Sunday, August 10, 2014

Caffeine

In the past, I have learned about addiction to different psychoactive drugs and how they can affect an individual's life. Prior to this class, I knew that caffeine was the most widely used psychoactive drug; however, after reading the slides on drug addiction I started thinking about them at work. I work at a seafood restaurant in Sea Isle. It gets very crazy there on summer nights. Waitresses work from 3 until close. It can be exhausting working there. Waitresses literally run through the restaurant trying to catch up with what they need to do.

Prior to the restaurant opening, waitresses and I are always drinking multiple cups of soda or coffee in order to prepare for the night ahead of us. We crave the caffeine because it helps us focus and stay on top of things during the night. After seeing this at work, I realized this is probably why Americans use caffeine so much. There is so much pressure to work and succeed with little to no rest.  In order to keep up with the demands from society, Americans consume mass amounts of caffeine to stay awake and focus.

I think this is scary because many of us are unaware of how much caffeine we are consuming. This can ultimately lead to huge health problems in the long run. Many of the items containing caffeine are also loaded with sugar and artificial flavoring. We need to be more aware of the substances we are putting into our bodies because it can lead to long term affects.

2 comments:

  1. This section stuck out to me the most, especially the thought of caffeine being the must widely used psychoactive stimulant in the world, because not everyone thinks of it as being something addictive. Those who consume caffeine on a daily basis to help them "get through their day" are in fact addicted to it. From personal experience, my mom has a huge addiction to pepsi and she can't go 5 hours let alone one full day without it. She experiences headaches, drowsiness, aggravation and feels uneasy with out. When I try telling her she's addicted to it she always tells me that she just enjoys the taste of it. Once I showed her these slides it made her realize that maybe she does have an addiction to caffeine. She has been slowly cutting down on how much caffeine she drinks because as you said, we do need to be more aware of what we are putting into our bodies and what harm it can do later on in life.

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