7 Things That Changed When I Threw Out My Energy Drinks — and Drank This Instead

Rachel Monroe | Mom of two, former energy-drink junkie Last updated: August 2026

I didn't need more energy. I needed to stop being wired and wrecked at the same time. That took five days and a lemon-lime stick, not another can.

For about eight years I ran my whole life on energy drinks. Two before lunch, one for the afternoon, and I called it "being productive." I was wired by 10, wrecked by 2, and lying awake at midnight with my heart going for no reason. I thought that was just what being a busy mom felt like. It wasn't. Here's what actually turned it around.

Here are the 7 things that changed, in the order I noticed them.

1

The 2pm crash just… stopped

This was the first one, around day five. There's only 40mg of caffeine in a stick, about a third of a cup of coffee, but it's paired with oat straw so the energy stays level instead of spiking and dropping. I didn't hit the afternoon wall. I didn't reach for a second anything. I just kept going, calmly, which I hadn't done in years.

2

Turns out the "energy" I loved was mostly panic

A friend explained it and I couldn't un-hear it. The 200 to 300mg of synthetic caffeine in an energy drink reads to your body like a threat. Heart up, jaw tight, wired. That's not drive, that's a stress signal, and the crash is the bill coming due. YES leans on saffron instead — 30mg, the exact amount used in published mood studies — so I feel awake and clear without the alarm-bell feeling.

3

I started sleeping through the night

I didn't connect my mornings to my 1am wake-ups until they went away. Once my body wasn't braced all day, it actually let go at night. I fall asleep faster and I stay asleep, and I stopped dreading bedtime.

4

No jitters, no shaky hands, no random dread

I used to get this wave of nervousness in the afternoons that came out of nowhere. It scared me. Since I swapped, it just doesn't show up. Calm and clear is a weird thing to get used to when you've been wired for a decade, but I'll take it.

The thing I keep getting asked about See what I switched to →

5

Zero sugar, 10 calories, and it tastes like lemonade

My energy drinks were loaded with sugar or fake sweeteners. YES has neither. It's real lemon-lime, 10 calories, and it honestly tastes like a treat, so the daily habit stuck without any willpower.

6

It's cheaper than the habit it replaced

I added it up once and I don't recommend doing that to yourself. Between the cans and the coffees and the stuff I bought to fix the crashes, I was spending a couple hundred dollars a month to feel worse. YES runs about a dollar a day on the bigger supply. That math alone should've woken me up sooner.

7

My kids got a calmer mom

This is the one that actually matters. I stopped being short with them by 4pm. My six-year-old told me I "seem happy" a few weeks in, and I had to leave the room. That's worth more than any of the rest of it.