Stopped drinking coffee months ago and I have never felt better. Anxiety is down. Sleeplessness is down. General mood is up. Best of all, I no longer get headaches due to Caffeine withdrawal.
But I love coffee and am usually consuming it. Thank you for sharing your experience. I’ll need to try taking a break soon.
The taste of coffee is pretty tough to resist, I'll admit!
They do make decaffeinated coffee, although I've never tried it myself.
Basically, that would mean that drinking decaf is not really the same as not drinking coffee.
I've stopped drinking coffee a fews times. Once while working at a coffee company and there was a full espresso bar across the hall from my desk. Not easy.
The trick for me is maintaining the ritual. Tea fulfills that need in me. First to black & green and then to herbal.
Happily, I've learned so much about tea, I love it nearly as much as coffee.
It is pretty much anecdotal evidence.
But for the record, I drank about 500ml of coffee per day. About a full single french press container.
I certainly drank a lot less than most people who swear that they felt fine drinking 5x as much as that per day... with some even claiming that drinking it just before bed helped them sleep.
Drinking it occasionally seems fine. As long as I think of it as a treat, it's not too bad, and may indeed help actually.
I have always eaten healthy food, I go for walks and hikes and bike rides regularly but I wouldn't say that I "work out".
I just developed a massive headache one afternoon, realized it was because I hadn't had my morning cup of joe, felt disgusted with myself as a result, and decided to quit drinking it altogether.
I figure that anything as addictive as that has no place being consumed daily.
I grew out of my nicotine habits and other addictive drug habits years ago for the exact same reasons.
Withdrawal symptoms for me were a really bad migraine for one whole week and that actually made my final decision to never start drinking coffee casually again.
However, as I try to avoid all kinds of absolutism, I enjoyed a small cup of campfire coffee last autumn.
For some reason drinking tea doesn't make me anxious or tense.
However, experimenting with putting theanine in coffee and consuming energy drinks with caffeine+theanine aren't as relaxing, perhaps because of the higher caffeine content, or other relaxing compounds in tea.
I drank about 40oz of coffee a day, and had the same symptoms if I stopped. I started replacing coffee with tea and the symptoms were a lot less severe. I'm now down to about 1c a day of coffee I grind and brew myself, as if it's a hobby enjoying the flavors and characteristics of different beans/grinds/brewing methods, not because I need caffeine to be a functional adult.
Curious when you got your last cup of coffee usually time-wise. E.g. I stopped drinking coffee after noon, my sleeplessness went down and consequently all other symptoms you described. And maybe I reduced some DNA damage by continuing drinking at the morning :-6