Caffeine overdrive: The dark side of America's "no sleep" hustle culture

With nearly 20% of office spaces currently sitting empty across the United States, and as multiple major property and asset management companies have collectively defaulted on billions in commercial-property loans, it may be tempting to think that the cult of workaholism is diminishing as its old cubicle-packed temples seem to continue to crumble, but one visit to a Panera or Starbucks on a random Tuesday afternoon quickly dispels that notion. 

For many remote employees in an era of growing work-from-anywhere flexibility, these third places increasingly operate as the new office (though, of course, speaking as a former freelance writer, such has been the case for gig workers for a very long time). For what they occasionally lack in basic working necessities — namely open table space and working outlets — they make up for in unique amenities, like a friendly barista waiting behind the counter to ask, “One espresso shot or two?” 

It’s a fitting shift because over-caffeinating and overwork have long gone hand-in-hand in American work culture, so much so that discussions of the former are often used as a way to brag about the latter: God, hand me another Red Bull. I was up until midnight pushing that project over the finish line, then had to be back up at 4 a.m. to check the foreign markets. I’m just so busy! This isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. For decades, an estimated 90% of Americans have reported drinking caffeine every day, making it, as “The New York Times” noted back in 1991, the country’s most popular psychoactive substance. 

Generations of workers have used caffeine to rev up their brain cells when they really want to power down in the face of yet another round of spreadsheets, meetings and now Zoom calls. However, in recent years, a new wave of mega-caffeinated beverages have hit the market, seemingly in tandem with the pandemic illustrating some of the fissures of America’s glorification of “no sleep” hustle culture; but following the string of highly-publicized lawsuits surrounding the safety of Panera’s highly-caffeinated “Charged” Lemonade — and growing interest among younger members of the workforce in cutting their caffeine consumption — will our collective desire to feed (or water) that beast finally be quelled? 

As Salon Food has reported, Panera’s Charged Lemonade is at the center of three lawsuits: two in 2023 that allege the drink’s caffeine contents caused the cardiac arrests that killed two separate people, and a third suit filed earlier this month in which a plaintiff alleges the drink caused them permanent heart issues. 

The large size of the Charged Lemonade contains 390 milligrams of caffeine, which is very close to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recommended daily maximum limit of 400 milligrams for healthy adults. It’s important to note that at least one of the individuals who died following consuming the beverage, Sarah Katz, had documented prior heart issues, however the Katz family has maintained that Sarah was conscientious about her caffeine consumption and that she was likely unaware of the high caffeine content of the "charged" drink, which contains as much caffeine as an energy drink, because Panera marketed the product as "clean." 

“If she didn’t know that this was an energy drink, it makes the family concerned about who else doesn’t know,” Elizabeth Crawford, the Katz family’s attorney, told “The New York Times” in October. 

While warnings about the product have since been added in-store and online by the company — and, as of this week, the beverage has been removed from the self-serve fountains in some locations — the drinks are still available for purchase. Obviously, the Charged Lemonade isn’t the only highly-caffeinated product on the market. 

Sales of energy drinks in the United States have grown from $12 billion to $19 billion over the past five years, and as their popularity is surging, so are their caffeine levels. “A 12-ounce can of Red Bull contains about 114 milligrams of caffeine — more than three times the amount in a 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola,” Julie Creswell reported for the “Times” last year. “Prime Energy has more: 200 milligrams in each 12-ounce can. A 16-ounce can of Bang Energy Drink, the size typically sold in convenience stores, has 300 milligrams of caffeine.”

Increasingly, the makers of beverages in the energy drink space aren’t just touting their ability to give consumers a physical jolt when they need it. By pairing caffeine with other buzzy active ingredients like ginseng, carnitine, creatine and ginkgo biloba, they position these drinks as enhancers of mental alertness and concentration, too. Such is the case with Starbucks Triple Shot Energy, which contains B vitamins, ginseng and guarana — as well as 225 milligrams of caffeine. Of course, neither desiring a mental boost nor consuming a beverage marketed to do just that is a problem. 

The problem lies in our society’s continued glorification of busyness and normalization of sleep deprivation. Many of us operate within a work culture where increased job demands and expectations drive individuals to seek those quick-energy solutions again and again because they feel like they have to always be on (or in the parlance of Panera, “charged”). 

As the pandemic demonstrated, even with remote work, the advent of technology, like email and Slack, only further blur the lines between work and personal life, making sustained alertness a perceived necessity. Hustle culture doesn’t have a destination. It’s a Sisyphean grind in which caffeine occasionally makes one feel like they can roll the immense boulder up the hill a little better, only for the boulder to roll back to the bottom and for the loop to begin again. 

It’s no wonder that worker burnout has hit a global high, with 42% of surveyed employees reporting feelings of “exhaustion or energy depletion, negativism or cynicism related to an individual’s job and reduced professional efficacy,” a societal problem even mega-doses of caffeine can’t paper over.