By Adelyn Ho, Staff Writer
Caffeine at River Hill High School is everywhere– students carry their Starbucks, Celsius, and other caffeinated drinks around school every day. Students and teachers around River Hill drink caffeine every morning and even sometimes throughout the afternoon. But, how much caffeine are students actually having, and why are we having so much?
According to the Food and Drug Administration, 400 milligrams of caffeine (about four standard 8oz cups of coffee) for most adults is the recommended intake, but for teens, it’s much less: only 100 milligrams a day (about one standard 8oz cup of coffee) are recommended. MedStar Health notes that “these recommendations are based on a 24-hour period, not all at once in two-three hours.” Too much caffeine can cause headaches, palpitating heart rates, and heightened anxiety. But why would teenagers need caffeine?
Low amounts of sleep and staying up late are some major factors to drinking caffeine. According to Annabelle Wu, a senior who drinks caffeine, “I usually go to bed at two to three [AM], maybe one…I stay up doing homework and extracurriculars.” Many students at River Hill are in the same bucket: lots of homework from classes and stacking extracurriculars keep students awake for long periods of time. Wu also explained that “[students] have so much work to get done, so caffeine helps.”
Wu also revealed that while she now only drinks about 100mg of caffeine a day, her junior year had much more than that: “I was drinking about 200-300mg a day during junior year,” which is more than the recommended amount for teenagers.
Many teenagers at River Hill deal with a variety of rigorous activities and classes, and caffeine seems to be the factor that allows students to keep going. Senior Anna Truong recognizes caffeine as a coping mechanism for the work, seeing caffeine intake as a way “to cope with the rigorous and demanding workload of the school since people put a lot of pressure on themselves to succeed… if there’s an opportunity to reach their goal, then they’ll just take it.”
Truong mentions how many of her peers “work and are very ambitious, and they take about 400mg a day… maybe not every day, but I frequently hear them say they take about 400mg a day…” River Hill students have a high level of ambition and strive to work as hard as possible, reaching for good grades and good extracurriculars at an extremely competitive level.
These students are taking much more than the recommended amount of caffeine for teens, and that can be unhealthy and debilitating on the bodies of students at school. Taking so much caffeine can cause crashes–abrupt drops in energy after the caffeine wears off– which Truong explains is a “very vicious cycle” for students. Students stay up late doing work and extracurriculars, wake up early in the morning to go to school, then try staying focused in class to get the grades they desire. And then, people crash at night and feel fatigued all of a sudden, turning to more caffeine.
Teens may be pressured to have caffeine since everyone else seems to be doing the same. Truong describes this mentality: “‘If I drink caffeine, I will perform even just a little bit better.’” It’s as if the caffeine itself is a sign or symbol that someone is working hard or performing well. Truong adds on to this, noting that students “brag about drinking caffeine because it makes them look hardworking and more ambitious… that’s what caffeine is associated with at River Hill. It’s a symbol of staying up late to work hard.”
Even though River Hill students need to keep up their grades and manage their work, caffeine intake is growing more unhealthy by the day. Students need to be wary about the caffeine they are drinking and understand what harm can come from it, and hopefully, one day, students will learn to manage themselves by going to sleep earlier and realizing their limits in academics, helping the school go down to a healthier caffeine intake.