It absolutely floors me that twenty-year-olds need energy drinks.
That anybody between the ages of teenage-hood through their thirties would actually need this stuff.
But many seem to carry their drinks around like badges of honor. The stuff is marketed to their demographic. I’m not saying I was a Greek God in my 20s and 30s, but I certainly never even tried the stuff until into my late 40s. In my college days I did try (but never inhaled) bee pollen.
In my 20s and 30s were my most intense workouts. At one point I did four types of workouts within a single week and I got (for some period of time) ungodly small amounts of sleep. Yet, during these intense training sessions did I use any “energy enhancers”?
Negative.
I’m not dumping on twenty- and thirty-year olds. I’m just curious as to the explosion of this entire phenomena. When I was in m 20s and 30s, I was quite energetic. And I know everyone’s metabolisms are different, lifestyle demands, et cet, but, still, to lump the demographic into one package and observe the amount of twenty- and thirty-year-olds downing the stuff astounds me. And it does so for another reason: I’ve tried a handful of them and not only do they taste like fricking acid (haven’t found one that tastes any kind of “good”), but in every case I experienced no “surge” of energy.
Zero.
Yet, I admit, on days when I’m absolutely beat, I still try them to see if maybe (pleeease, Lord in Heaven!) they can help…but I just do not and never feel any “lift” from any of them.
I literally get more effectiveness out of loads of caffeine (and by “loads,” I do mean a couple 12- or 16-ounce Mountain Dews, or a Starbucks Venti or Trenti iced coffees).
Note: even Starbucks is now getting into the “energy drink” biz, with Refreshers. Anyone but me find this just a tad more than ironic?
I’ve always had a fast metabolism, and even now though it’s not what it used to be (my appetite remains legendary within familial circles), it’s still higher than most people. So, does “running hotter” play in any of this, in that slower metabolisms are more easily affected?
So, okay, according to the [short] history of energy drinks, these things evolved on our end of the pond as a way to help college students pull all-nighters and young professionals to pack more hours into their days. I’ve tried the Gatorades. Jolt cola. Red Bull, Monster, and those ridiculously tiny bottles of Five-Hour Energy (both regular and hyped up), and probably one or two other brands.
Nothing.
I wish I could report something.
Buuut…I can’t.
But still…energy drinks…for twenty- and thirty-year-olds?
Floors me.
Perhaps what’s really at the heart of my issue is that many of today’s “youthful” are not all that healthy, which means they are vitamin or minerally (that a word?) deficient? Are all those “hyped-up” energy drink ingredients really making up for dietary deficiencies…not to mention invoking a “placebo effect” in many users (I read a National Geographic article about caffeine research, and some respondents claimed immediate energy gain after drinking, say, a Red Bull, when it’s scientifically proven the effects of caffeine on the human condition take one hour to feel.
An hour, people.
But, again, what does a twenty- or thirty-year-old need with this stuff?
Where is all that youthful energy? Why is it only found in bottles? Or is it even more basic than that, and it’s merely the marketing people are buying [into]. They may work on others (as advertised) but I’ve never found any one of them to work on me, and to find them marketed to the youth of society (as you might gather by now) utterly stupefies me. If those things really do work, then they need to be developed and marketed to the soccer moms and dads, those who work 60+-hour weeks. Firefighters. The military (heck, they already have caffeinated gum). Marathon runners (but they’ve already been doing this for centuries, so do they really need them?). Those are the people who need the help to keep going and going and never stop.
Not twenty-year-olds.
