Coffee and caffeine-containing product use across the world has been increasing. The underlying motivation behind this is that many people have understood caffeine physical and memory performance enhancement product. In some cases, it is also perceived as a hazard to people’s mental and physical health. Caffeine can be considered a health hazard since it leads to sleep disruption, slowed thinking, decreased motivation and alertness and further exposing one to the risks of severe health complications such as rapid heart rate and high blood pressure, which all can have effects such as stress and anxiety on an individual.
According to Bradberry (2017), caffeine can be considered a silent killer since it exposes an individual to the inability to manage moods and emotions to the flight energy or adrenaline released out of its intake. Intake of caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline, which makes the body more awake. When one is irritable, it becomes uncontrollable to overrun individual behaviors. This is an indicator that caffeine can never be considered an enhancer but a psychoactive drug.
Caffeine, just like other stimulants, has disruptive effects on sleep patterns (O’Callaghan et al., 2018). Many people have always associated caffeine with benefits such as disruption of sleep and increased alertness levels, but this should not be deemed as normal. Sleep is an important aspect that helps the brain in regeneration and keeps an individual fit for future activities. Sleep deprivation has some adverse effects on the wellbeing of humans, and especially on human cognitive processes. Medical doctors and other health experts have recommended that an adult should sleep for eight hours a day for healthy living. Sleep enhances human productivity and concentration. Therefore, disrupting sleep patterns through the use of stimulants such as caffeine can lower cognitive thinking and concentration processes (O’Callaghan et al., 2018). Further, sleep is an important element of relaxing. Relaxation is a powerful aspect that helps the brain lower aggression levels by fostering regeneration, thus becoming essential to an individual’s mental and physical wellbeing. Consumption of caffeine, whether in coffee or other caffeine-containing products, can reduce one’s hours of sleep, and these effects of sleep deprivation can be quite severe in older adults who need to have their brain relaxed. Boosting the human brain requires one to abstain from caffeine since it can cause disruptions in the patterns of sleep, affecting the psychological wellbeing of an individual.
In addition, caffeine has physiological effects such as rapid heart rate and high blood pressure that can expose one to stress and anxiety. Clinically, it has been established that caffeine has effects on cardiac rhythms and increased metabolic rates, thus forcing the human body to function abnormally (Mucci et al., 2016). How human bodies function and their wellness also affects their mental state. If the body is unwell, one is likely to fall into stress and effects of mood fluctuation. Due to fears, one can find oneself falling into severe health complications such as chronic anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions that can compromise one’s attitudes, behaviors and, to a greater extent, affect one’s personality (Richards and Smith, 2015). The fact that caffeine fuels anxiety that can consequently cause depression and other adverse health conditions should make people abandon it in their lifestyle. Depression and anxiety can have different implications for different groups of people. In school-going children, it can lead to lower academic achievements and reduced concentration levels. Such an aspect can compromise patterns of interaction and interrelationships among people, thus reducing the quality of human life. Therefore, it can be better if people would abandon caffeine and caffeine-containing products for healthy living.
In conclusion, it is evident that caffeine is a hazard to both the physical and mental health of an individual since it exposes one to sleep disruption, decreased motivation, and mood fluctuation, which can affect cognitive processes and the functioning of the brain. Even though some people can feel that caffeine makes an individual stay awake and therefore can increase productivity levels, one can note that the adverse effects outweigh the positive implications. People should seek help to overcome caffeine addiction since it can expose them to adverse health complications.
References
Bradberry, T. (2017). Caffeine: The Silent Killer of Success. Huffpost.com. Retrieved 22 December 2020, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/caffeine-the-silent-kille_b_6179708.
Mucci, N., Giorgi, G., De Pasquale Ceratti, S., Fiz-Pérez, J., Mucci, F., & Arcangeli, G. (2016). Anxiety, stress-related factors, and blood pressure in young adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1682.
O’Callaghan, F., Muurlink, O., & Reid, N. (2018). Effects of caffeine on sleep quality and daytime functioning. Risk management and healthcare policy, 11, 263.
Richards, G., & Smith, A. (2015). Caffeine consumption and self-assessed stress, anxiety, and depression in secondary school children. Journal of psychopharmacology, 29(12), 1236-1247.