Tue, 07 Nov 2006
Energy drinks
Does anybody know how energy drinks are supposed to work? Last weekend we took part in TMOU 8. I have bought - probably for the first time in my life - an energy drink (its name was "Kamikaze" - lacking any other reasonable criteria for choosing an energy drink, I have bought the one with Kanji on it :-) in case I would get tired.
It was a bit cold during the night (I guess it was about -8 Celsius degrees), and at 4am I have decided that this was the right time for my Kamikaze. The results of drinking this very cold thing was strange: I have almost instantly felt very cold, and very sleepy. So I have laid down and fell asleep, while my teammates were trying to solve the stage 10.
Interestingly enough, when I awoke maybe half an hour or an hour later, I felt good, and I have solved the puzzle at the stage 10 in a very short time. Was it an effect of the energy drink? I don't think so - I remember TMOU in previous years, where short sleep has provided a big improvement in our performance as well, without any energy drink.
Do energy drinks actually work? What is your experience with them?
5 replies for this story:
Vašek Stodùlka wrote:
Energy drinks are obsolete, present hit are energy ampules. You can buy "Speed 8" at every gas station. I got one with Heroes of Migth and Magic V game (labeled "Elixir of endurance :), but I have not used it yet. It looks it should really work - it is packed like some drug and a booklet tells you about not mixing with alcohol and negative symptoms etc. Energy drinks are designed to quickly fill up glucose level in your muscles, in Tmou we were more frequently used our brains. I do not know if the brain is "powered" by glucose too, but I think it works differently and classical energy drinks do not work.
Yenya wrote: Glucose
Interesting. I had some sacharide pills with me (I don't know right now whether it was glucose or fructose) - it was good because it was possible to eat them even though I had problems with eating other food such as rolls or cheese. But then, if glucose is the main component, wouldn't a bar of chocolate have the same effect? I know, it is probably sacharose, but it is close enough [Note: for TMOU, look for chocolates which are edible even at 0°C]
Vasek Stodlka wrote:
Glucose (and fructose, it is chemically the same, IMHO) goes from stomach and thin bowel directly to blood and to muscles, sacharose needs reassembly to glucose. In basic school we learned that glucose can reach muscles in 15 minutes after eating, sacharose takes longer - about an hour. It means that chocolate also works, but with a delay. Principially, you can also eat some honey. :)
x wrote:
isn't Nutella the best chocolate for this temperatures?
davro wrote:
Brain is powered only by glucose. There is a very important parameter, which shows how fast are sugars from food transfered to blood - GI (glycemic index). Pure glucose transfer to blood is fast and is refered to as reference food (BTW: beer has GI 103 - so drink it if you need fast glucose transfer :-) Chocolate is not as good at it, because it contains lots of fat (but on the other hand, it is more complex - gives you energy for a longer time), and of course it contains legal drugs:-). I wonder whether good clothing is more important to your brain performance than glucose? If you are cold lots of sugar is spent to thermoregulation.