"The deceptive part is that “energy drinks” don’t actually provide “energy,” beyond what you’d normally get by digesting a bunch of liquid sugar. Instead, they block your capacity to feel how tired you are. To severely oversimplify, all that caffeine functions as an antagonist for adenosine, the chemical that builds up in your brain during the day and makes you feel sleepy. The caffeine molecules fit into your adenosine receptors, blocking the “time to sleep” signal your brain would normally be getting. Taurine, meanwhile, is an amino acid that has some health benefits for nerve cells, and L-Carnitine promotes burning fat cells, but neither can create “energy” as such. So when you drink a few Monsters or Red Bulls, you’re still getting physically and mentally fatigued; your brain just doesn’t know it yet. It’s as if, instead of using an oven mitt, you just shot your hand full of Novocaine before grabbing a hot pan. The harm is still there. And in economic terms, this means that every time you work a long shift with chemical assistance, you’re not just selling your working hours to the boss. You’re also degrading the quality of life you’ll experience during your non-working hours, because that’s when the fatigue catches up to you, and you feel, to use the scientific term, like dogshit."

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/a-society-that-runs-on-stimulants-is-badly-broken