Quitting Caffeine
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Life runs too fast for me on caffeine, yes I can blow through work faster, but when I was on caffeine it would feel like days, weeks, months would go by in the blink of an eye.
I wasn't enjoying the moment.. and then I stopped drinking caffeine.
Life became more present for me, not slower in the bad sense, but that I was able to relish every moment more, more aware... more conscious of what was going on around me. My fuse also got really short when I was consuming caffeine, I'd get into a lot of fights and arguments, since I've stopped, it's really helped.
I still get all my work done and have time to spare, I'm working, going to school and have an infant at home. So life after caffeine is definitely possible.
You roast your own beans at home ? How expensive of a setup does that require ?
I think this part hasn't been written of enough. How much smoke does coffee roasting create? Is it almost like a barbecue?
When you next make a cup, try to tease out exactly what it is that you enjoy about making it. What is it about that experience that makes it enjoyable?
Why not? Lots of people enjoy making food, even food they're not going to eat. Why would making a drink be that different?
Ritual itself can be very satisfying. I've taken apart also in Ethiopian coffee making, which is an awesome process. Beans get roasted on the spot and then brewed into coffee, and everyone gets there small cups of the brew, in decreasing concentration. It's a precise ritual, and at the same time very social. It's great!
I drink a lot of coffee. I'm a very in the moment person, meditate regularly, enjoy and live in the moment, etc.
This is an approach to life thing that is quite orthogonal to whether you drink coffee or not.
In conversations like these too often people promote a quick fix type of thing. "I stopped {X} and gained {Y}!", when really there was no causative relationship, and {X} was just a one of many lifestyle changes.
Though, to be fair, caffeine is a very strong stimulant. So likely, when you stop using it, things will change for you.
I do a coffee fast (for months) every so often. I suggest you try it, we can share more anecdotes when you're on the other side.
I think self-awareness plays a very strong role here. If you're addicted to caffeine, as many are, you know how it makes you feel. Some choose to ignore the effects, others also choose to ignore them...
Likely addiction to anything, if broken for a time, will yield results that one can measure against.
And yes, stopping addiction is a quick fix.
And I disagree that they're orthogonal. There's definitely some correlation between what you consume and your state of mind and awareness. (Don't believe me? Eat a handful of chillies) It is why the Buddhist monks live such a moderate lifestyle, would recommend chefs table episode 1 of the latest season.
Great. I was replying to someone else who took your statement to mean that stopping coffee == enlightenment.
I'm not looking for an argument, but far too often on here people look for, or push, an easy fix for larger problems. "I started working at a standing desk and now I'm a 10x programmer", "I stopped watching TV and now I'm a great artist", etc. But in reality the causation was "I realized I needed to make change, and for now at least things are different but here's some proxy symbolic thing". I realized that I needed to live healthier, and in doing so wore gym shorts more often, so gym shorts make you healthier.
Regarding the Buddhist monks, be wary clutching onto something they did given the mysticism, but it's notable that monks drink tea (and, in many cases, coffee), and their precepts are against intoxicants like alcohol. And some of the things they avoided were things like onions and garlic, which were believed to make them aroused.
Caffeine urges me to jump on my impulse and react fast which is not good for a relationship (especially a young relationship) where a little tolerance goes a long way..
I also started and stopped coffee a couple times before really quitting and the anger/irritability came right back like clockwork every time I started drinking again..
>Compared with nonconsumers, participants in the highest quartile of coffee consumption had statistically significantly lower all-cause mortality (men: HR, 0.88 [95% CI, 0.82 to 0.95]; P for trend < 0.001; women: HR, 0.93 [CI, 0.87 to 0.98]; P for trend = 0.009). Inverse associations were also observed for digestive disease mortality for men (HR, 0.41 [CI, 0.32 to 0.54]; P for trend < 0.001) and women (HR, 0.60 [CI, 0.46 to 0.78]; P for trend < 0.001). Among women, there was a statistically significant inverse association of coffee drinking with circulatory disease mortality (HR, 0.78 [CI, 0.68 to 0.90]; P for trend < 0.001) and cerebrovascular disease mortality (HR, 0.70 [CI, 0.55 to 0.90]; P for trend = 0.002) and a positive association with ovarian cancer mortality (HR, 1.31 [CI, 1.07 to 1.61]; P for trend = 0.015). In the EPIC Biomarkers subcohort, higher coffee consumption was associated with lower serum alkaline phosphatase; alanine aminotransferase; aspartate aminotransferase; γ-glutamyltransferase; and, in women, C-reactive protein, lipoprotein(a), and glycated hemoglobin levels.
http://annals.org/aim/article/2643435/coffee-drinking-mortal...
In addition, according to other studies, coffee prevents and/or reverses liver damage due to alcohol consumption. One study suggested an extremely significant (44%) reduction in occurrences of cirrhosis among those who drink 2 cups of coffee a day.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coffee-liver-cirrho...
When considering whether or not to give up your morning coffee, consider the good with the bad.
When you try and correlate one specific variable, like coffee, to trends like mortality, you must control for every other variable. Socioeconomic factors like income generally cause confounding of your results.
For example, there was a recent paper that showed that women with gum disease were at higher risk for certain cancers. Is it a wide stretch to believe that people with gum disease may be of lower socioeconomic status, and also probably not take care of their diets and health anyways?
Can someone link the PDF? My login for the acp journal article the parent linked to describing the health correlations won't work for some reason. I want to see how they controlled for some of these factors.
Edit: I found the full PDF through my institution. They note that their study may contain confounds, and note possible ones that they tried to control for. The paper isn't perfect, but I applaud the authors for being as thorough as they could. That being said, this sort of article is bound to go viral as soon as possible, with many misleading headlines.
Tough field... How do you survive with the overwhelming stigma of doubt connected to it?
But that being said, I think a lot of the stigma comes from researchers using biased data, or acting unethically with their data. Good epidemiological studies exist that have improved the health of the general public.
As a guide for new readers of public health research, here are my suggestions:
1. Read the abstract. Think about the claims that are being made. For example, if someone tells me that drinking 2 cups of coffee a day leads to a lower risk of cancer, my first thought is: what kinds of things do people drinking 2 cups of coffee a day do that would lower their risk of cancer? Could they have a different diet? Do they make more money, leading to them being able to afford preventative health? Do coffee drinkers just have more awareness about their health? Do their regular schedules and sleep cycles give them a health advantage? Keep these questions in mind when reading the rest of the paper. See if the researchers tried to control for these easy alternative explanations.
2. Get a fundamental understanding of some of the statistical terms and calculations used, and make sure you are not misinterpreting them. Thinks like odds ratio, attributable risk, relative risk, etc. Each of them means something specific, and should not be used for extrapolation. Google is your friend!
3. Read the paper as completely as you can!
4. Especially look at the discussion section for maybe reasons that their data isn't great, or also discussing alternative explanations. Also look at their appendix for their exclusion criteria. This can be a clue towards whether or not a researcher is being genuine about their dataset or data collection. In the ACP article about coffee drinkers, there were quite a few exclusions made, and the population they pulled data from seemed biased (women who went to mammogram screenings might care a bit more about their health than the average person)
That's all I have for now. I'd welcome any actual researcher to provide feedback and suggestions!
That is one of my pet peeves. There is no proof that antioxidants are good for humans. Years ago I read an article by a researcher that traced the origin of the idea to... nowhere. There was never any research that indicated they are good for us. It's one of those things that was injected into a news cycle and was picked up and repeated over and over again.
My girlfriend can attest to my going on tirades when a miscellaneous holistic "health expert" shows up on morning talk shows to inform daytime tv viewers that if they put an onion under their bed and only eat foods that don't contain the colour white that they'll reduce the "toxins" in their house and their body. (fictional example) Those mysterious boogeyman toxins... gotta reduce those toxins. Oh and you're selling a supplement that will take care of all of that for me so that I don't have to walk my pocketful of okra around the block three times before soaking it in a bath of cold milk I must change every day if I want to stay healthy.
I'll stop now, but I could go on...
If you want to do something good for your health, drink herbal tea. But why do most of the people prefer coffee or green / black tea? Or drink red wine or eat lots of dark chocolate. Because those are stimulants.
For example, coffee suppresses the appetite so maybe you snack less and that is driving the difference in the two study groups. Or people on the non-coffee drinking group have Coke-Cola instead.
I feel very badly for my Grandparents, who were told not to drink coffee because it was "bad" for them. They all stopped drinking coffee in the early 90s and subsequently put on a ton of weight and then suffered all the related health problems (diabetes, heart failure).
I often wonder if they stuck with coffee instead of giving it up would they have been in better health.
You should be skeptical. But skepticism shouldn't drive you to claim something like "most reports".
>A study of more than 40,000 individuals found a statistically significant 21% increased mortality in those drinking more than 28 cups of coffee a week and death from all causes, with a greater than 50% increased mortality risk in both men and women younger than 55 years of age.
https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-much-coffee-is-healthy-...
I've found that ordering something that has little to no calories or substance goes a long way to alleviate these fears (like tonic or sparkling water).
Because something like this still costs money, it helps convince the purchaser that they aren't appearing to be "cheap" by only ordering water. Topo Chico (a sparkling water similar to San Pellegrino) is a favorite among recovering alcoholics in my area.
Most of my friends are also healthy individuals and will also order water though, so maybe it's dependent on who your "friends" are.
I guess it's a question of company. If most of your friends order water, you feel a bit guilty ordering something less healthy.
I was pretty surprised when I'd realized this--G&T's had been my go-to "low-cal" cocktail for quite a while.
Ordering a club soda w/ lemon or lime however is a great move when avoiding alcohol in a social setting.
A lot of food tastes are enhanced with alcohol like wine.
However, in my case, my schedule (and budget, and family factors) keep me from restaurants, except for an occasional lunch out at work. And then alcohol is verboten if I'm going back to work afterwards.
Works great when you're trying to keep a clear head at a party full of heavy drinkers too. Just make sure to take slow sips so that people don't catch you with an empty glass.
That stigma is entirely self-perception. No one cares or even notices what anyone else drinking.
That's when I learned that - much like smokers - drinkers were a tribe.
Coming soon to a state near you.
I don't know. It feels like vape pens is one of the least classy things going on at the moment. I think the only thing that can make "weed" acceptable and "classy" is some variation on fancy edibles (or perhaps drinkables to bring the discussion full circle)
Another unhealthy thing about drinking culture is how it stigmatises teetotallers as some moralising oppressers (thanks Prohibition), when they might just not want to feel like shit in the morning.
Maybe you're driving. Maybe you're on medication. Maybe if you're a woman you're trying to get pregnant (or already are).
Either this "if you don't drink you must be an alcoholic" thing is entirely American or lots of people on HN hang around with the wrong crowd.
EDIT: Also being "on call" is a good reason not to drink. Though if you need an excuse every time you go out with your friends, you deserve better friends.
I live in a suburban area in the U.S. and what you report is similar to what I've experienced, too.
It could also be that my social circle is older, and many of us are parents, so it's not as convenient to go out for a hard night's drinking.
But even when I'm out in town non-drinkers aren't bullied into drinking. If it's a party and they're not drinking (especially if they're men and thus pregnancy is off the table) someone will likely push them on it because it's uncommon but no more than vegetarians or anyone else with dietary restrictions.
However in that case "I don't drink because I don't like being drunk" or "I don't drink because I don't take it well" is a perfectly acceptable answer. Then again, a lot of the people I'm talking about are goths so straight edge / clean living isn't too uncommon.
Get better friends.
that said, some women become terrible (in more bad ways than good) when they get tipsy... including my current
Some care, but that's usually easy for me to get away from. They usually notice, and they usually go through the standard comments on it.
This is also why some people say weird things like you're "cheap" if you don't order drinks (especially if you are paying).
Wow this is insane. The culture I grew up in is famously health-friendly, so I've never come across this, but it sounds horrible.
I started drinking only water around high school, and the only reaction I ever got was "good for you, I wish I had that habit".
> Because something like this still costs money, it helps convince the purchaser that they aren't appearing to be "cheap" by only ordering water.
Interesting, you think that appearing cheap is behind the stigma? I would've guessed it would be something along the lines of anticipated reproach.
It's pretty easy to spot in people, and I go out of my way to avoid people that are that morally and intellectually stunted, so that may contribute to me seeing less of this reaction.
For social things along the lines of house parties, I'll bring my own cup. I bought a set of vintage tupperware cups, and, to my surprise, they're always a hit. Its silly, but it helps. I don't make a show of drinking water, and most people assume the cup is filled with beer. When people do ask what I'm drinking, and I tell them that its just water, my assumption is that their assumption is that I was / am an alcoholic... sometimes I let it slide, other times I will clarify.
Over these past few years I've moved away from everything but one cup of coffee per day, and about 2 - 3 litres of water.
Regarding the stigma, it may be a regional thing (Vancouver), but most people don't care about what I order at a restaurant or drink at a social function. The strangest look I'll get is when I order room temperature tap water... but that's understandable :)
Since moving away from everything else, I've found that I rarely crave sugar --- and when I do, everything is far too sweet for me. I used to have a notorious sweet-tooth, but moving away has cured me of that. I also can't handle fizzy things anymore, which was also surprising.
I think you might be right about that (Victorian here). No one ever cared what I was drinking in Victoria. Now that I'm in Europe it seems like people drink soda, beer or wine with every meal, even at home and they get weird when I ask for water. Like, they'll try to push soda or beer on me to the point where it gets uncomfortable if I say no. I'm still trying to figure a way to navigate around this, even as I slowly become acclimatized to drinking way more sugar and alcohol than I'm happy with.
Personally I really don't care what anybody else consumes and I certainly don't look down on people for not drinking. People have lots of good reasons to abstain from drinking, and zero of those reasons are my business (unless they want to share)
--
I actually drink beer quite regularly, and whiskey when I am more in the mood (and in the money). (see: Canadian)
That said I rarely drink when I'm out with coworker, or I'll limit myself to a beer or two. I've never seen a real hard time from anybody, but I'm also a stubborn person when I feel the need to be. I wouldn't dream of giving anybody a hard time about not drinking and certainly would never look down on anybody for not partaking.
I think my only hope is that this view is reciprocated. I've found drinkers can just as often be condescended to for the indulgence -- and unless one really cuts loose and acts like an idiot, I think it's unwarranted and in poor taste... that it can be seen as an act of lower intelligence, or whatever you want.
For me, making a cup of coffee is just a... ritual of sorts. Weighting the beans, pouring over water, all these things. And I really enjoy the taste, trying different beans. I don't want to sound pretentious, it's just a hobby for me.
Maybe there are some alternatives to it (tea?) that have lower impact on health over time, but I haven't really explored it.
Folks react really differently to caffeine. I've never been able to use it to fight against sleepyness, for example. I'm fine drinking it before bed, though I try to give 30 minutes afterwards just so I can pee. I miss drinking coffee if I quit, and tea is hardly a replacement if you are skipping caffeine. (My other beverage is water, and I don't vary often). My father, on the other hand, needed to stop caffeine after lunchtime to sleep well at night. My mother develops headaches, which might not be a problem if it weren't for migraines and cluster headaches. Oddly enough, sometimes the caffeine helps that bit.
Other folks get grouchy if they quit suddenly. A few get hungry, and some folks just feel generally bad.
I can have a large cup of coffee at 10pm, become tired and be sleeping at 11pm. Also, during extended vacations (>2 weeks) I typically go without coffee and, what I can tell, don't feel the difference.
I wonder why this is case...?
YMMV.
I think the difference is that coffee is a morning thing for me. I'll get through the pot by noon and be done, so it doesn't affect my sleep.
If you have a grinder, you could buy beans from any number of places online, like Blue Bottle. I'm lucky enough to live near a ton of roaster coffee shops that will grind bags for me.
I'm considering buying a grinder, but it'll probably be $100-200, and I'm not sure if that's worth the price when the coffee shop will do it for me.
I have them, and I find coffee aids digestion - I'll finish a big restaurant meal with an espresso - but I can immediately get to sleep when I get home.
I wonder if the author's energy level issues were due to his "ever-increasing consumption".
Some of the energy thing is related to dehydration I suspect - if I drink more water over the day it has same effect as stopping coffee
For me, that was the majority of it. I've settled on a 1:1 ratio. Drink a cup of coffee, then a full cup of water before I have another coffee.
Lack of hydrating is probably my worst bad habit.
When I drink coffee at night, which is rare, I also don't have any trouble falling asleep.
For the life of me at around 4pm I start to feel snoozy if I had one in the morning.
Though I am still at maximum 1 cup per day and have absolutely no problem skipping a few days here and there. Good thing about caffeine is that it's very fast to reset back to 0.
Other caffeine sources I enjoy as well but try to stay away as much as possible and only consume very very very occasionally. Studies that link telomere length to caffeine (from non-coffee sources) are enough to make me not want to drink energy drinks at all despite me really liking the taste and boost.
What you're describing is sugar dependence, not caffiene. Cut out all processed sugar and after 2 weeks you'll wonder what drug you are on (then cut out "healthy" carbs like bread and pasta and you'll wonder how you ever wanted to eat them).
From the abstract, they never say it prevent liver cancer.. but maybe that could help if you already have a big liver disease.
I'm the author. Apparently caffeine affects people in different ways.
Things like this generally make me wary. Not so much because of them causing side effects that are harder to disentangle, but their adoption indicating that the author is fairly stabilized, which is a giant side effect in itself.
It took me over a month to few "normal" again.
First week: headaches, back pain, vomiting, nausea, cramps, etc.
Second week: feeling like shit. Had no energy for anything.
Third week: a resemblance of being normal again.
Fourth week: feeling like I was at 60% of my previous energy levels and thinking "this sucks but if this is the new normal, I can get used to it".
Second month: energy levels are back, never feel sleepy again, focus is back completely, etc. I'm even thinking about gym, running, etc.
So this is my data point. From 3-4 expressos and of caffeinated sodas to zero.
I didn't stop taking sugar. I only dropped coffee and stopped taking caffeinated sodas... I didn't stop taking sodas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean
It really is a very fascinating phenomenon. My friend who works as a psychologist have noticed that the most "successful" work is to always accept crisis patients immediately. If they have to queue for 2 months before getting clinical help, they have often improved by themselves, and it is therefore harder to reduce their problems further.
It's not that there's a regression-to-mean force that eliminates abnormal symptoms. It's more that the symptoms have some underlying cause that will fix itself over time.
If you start some intervention (such as stopping caffeine) at the same time you are naturally getting better, then you nay false attribute your getting better to the intervention rather than to its real cause: our bodies tend to bounch back from illness.
It's not so much that eliminating caffeine is a life changing experience, but rather, you're unchained from the necessity to, above all else, get your caffeine fix. Some people can take it or leave it, go without for days at a stretch, which was not at all the case for me -- the only time I ever went without was when bed ridden or on a meditation retreat.
In terms of energy, the reserves are deeper, since the energy depleting caffeine rush is gone. Also, quit consuming refined sugar, which may be a bigger win than quitting caffeine -- I think it's closer to the natural state that humans experienced long before concentrated Xs came into being.
You have to want to quit. If you're younger you probably can withstand the racing heart, having to urinate frequently, insomnia, mood swings, and other negative side effects that inevitably affect the aging caffeine drinker.
On my short experiment quitting coffee (30 days IIRC), nothing really changed, so I restarted using it (which always feels great).
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> On my short experiment quitting coffee (30 days IIRC), nothing really changed
What has changed for me is that I no longer feel shackled to a pernicious habit. The caffeine addicted mind is very persuasive: "it's healthy, don't stop", "it's normal, everyone drinks coffee", "but the withdrawl symptoms", "I won't be as productive", etc.
I exercise on a daily basis, I eat well and I go to bed on time and I usually sleep between 7-8 hours.
I don't have the same side-effects most people talk here, thankfully, because the smell of a just made home-made coffee is one the best things ever :P
The main thing is that you need to get enough sleep at night.
If you're interested, I found some support on reddit, http://www.reddit.com/r/decaf.
If you're like me, when you're sick in bed, the last thing you'll want is coffee. By the end of your flu, you'll also have gotten off caffeine and you'll have ascribed the withdrawal symptoms to the flu. Done! Now go buy some decaf :-)
I've been burned by getting regular coffees at restaurants and coffee machines when I ordered decaf.
I wonder how hard it would be to have a "litmus paper" style test for caffeine.
Now I wish I'd never done it in the first place, but here we are.
I think it just comes down to feeling unable to procure the item of your addiction -- and the mental position to want to leave it behind. I couldn't properly quit until that point... pure resolve. Pure resolve, and being stuck in bed in terrible pain for a week (haha?)
Yeah - it's like the old saying "it's easy to live to 100 years old, just give up all the things that make you want to live until 100'.
Oh-so cool.
This makes me mull about the role that moderation plays in a person's overall happiness and success in life.
Last week I had terrible sleep, from 3-5 hours a night. Even though I was exhausted during the day, I still couldn't fall asleep at night.
I only drink two cups a day, with sometimes a Coke at lunch. But might be my old age that is making me hypersensitive to caffeine. Back in college I could drink cup after cup and still fall asleep when I was ready.
So I'm stopping caffeine for awhile to see how it goes.
I've been on/off caffeine numerous times. Mostly because I have a big backpack trip where obtaining caffeine is a pain. It takes exactly a week for me with days 3-6 being miserable. I feel I am not fully "there" almost as if I'm an observer in my own body.
There are two advantages I see in being off caffeine. First you are not dependent on a drug. Second, if you do need the drug for a rare occasion (maybe driving late into the night etc.) it is there for you. Being off caffeine then drinking a cup of coffee gives you a huge jolt.
I got back on caffeine recently to see if it would help me lose weight. It did not. Now I'm fat and addicted.
Annnnnd this is why I don't do tobacco or "real" drugs.
This is my exact experience with the various kinds of ADHD stimulant meds.
edit: not at the same time
(former BR scooper. It got _everywhere_)
I also want to reduce my caffeine/coffee intake, but I want to have the "same feeling" as when I drink coffee...
For this I drink the following: * My girlfriend showed me Caro Coffee (wheat-basis): http://amzn.to/2w8RhDu You make it like instant coffee with hot water (and milk/sugar)
* Yogi Tea (chocolate-taste) http://amzn.to/2wZCVSP Usually I drink this in winter.. But I'm not sure whether it is completly caffeine free.
* Eimalzin (malt-cocoa) http://amzn.to/2i3bTrs ok thats just cocoa.. still I like it from time to time
* Zotter (various drinking chocolates) http://amzn.to/2w5W7SD hmm very tasty! but a bit "heavy", so I only drink them from time to time.
But I am always happy to find good tasting alternatives to coffee... Do you have any suggestions?
Wikipedia has a list of coffee substitutes[0], but the only one I know and can recommend is barley malt coffee, which you've already mentioned.
This is not universally true.
I've experienced mornings in four different cases. Chronologically: drinking lots of soda, dropping caffeine and taking Adderall, consuming basically no stimulants for a year or so other than the occasional soda once or twice a month, and drinking black coffee and/or green tea regularly.
They've all been universally pretty awful, with still an hour of snooze button needed at most, but caffeine by itself has been the least bad both for mornings (including compared to no stimulant consumption) and in terms of overall side effects.
By far the worst regular day-to-day experience is the caffeine+sugar combo, though. If you can tolerate your caffeine without sugar, it can be quite nice.
(The worst absolute experience is a cold-turkey dropping of amphetamines for a weekend to reset a growing tolerance. Be prepared to watch a lot of TV, eat a lot of cheetos, and have very little desire or ability for serious thinking.)
Rather than quitting caffeine entirely, waiting two hours after waking (e.g. when you get to work) may also fix that dependency.
About 6 months ago I started having slight muscle tremors, my doctor said it could be because of stress. I didn't tell him I started having too much coffee (nor he asked me).
But the tremors kind of increased slowly. I read on HN about some guy who had similar problem with caffeine shots. It then struck them that coffee could be the problem.
Now I rarely drink coffee and tremors are also gone.
Muscle tremors could be a sign of magnesium and/or calcium deficiency, so it's likely that you were losing too many minerals and not making up for it in your diet.
Either way, before I knew what was going on, I got frustrated at my textbook healthiness yielding no answers, went off the low-carb deep and and cut out grains and sugars almost entirely from my diet.
Because my insulin/glucose levels have now moved from the penthouse to a basement apartment, I no longer have dramatic swings in energy throughout the day. My energy at 7AM is roughly the same energy I have by half after 4. I don't need caffeine or sugar to push me though a tired spell, and I haven't felt a caffeine/insulin crash in months.
Caffeine control is one thing but insulin is the body's top dog energy regulator. If you have energy issues, start by focusing on insulin, not caffeine.
On top of that I don't even feel more focused or productive from caffeine. Actually I get easily overwhelmed and rather indecisive. My brain is not made for stimulants, as adderall makes me tired.
I'm going to try taking theanine with a cup tomorrow, if that doesn't improve things then I'm off caffeine for a long time.
It's not even hard. Coffee is only useful for zombies.
Caffeine doesn't do anything for me anymore except stop dependence side effects - been thinking about ditching it and using modafinil on days like these - seems relatively side effect free and easy to get pharma grade stuff.
Or is it the symptom of a drug sensitivity that some people have and some people don't?
All the research I did indicated that it was an extremely rare reaction that certain people would have, not that it was a result of long-term use.
In the US, Ritalin/dexadrine/adderall are all class II controlled substances with similar restrictions to cocaine or fentynal, so in order to get it I would need to have a doctor's appointment every month, which wasn't only inconvenient but super expensive once I lost my mom's insurance.
So, dipshit that I am, I replaced it with megadoses of caffeine. At my peak, I was consuming 1g (yes, gram) of the stuff every day in the form of energy drinks. I am now down to 280-560mg per day on average. I have tried not drinking any, but the inability to focus and headaches mean that trying to cutback seriously puts my job at risk.
I really wish I could just get back on ritalin or something so that I can give my poor heart a rest, but I am afraid to walk into a doctors office after not going for years and asking for drugs.
I'm at >= 5. Pretty bad.
I also feels like caffeine doesn't have much effect anymore.
Any way to make quitting easier?
I would say that when I'm down of caffeine I'm more tired that I should, but not that I'm more awake when I drink it.
Sounds like quitting drinking by switching from wine to lots and lots of beer...
It depends a bit on the specific preparation but black tea contains at most half as much caffeine as brewed coffee (per liter) and green tea is again half as much.
Thus an easy way to reduce your caffeine intake is to replace a cup coffee by a cup of the same size of black tea and maybe later green tea (you are not going to drink twice as much liquid and are not drastically cutting your caffeine intake).
I cut my caffeine in half each day (and went from a quarter cup to zero) I did experience some withdrawal symptoms, including headache, lethargy, and some mild but notable depression. The worst of it was over in a couple of days, I'd say the full deal took about a week and a half. Not a load of fun but honestly not that bad considering I was a heavy coffee drinker for 30 years.
I'd recommend drawing down a little slower than 50% a day. Maybe a third or quarter? Either way don't go cold turkey definitely draw down.
The key for my was finding good quality (and expensive) decaf coffe beans. After triying differente brands I settled with Lavazza.
Then taper down the coffee. Have 3/4 of a cup when you would have had a whole cup. Then 1/2 cup. Etc.
YMMV but I find I can do it fairly easily over the course of a week usually. With the amount you're drinking, maybe a month would be easier. Go as slow as you want... it's not a "macho" contest, there's 0 reason to make it hurt. Go as slowly as you want... no need to impact your mood or anything.
Just do it, it's really not that hard. Lots of patients (especially with ADHD) go off their meds for long periods. If anything, it's a sign that the diagnosis was correct.
And all insurance plans do cover mental health per the ACA... It is one of the ten benefits that must be covered on all plans under the law.
Incidentally, psychologist prescribing happens in some states also.
Also, it appears parent has an unusual level of caffeine intake, and did much better when they were taking amphetamines.
I have tried not drinking any, but the inability to focus and headaches mean that trying to cutback seriously puts my job at risk.
How do you consume your caffeine? Black coffee or something else?
If you're drinking coffees with a bunch of cream and sugar, or energy drinks, you're addicted to both caffeine and sugar. Try quitting one at a time. Slowly switch to unsweetened tea/coffee so that you're getting your caffeine but not blasts of sugar. Even if that's all you do it's an improvement in mood/energy. Once the sugar thing's stabilized you can think about tapering down the caffeine. YMMV but if you do it over the course of a week or so you should be fine.
If you're drinking diet soda energy drinks with no sugar... I still feel like these have a lot of the effects of sugar because they trigger a lot of the same chemicals in the body. I think these artificial sweeteners have their own weirdly addictive properties.
In any case... good luck!!!
I'm guessing you drink the zero-cal Monsters because you don't like the taste of coffee or tea? Don't worry, you're not alone. =)
I'm going to make a suggestion. If you want to break the Monster addiction you might think about exploring cold brew coffee. It's not the same as brewing a pot of coffee and throwing it in the fridge. With cold brew coffee, you just soak the coffee grounds in water over night. What you get is extremely concentrated coffee, with like 4x the caffeine of regular coffee, but with a ridiculously smooth taste, lacking the acridity/acidity/whatever of regular coffee... a lot of people who don't like coffee enjoy cold brew coffee.
Just remember that it's very concentrated stuff, 1/4 cup of cold brew coffee has the caffeine of an entire cup of coffee.
It's also a lot cheaper than Monster; you just use regular old coffee from the supermarket, you're gonna save like $50 a week.
But anyway, that's one possible way to tackle the addictions separately. Monster --> cold brew coffee --> single addiction that you should be able to beat just by tapering the dosage over time.
And definitely go see your doctor, if you are anxious about it, doing it will make you feel less anxious afterwards, even if the visit accomplishes nothing.
- Quit caffeine
- Quit sugar (in all forms e.g. refined sugar, honey, fructose syrup etc.)
- Consume alcohol only occasionally
- Consume white flour only occasionally
- Meditate
> I don’t think the ketones are necessary, but it helps me with running while fasted.
Our body generates ketones when carbohydrate intake is reduced enough, and it feels great. Perhaps the author's tinnitus may benefit from reduction in carb intake [1]. It is a common misconception to attribute certain benefits to presence of ketones while the actual benefit comes from the absence of sugar metabolism.
[1] https://www.tinnitusformula.com/library/sugar-metabolism-aff...
With fiber. The human body has evolved to receive fructose with fiber. When you give it fructose without fiber, it doesn't satiate and it's metabolized in a similar way to alcohol (except for the cognitive effects).
Recently, I tried to quit caffeine for 10 days and didn't feel the need for it, so I'm hardly addicted to it, rather I just enjoy the taste of it. Since I'm completely tolerant, to the effects of caffeine at this point, trying a decaf could be an interesting option. Has anyone researched health implication of drinking decaf?
It's not caffeine, because coffee doesn't substitute, neither does green tea.
So it must be some stimulant unique to black tea.
Maybe theobromine, theophylline, or L-Theanine? (see http://www.healthline.com/nutrition/stimulants-in-tea - maybe a questionable source...)
It is true that getting coffee is kind of a social situation. But I'm ok just getting a hot chocolate or some other drink when I'm with people.
The thing about less ability to compensate lack of sleep. The way I deal with that isn't with sugar or caffeine. I just take naps. If I only got between 3-5 hours of sleep, I might need a 15-min nap but once I get that I'm good to go again.
I'll update my post to explain that.
I was a good week with intense headaches, it was scary. I used to drink 1 or 2 a day, nothing more.
As for the link, it doesn't work ... hackernews DoS induced?
Decaf doesn't taste as good, at least in the US. The American public won't tolerate a higher cost for decaf than ordinary coffee, so roasters pay for the decaffeination process by purchasing lower quality beans.
... people tend to build a great deal of psychological dependence on friends and significant others as well. Dependence does not seem a bad thing on its own.
So it's not hard to imagine that in our fucked up world at least some of the "research" on coffee is "fake news".
[1] http://www.ncausa.org/Industry-Resources/Economic-Impact
- Get as much sleep as I need. Most days I need 8 hours. Some days I need 9. So I plan accordingly.
- Lunches that are light on carbs. Large amounts of potato, bread and or rice put me to sleep. On most days I have some sort of a salad for lunch with soup and a small piece of bread.
That is all. Plenty of sleep and not overeating. There are other things: a relatively active lifestyle, exercise, walks etc.. but the two items I mentioned above make the greatest difference in-terms of being awake and remaining alert all day for me.
If you're getting 8-9 hours a night you don't need coffee. I bet your coworkers who are mainlining the stuff either have small kids, or very active social lives.
On caffeine, my thinking is somehow more "linear", taking the shortest path to solutions. Lateral thinking is more difficult and I am more easily distracted.
For this reason, I have since cut down my caffeine consumption to 2-3 cups a day. I wish decaf tasted better. Then I would drink coffee all day. Sadly I have still not found any that I truly enjoy.
Interesting. I would be more wary of using (artificial) workout supplements than indulging in (moderate quantities of) caffeine, sugar or alcohol. With latter at least we know the side effects. But then, we each choose our own poison I guess...
In the morning, I usually eat some fruit to help me wake up. I generally just drink water throughout the day.
I live in Denmark, where the average is 1.27 cups a day, and I oftentimes go over 10 cups a day of coffee, and I know a handful of people who're either up there with me, or drink even more.
More common is general anxiety. If you are anxious at all, tons of coffee tend to spike that up.
Past 3 cups seems to harm my sanity more then it helps.
My life mantra is "everything in moderation". This method fits in a bit better with just quitting cold turkey.
You don't have to go by anecdotes: caffeine is the most popular drug in the world and has been studied fairly heavily. It improves focus and some other cognitive metrics for a short period of regular use, and then your daily hit of caffeine just brings you up to what your baseline used to be.
I love coffee and I found that when cycling off one of the best things to do is to switch to decaf (some tasty options out there) + L-Theanine. Another great help when cycling off is Rhodiola Rosea.
Then we got a puppy and I haven't slept well in 4 weeks.
Typing this as I consume a Diet Dr. Pepper.
If you have a specific link between the 'insecticide' and poor health let's hear it - otherwise it's just a ridiculous statement.
Replacing that with a buzz from an insecticide - and that is the purpose for which plants produce caffeine - on a regular basis doesn't feel like a great idea.
I rarely drink anything other than a doppio in the morning, but I simply can't start my day without it.
(When you make coffee you get new coffee beans and drink all of it. Tea is different, mechanically.. ?
Lookup nootropics, there's a reddit forum for it. I take a combination of caffeine, l-theanine, bacopa, and magnesium in the morning, and one caffeine pill in the afternoon.
I'm in Canada, you can get caffeine pills cheap: 100x 200mg pills for <$10.
Visit your local fitness health store, and asked them for stuff for focus. I am sure they can help you.
The first thing I cut out was gluten. Gluten has been shown to act like an opiate in people with autism. [2] I believe I was going through a short time-scale withdrawal when consuming it regularly. That was the best I ever felt, but I would still get the occasional sinus headache. Having tasted the good life, I was on a mission to feel 100%.
The next thing I cut out was caffeine. It was tough. On all my attempts to give things up, I've gone back and forth multiple times. I joke that it's to "confirm" the trigger, but really it's because giving up tasty foods is tough. Each time I go through an initial withdrawal. Bad sinus headache, shaking (nerves), vomiting, stomach problems. It took about a month until my energy levels were back to normal after giving up caffeine. I would usually come home and work on side projects, I just didn't have the energy for a solid month. If it didn't get better I was ready to suffer through the headaches to get my energy back, but it did get better.
There is an amazing gluten free restaurant near me, and they have pizza. I was eating pepperoni pizza's pretty regularly (because omg pizza) and still getting headaches. Narrowing it down, only eating their pizza in the day and seeing what happened I was able to identify what it was that was triggering headaches on those days. I brought it up to the owner and he pointed out sodium nitrite as an ingredient in the pepperoni. This is a common ingredient in bacon and BBQ meats, which explained my sinus headaches with those too. Did a few tests and it seemed consistent. There is uncured bacon and pepperoni but it's just a trick. They use celery powder or celery juice to cure it. Celery contains sodium nitrite. This also explains the headaches I get with Old Bay seasoning (contains celery).
I feel there is a perfect phrase to describe this, but I can't think of it, so I'll just say I cut down more of the forest I could more easily identify the trees that were giving me sinus headaches. While I had given up caffeine, I was still a total sugar fiend. Caffeine-free root beer, bowls of vanilla ice cream doused in sprinkles. With my limited diet it was pretty easy to identify the causes. Sugar was really rough to give up. I don't know if it was the quantity I was eating, how long I had been eating it, but it was bad. With sodium nitrites I just get a sinus headache when exposed to them. With sugar I get the full symptoms described above. I went back and forth on sugar a few times but the withdrawal symptoms (after giving it up) are what made me finally say this is horrible and I'm never doing it again.
The final thing was MSG. I eat a lot of chips, since I can eat potato and corn. I was particularly fond of the Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream ones. But lo' a headache! Reading over the ingredients, monosodium glutamate. I didn't know that was MSG at first, I had to Google each ingredient, but when I found out, it made a lot of sense.
Giving this stuff up is difficult. I'm actually incredibly thankful for my hyper-sensitive symptoms as it has gotten me to start eating healthily. It has also made me realize how much addictive stuff is put into foods and how scarcely it is researched.
*Celiac symptoms vary wildly, and I can only speak from my own experience.
1. http://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coeliac-disease-sinusiti...
2. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1517/14728222.6.2.175
The final, most recent and by far most difficult was sugar. My experience cutting it out was the same as yours.
Its fascinating what this drug has created. Just look at pre cofee europe and post coffe europe. All those half thought through manifestos would have never been written if it werent for that coup burning the midnight oil.
Frankly, people drinking coffee over sugary beverages is a public health win.
That's why I had to stop. Over time the effect bacame "non-slight". That wasn't convenient for my 1h commute...
For me it was the worst kind of vicious cycle - drink more, sleep worse, drink even more the next day.
Although I am sorely tempted every morning when I get a whiff of freshly ground coffee being brewed up.