In light of the Panera lemonade thing, I feel like now is a good time to remind people that caffeine has an effective dose that is much closer to overdose amounts than most other drugs (including illegal and heavily stigmatized drugs), that caffeine overdoses are both common and under-reported, that not being able to get through a single day without a drug that was not prescribed to treat a medical condition is not normal, and that the sort of capitalist grind culture that normalizes all of this is bad, actually.
Caffeine headaches are a withdrawal symptom. If you get caffeine headaches when you don't get your coffee fix, you are addicted to caffeine.
Heart palpitations and feelings of impending doom are overdose symptoms, and tolerance can vary enough due to external factors that a high level of caffeine that's fine for you one day could be dangerous for you on another. If you get "panic attacks" and if you regularly drink more than one cup of coffee per day, tell your doctor about your caffeine habits, because those panic attacks may be misdiagnosed caffeine overdoses.
I'm not anti-caffeine – in fact, I'm not anti- any drug. I think adults can make informed choices about their own health, and I think that they should be allowed to do so. But the key to that is the informed part, and an awful lot of people consume genuinely risky amounts of caffeine without knowing any of the risks. In law school, I polled my friends, and discovered that a shockingly high percentage of them had had what were likely caffeine overdoses without realizing that that was what they were, or that they were dangerous. Having a little bit too much coffee and then spending all afternoon feeling like you're close to having a heart attack isn't an everyday occurrence, and it shouldn't be treated like one! Some of these same friends had abused stimulant medications like adderall and ritalin as productivity aids, and I absolutely guarantee that if they'd had the same level of symptoms from an accidental extra dosing of those drugs, rather than of caffeine, they'd have gone to the hospital. But Starbucks and Panera don't hand out adderall and ritalin, and people don't think that merch about adderall and ritalin dependency is cute or quirky, or that an adderall or ritalin habit is indicative of being a hard worker.
I love a cup o' joe in the morning too, but caffeine is a drug, y'all. Stop treating it like it's not.
