved a marriage and realistically and scientifically it does NOT stunt your growth.
What coffee does is: darken your teeth, make morning breath WORSE, permanently stains clothing (the combination of hot water and dark residue), cause severe burns when not handled properly and can double as ink if you dip a felt marker into strong coffee.
It's almost impossible to ingest enough caffeine to kill you but it can make you feel very bad. It's a short jump from alert to nervous, jittery and mean. It doesn’t CAUSE serious problems but can aggravate other problems. Like any food, drug or desire: KNOW YOUR LIMIT. Keep track of your consumption - Three cups? Five cups? All day? How many energy drinks? How many cola's? Still sneaking chocolate thinking no one knows? How about that chocolate topped donut?
Check packaging. By law, it is named on the label as an additive. It may NOT tell you specifically HOW MUCH but ingredients are listed by quantity - when sugar is listed first, that's the highest content (or flour, or water, or anything). If caffeine is listed first, put it down and back away!
Even if you drink a cup while trying to quit or cut down it doesn't mean you have to start over. A quick way to cut back is go de-caff or drink the same amount of water right after coffee, to keep it moving and your body hydrated.
In the years since Starbucks has been sweeping the country, the amount of road rage has increased with every franchise. There's a correlation here somewhere.
For all this negativity, there?is one good result: need medication to kick in faster? Take it with a steaming hot cup of coffee! It dissolves pills fast and caffeine delivers it to your system even faster! This is especially effective with sinus tablets.
THE EFFECTS OF SECOND HAND CAFFEINE. Not what it does to you, what you do to everyone around you! YOU are awake while EVERYONE ELSE in the world is trying to sleep! You become: aggressive, can't sit still, YOU?HAVE?TO?TALK!, music gets louder, your breath stinks, can't focusand you're in the bathroom A LOT.
This I know from research and personal experience as twenty-five-year coffee drinker before I quit! Caffeine makes me mean -- ask any of my ex-boyfriends!
This Article has been viewed 352 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)You are definitely writing with a caffeinated tone. I am an addict, and I must confess you have written a great tome. Good job!I'm into 2nd hand caffeine now . . . I'm a chocoholic. Admitting I have a problem is the first step to a cure. But I can quit if I want to. I just WON'T EVER QUIT, even after the candy bar is melted from my cold dead fingers. Thank you again for kind words. I like to think I am getting better and life is getting funnier. Big OI once told someone in a funny defense over my coffee and choco habit. It's not an addiction unless its harmful, illegal or destructive. These are what I call "salubrious substances to which I am helplessly inclined". That worked for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.