Buzz Kill

I had a mild panic attack when I saw that the headache pills I bought at the pharmacy the other day, to help me through my headache prone phase of the semester, contained caffeine. I gave up caffeine after a brief bought of insomnia after my contiki travels that left me more dazed, confused and tired than I normally am.
I haven't gone completely cold turkey on known sources of caffeine but I would limit myself to one drink (coffee, red bull, etc) a week. And then, one night when I was up doing an assignment, I found that the headache pills I bought contained caffeine. Oh no! I'm meant to be off caffeine!

After some google research (and extensive reading of good old wikipedia), my fears are at rest. Caffeine, as it turns out, can increase the effectiveness of a drug. According to wikipedia, it can make pain relievers 40% more effective and helps the body absorb headache medication quickly. Then I read on to discover just how much caffeine affects the body. It's really quite fascinating. We're all familiar with the withdrawal effects of caffeine, I'm sure. Headaches are the most common withdrawal symptom. Before I discovered that caffeine is common in pain killers, I was wanting to take some of the headache medication but was afraid it would make me more reliant on the medication because of the caffeine. But it seems that withdrawal from caffeine can be helped with small doses of caffeine and a pain reliever such as asprin. Curious. So how much caffeine do you consume a day? Caffeine is in a lot of things I didn't know it was like chocolate bars and decaffeinated coffee (true, that). Also, I assumed coke was the worst carbonated non-energy drink for caffeine but it seems that mountain dew has a lot more.

When I was in Seattle, I saw a can of monster energy drink that was 973mL. That's nearly a litre of energy drink and is positively insane!!!

A normal can contains 160mg of caffeine. Which is a lot. Especially if you have more than the recommended daily limit. I can't believe how much of a caffeine junkie I was last year. I would have too many bottles of V and cans of red bull as well as coffee in the morning and tea at night after dinner. And the reason it feel so good is that it's a psychoactive stimulant drug. And it's perfectly legal to have as much as you like. Curious. All this when I was finishing some homework questions on Mendel's experiments with pea plants.