Taking stock in the caffeine market during a stressful time

Between December and the New Year we amass presents, vacations, food, alcohol and just plain useless stuff. Want a new gadget? Some cake and champagne? It's all part of the holiday cheer! Reading Period supposedly marks the end of this festive tendency toward over-consumption. But this hectic time in which we rush ever faster toward looming paper deadlines and malicious exams is also a holiday of sorts. Now is the occasion when I, along with many other Princeton students, allow myself the leisure to indulge in energy supplements. For a handful of days I no longer define sugar in terms of calories but as joules of energy. Lindt chocolate, Olive's cookies, Tasty Kake donuts — it's all energy.

Caffeine has always been my stimulant of choice, probably because it is socially acceptable and available in many forms. And the caffeine-carriers taste good. Try Jolt (71.2 mg of caffeine), Mountain Dew (55.0 mg) or Coke (45.6 mg) if you have a sweet tooth. Tea (30-60 mg) provides an elegant option. From the Café des Deux Magots to McDonald's, though, coffee (80-135 mg) is the way to get a kick. In 1997 Americans consumed 23.5 gallons of coffee per capita according to the Bureau of the Census's 2000 Statistical Abstract, and in 1999 we imported $2.9 billion of coffee.

For those of you with sensitive stomachs, the U-Store offers two versions of caffeine in a pill, nestled among many more expensive sleep aids. NoDoz costs $3.59 for 16 pills with 200 mg of caffeine each. Equal to one cup of coffee, they claim. Vivarin ("Revive with Vivarin," reads the catchy label) costs $3.39 for 16 pills with 200 mg of caffeine each. Equal to two cups of coffee, says the package.

What are the reasonable limits of caffeine consumption? A caffeine website (www.caffeinearchive.com) claims that you have had too much coffee if you sneeze with your eyes open, knit a sweater without knowing how to knit or have a picture of your coffee mug on your coffee mug. Susan Pierson, the nutritionist for University Dining Services, puts the limit at two cups a day. Coffee increases the heart rate and interferes with the absorption of other nutrients, she warns. And according to the American Psychiatric Association, if you consume around 10 g you could die.

There are, of course, more 'natural' stimulant options available, though you must use them for a few days before feeling any effects. The U-Store sells "Hi-Ener-G" — "Standardized Triple Ginseng Formula with Exclusive Herbal Extracts" — at $9.95 for 30 caplets. Although a recent Consumer Reports states that ginseng has little to no effect on energy levels, the pharmacist at the U-Store said she recommends the pills. "It doesn't seem to give a buzz," she reassured me. The clerk at Holsome Teas and Herbs, located on Nassau Street across from the Rocky dining hall, seemed a little more concerned when I asked for a caffeine substitute. "You are young," he said quietly as classical music played, "a multivitamin should be fine."

For about a week I have been trying royal jelly — the goop the worker bees feed the queen bee — in pill form.The back of the bottle I purchased from GNC (about $10 for 90 softgel capsules) reads: "In a little understood process, a queen bee is created on a diet of royal jelly. This queen will outlive her peers 40 times, grow 150 percent the size of a normal worker bee and maintain an amazing schedule, laying up to twice her own weight in eggs each day." The bad news is that the royal jelly has not affected my energy level. The good news is that I have not laid any eggs.

Pierson recommends that if you want higher energy levels you should simply eat a balanced diet, sleep and get some exercise. But that would take away the holiday spirit of Reading Period. Maybe all you need to do is adjust your priorities a bit. At this point you have read 653 words of dribble — instead you could have been sleeping. Nathan Arrington is an art and archaeology major from Westport, Conn. He can be reached at arington@princeton.edu.