When feeling tired a lot of folks reach for coffee, caffeinated soda or, increasingly these days, heavily-caffeinated energy drinks. There has been a slew of reports recently alleging significant health problems associated with energy drinks.
The New York Times , Bloomberg News , The Los Angeles Times , The Deseret (UT) News, MedPage Today , The Boston Globe and WebMD have all run articles that warn of the possible link between energy drinks and serious health issues including death. Of particular importance, the “manufacturers don’t properly disclose how much caffeine is actually contained in each product.” Some drinks that were tested “contained levels of caffeine at least 20 percent higher than what the label reports, 11 didn’t specify caffeine levels at all, and some even over-reported the amount of caffeine contained in the beverage.” This is significant because if someone consumes one of the over-reported beverages and think they can tolerate two or three drinks, then consumes beverages that had 1/5th more caffeine than listed (times two or three), it is easy to overdose.
If you’re feeling tired, get more sleep, don’t drink alcohol or caffeine before bed, exercise earlier in the day, improve your sleep hygiene, etc. If this doesn’t help consult with your psychologist and/or primary care physician.