The drinks’ main ingredients include stimulants like caffeine and taurine, which activate the central nervous system and make consumers feel alert and energetic. Energy drinks had a long history prior to this, but the military’s embrace corresponded to the explosion in popularity of big names in the industry like Red Bull. But what happens when this switch is broken?īy early in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military had made energy drinks available to soldiers who were deployed to theaters of combat. When functioning normally, the body is essentially able turn the combat switch on-and turn it off again when the threat dissipates. During these times, it is critical that a soldier is able to take a decisive action in combat. It is marked by physical and chemical changes, including in the nervous and endocrine systems, which prepare a human or an animal to react or to retreat. He described the process as the body’s response to an acute threat to survival. In the late 1920s, Walter Cannon detailed this ability in his research on the human’s fight-or-flight mechanism. A soldier’s cognitive ability in combat needs to be unimpeded and decisive. Rather, it is the ability to use their mind-to think clearly and quickly about how best to bring their training and weapons to bear, in concert with one another, in order to destroy the enemy. They attribute these behavioral changes to the intense firefight, but in reality, the soldiers are being harmed by their own hands with the help of energy drinks.ĭespite popular belief, the most important tool soldiers have in combat is not the M-4. Over the next couple of days, leaders in the platoon begin to notice changes in some soldiers’ behavior-increasing mood swings, violent outbursts, irritability, and hypertension. Their bodies are now on a constant roller-coaster of chemical highs and increasingly longer and deeper lows. Therefore, the platoon members’ bodies never get a chance to detox from the firefight earlier in the day. The body’s nervous system becomes overtaxed and the detox period takes longer than normal and may cause dizziness and headaches. According to this concept, after high doses of caffeine consumption the body goes into a hibernation period. Researchers refer to this overexerted process as adrenal fatigue. The extended buildup of chemicals introduced both naturally and by consuming energy drinks can cause harm to a soldier’s physical and physiological state. This example is representative of countless scenarios our service members have encountered during our long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unknowingly, the soldiers’ bodies begin to cycle through the fight-or-flight mode again because the same chemicals are present in their bloodstreams. Just as their bodies should be decompressing, the active ingredients in the drinks trick their minds into maintaining the elevated state they first entered during the fight. Nevertheless, a number of the platoon’s members reach for the plentiful supply of energy drinks in order to keep them going as they clean their equipment during the late night. Internally, each soldier’s body should be transitioning to a relaxed state and releasing the adrenaline and other chemicals stored up in its muscles. When they arrive, the soldiers begin to refit their equipment and themselves. After a long, intense firefight, as nightfall sets in firmly, the enemy breaks contact and the platoon returns to base. As they begin to engage the enemy, each soldier’s body releases the chemicals needed to out-maneuver and destroy the threat. The soldiers immediately seek cover and the fight-or-flight response kicks in. Then suddenly, as the tired soldiers begin to close out the day, they are hit with sniper fire and RPGs. The patrol was planned after the platoon received reports that there are enemy combatants in their area of operation, but the day has passed with no contact with the enemy. As the sun dips behind the ridgeline high above, the rugged Afghanistan valley through which the dismounted patrol has been moving all day is enveloped entirely in shadow-a reminder of how many long and tiresome hours have passed since the soldiers set out.
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