The case against caffeine
zantafakari.substack.com
zantafakari.substack.com
Adressing it is good, but ultimately it does not really act as a rebuttal, this is a biased collection of anecdotes from a subreddit of people drinking decaf.
That being said, if you do feel like your anxiety is always high and that you have a trouble sleeping, it's probably worth stopping and assessing, a bit like how people with IBS will just periodically remove things from their diet to see its impact.
By one tradition that's thousands of years old – Yoga+Pranayama+Meditation (linking physical/mental_movement+breadth) and fasting + eating moderately (eat only if you are hungry and eat enough to quench hunger, and eat 'satvik' food) and cultivating positive thought patterns (practicing gratitude, humility, curiosity) is also known to solve for sleep and anxiety.
Coming to coffee, all coffee is not made the same way and everyone don't drink the same quantity per day either. And it doesn't have the same impact on everyone's body. So, it is best to avoid jumping to broad generalized conclusions based on a few anecdotal stories.
But, it is good for people to share their experiences and for others to consider them.
It is hard to think of a major religious tradition that does not have most of these elements (fasting, moderation, practicing positive thought patterns) within it. The posture and movement bit is specific to that tradition - but even there I think things like "work and prayer" are not that different.
> Coming to coffee, all coffee is not made the same way and everyone don't drink the same quantity per day either. And it doesn't have the same impact on everyone's body.
Very much my reaction. Would having or not having a cup of coffee in the morning make a big difference to me? Hard to tell.
Also, if you have a lot of coffee coming of it suddenly can be a problem because caffeine is an anti-depressant. A coffee habit might be self-medication.
I find the tone of the article a bit annoying. It reminds me of people on LinkedIn going on about how much better they feel since they gave up alcohol.
I'm curious about this. I notice this sentiment on any topic where someone quit somebody else's drug of choice.
Someone says they improved their life by dropping weed, the responses will be full of people telling you that alcohol is legal poison (nevermind that nobody was talking about alcohol) and weed is a miracle drug, and they are perfectly high functioning thank you very much.
Someone says they improved their life by dropping booze, everyone has to tell them how nobody lives forever, and didn't you see that study that says moderate drinking is healthy?
And so on for all the other substances people consume.
Its like a lot of people secretly feel like they have to justify their own usage whenever someone does something differently, as if they feel attacked for some reason. But you don't have to. You can put whatever you want in your body for whatever reason you choose. And if other people choose not to (and maybe even choose to write about it), why should that be a bother to you?
The other thing is that there is a strong element of trying to encourage others to do the same. This article is better than most but its intent is still "you should do the experiment for yourself."
It also presents some supposed science that is very misleading. No mention of studies that show any group of people benefit. No mention of differences between long and short term reactions. No mention of possible benefits. No mention of the dangers of suddenly stopping taking it (it is an anti-depressant, you should not suddenly stop anti-depressants).
> Its like a lot of people secretly feel like they have to justify their own usage whenever someone does something differently, as if they feel attacked for some reason.
Maybe sometimes, but quite a lot of the time there is an implicit, moralistic, criticism - the intent is very clearly "this is a bad thing to do" and everyone should stop doing it.
I certainly think people should avoid substances they find they have a tendency to abuse. If you cannot be moderate, then quit. If stopping taking it has an immediate noticeable effect then that is strong evidence you have a problem and should stop taking it. The problem is the assumption that everyone else would have the same benefits if they gave up too.
I think that's just like anything else: either for kicks or for clicks. Give people an outlet and they'll use it, either because it feels good or it makes them money or both.
To me the more interesting thing is why people feel compelled to engage, especially so when it comes to substances.
> Maybe sometimes, but quite a lot of the time there is an implicit, moralistic, criticism - the intent is very clearly "this is a bad thing to do" and everyone should stop doing it
I think people tend to perceive the "everyone should stop doing it" whether it's there or not with these topics. If I just say "I don't X", some portion of people will undoubtedly hear "and nobody else should either" and get their hackles up.
It's really just a topic best avoided if you don't want to offend people or risk making them think poorly of you, even if you aren't the one bringing it up. Which seems a little sad.
My experience is that people do not. I almost always see these in LinkedIn where I do not respond because I do not think it would be appropriate to do so - any more than it is to discuss it there. People who do respond are uniformly supportive.
I might respond there to a discussion about whether this is something appropriate to post there.
I responded here with this comment because I saw a parallel and this is a more general discussion.
> If I just say "I don't X", some portion of people will undoubtedly hear "and nobody else should either" and get their hackles up.
Again your experience differs from mine. I do see similar comments else where and a simple "I don't do X" is invariably ignored. Even on Facebook! I saw someone say "I do not drink alcohol myself" in a discussion on FB recently and it did not affect the discussion (parents talking about teens drinking) at all and the same with a similar discussion on LinkedIn (although I read that thread less closely). I do see responses when someone makes particular claims, most commonly about vegan diets - e.g. making specific claims about health etc.
I think the responses depend on the audience and the context. If it is made on Twitter by someone widely followed I would expect lots of such responses (not seen anyone say it on Twitter that I can recall).
> It's really just a topic best avoided if you don't want to offend people or risk making them think poorly of you, even if you aren't the one bringing it up. Which seems a little sad.
I think discussing personal issues on social media is a bad idea generally so its no loss.
Sleep is not all good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersomnia
Anxiety is not all bad: https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/43757
Sattvic food is not good for your health: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37085478/ and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35710164/
Both studies you linked indicate correlation not causation
That is 25% of US adults.
Fuits contain fructose (a poison) which is transformed to glucose by liver, because our bodies cannot use it directly. From this perspective, beverages that contain "high fructose corn syrup" like Coca Cola or many others are not distinguishable from fruits.
High corn fructose corn Sirup is used because it is cheap and fructose is 1.5 more sweet than glucose.
Not sure why the world finds this so hard to understand, but I think we have the same issue with politics. Everything seems to suffer from binaryism. everything is either good or bad, right or wrong, healthy or unhealthy, us or them...
the world and life in general is full of shades of gray. its not 1's and 0's.
If you consume roughly the same amount of caffeine at the same time each day, and go out of your way to drink more water, caffeine use won't cause headaches.
I'm one of those that seem able to drink lots of coffee even at 6 or 8pm and still fall fast asleep.
I also don't feel any different during the day whether I drink it or not. Though I usually still drink it, for various reasons like taste, warmth and social aspects.
People always want to find simple universal dietary rules.
A yoga instructor friend once told me "You have a sluggish metabolism". I cannot deny it.
I wonder if metabolism speed really is an indicator of caffeine "impact".
Eventually I realized I had stopped coping with caffeine and, instead, started coping with *sugar*, and gained 20 lbs in the process.
I'm back on caffeine again, but the rules are: one (1) cup in the morning, however I like it. Then water for every other beverage all day long. That seems to have done the trick, and now I again sleep through the night and can more easily remain focused throughout the day.
The point is, experiment, yes! But it's your body and your mind. Take notes and figure out what works best in your case. Everyone is a little different.
Caffeine withdrawal is pretty bad, and you'll probably have trouble thinking. The first time I quit cold turkey, I felt dumb. Couldn't think clearly or focus until I got past it.
When I quit I do a controlled taper, usually over 3 weeks or so. Currently on a taper now, I'm at 19% of original dose after about 2.5 weeks, and considering pulling the plug completely any day now. I find the hardest part is moving from about 50% original dose to 25%, that's usually where I start to experience the classic headaches and such. I think it's because it's about the window where I start to process all the caffeine out of my body each day, rather than always having some around.
Coffee crept back into my life though, the most recent time I cut it out I mixed decaf and regular, decreasing the amount of regular until it was fully decaf over a few weeks. It was mostly smooth, except for one or two steps. I think the week around 50 was bad but still no where near doing to abruptly.
Quitting coffee and energy drinks did it for a while, but my sleep issues continued. I had to switch to caffeine free cola too and then my sleep started improving.
Now my BP has normalised around 125/80...
...But it seems I have been suppressing ADD symptoms with my caffeine intake for years and my brain is going 1000km/h and bouncing around. I sleep well and I'm not tired - but I can't focus for shit.
i'm pretty certain my current habits are shortening my lifespan and that my life would be happier (and more productive) with medicine. at the same time, i have a partner who does use medicine and i watch the hurdles they face (with insurance, with pharmacy shortages, juggling schedules with multiple doctors, having withdrawal when availability doesn't line up) and i feel like i wouldn't stand a chance of juggling all of that.
I ultimately found that reducing was a good idea, but I personally like coffee a lot and feel it adds something for me. I also have adhd though, so I’m probably playing with a slightly different deck on the “how stimulants interact with the brain” front.
I have found that having controls and limits around caffeine intake is a pretty good practice. I found that to reliably sleep well, I need to never drink caffeine after noon. And reducing my intake a bit helps as well. But from there, I haven’t seen much further benefit from quitting entirely.
I have never had anything like anxiety, before nor after coffee. I suspect that for many people's cases with such things, other dietary changes (including unnoticed enormous amounts of sugar with the coffee) may be the real culprit. But it's so hard to say with individuals.
As someone who doesn’t consume caffeine, this sounds a lot like addiction. You can keep the ritual and ditch the caffeine by drinking decaf if you want.
I don’t get this sentiment.
What if it was a truly addictive, habit-forming, tolerance-building drug consumed on a habitual basis without ever allowing a full day, week, month, or year of detoxification to occur, regardless of its toxic properties?
Does that sound more like addiction?
That really widens the basket.
In a case like this I tend to focus on toxiciity alone, whether it is apparent or not, that is one of the known things that can creep up on you and do irreparable damage.
A long time ago, I cut out the addictions that were causing negative effects for me (mainly weed and tobacco). I kept caffeine around since I can get wired and still do my job, and it's not overtly unhealthy.
An addiction isn't something inherently bad. Everyone's addicted to something or another. But how many addictions synergize with one's performance at work?
I had to ditch coffee because of anxiety. So glad I did. But if you're sleeping well and don't feel like you have an issue with anxiety, then lucky you.
I can also say that after quitting caffeine (8-9 months ago) my sleep improved dramatically for about 5 months. Then I started getting sloppy and mixed in light-caff (like chocolate and decaffeinated teas/coffees) and other factors in my life also kicked in and sleep got worse again. Unfortunately I don't have the drastic caffeine cut to fall back on now.
For me, the change 9 months ago was entirely one change - unsweetened caffeinated drinks to unsweetened purely non-caffeine drinks (like "dandy blend" and rooibos).
Anxiety didn't decrease noticeably when I made the change, but sleep improved a lot. Now if I drink caffeinated teas (3 times in the past 2 months) or eat a lot of chocolate I definitely feel the anxiety and just general discomfort. So there's a link of some sort. It feels uncomfortable now...
James Hoffmann made a great video about this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYTSdlOdkn0
AIUI there's a well established genetic component to caffeine sensitivity and metabolism.
Personally I find dissolving in a spoonful of lions mane mushroom powder takes the edge off and also seems to mitigate withdrawal symptoms should I choose to take a break for more than a day.
One coffee: noticeable anxiety
2 coffees a day for a few days turns into a panic attack.
I've run the experiment many many times (easy with daily habits and a love for coffee). I definitely have pre-existing anxiety, but the effect of caffeine on me is clear as day.
Decaf and I'm fine.
I can tell when I'm mistakenly given regular coffee (frequently with baristas) or when a particular bean isn't that decaffeinated.
Energy drinks do though, and they make me jittery and sweaty, which coffee doesn't. Sugar or sugar-free doesn't seem to make a difference.
My hypothesis is that it's all the niacin they put in energy drinks. 250% of RDI in a 500ml can is typical, sometimes even more than that.
I’m not sure if this is what you exactly meant by euphoric, but I sometimes experience similar things, and I find it funny that “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my cup of coffee” is a negatively phrased statement of “I’m gonna get high on caffeine then I’ll enjoy this conversation more”- as if society wants to deny the psychotropic effects of drinking this drink.
sometimes i drink (good) coffee and it's pleasant but probably because when i do, i know i'll get high... also i don't eat sugar except with fruits
As far as anxiety goes, I found it was a question of baseline. I'm normally even-keeled to a fault. But at that time, I was anxious (due to life circumstances) and coffee pushed me over the edge.
Sleep definitely improved and for that reason I don't think I'll ever restart caffeinated coffee. I may start looking around for good decaf beans at some point (if they exist).
It went well, and I became one of the best students in my class, but my anxiety went over the roof. I became irritable, angry, unpleasant, started shouting at my girlfriend over small meaningless issues, and eventally alienated my whole friend circle. My tolerance also went up - at some point I was taking 1000-1500mg of caffeine a day.
I remember one morning I couldn't get up, so I took 200mg pill and lied back to bed, then woke up again and couldn't get up, so I took 200mg more, and then 200mg more, and so on... I finally woke up after 1000mg. In public transit, I felt sick and my heart was pounding so much I thought I would get a heart attack. I couldn't eat the whole day and I felt sick like never before in my life.
After that I never went back on the caffeine pills again. I still drink coffee because I find it hard to function without it, and I'm trying to quit. But for some tasks, caffeine is simply too powerful to go without. Working out without caffeine feels just lame.
Anyways, thanks for reading my blogpost in the HN comments. Hopefully someone finds this anegdote entertaining.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that they shouldn't exist. They're quite useful in certain circumstances.
I wonder if the difference in experience could come down to the specific circumstances and nature of the issues that someone faces?
/sarcasm, but I've seen serious versions of this argument
Isn't that what the vaccine is for?
It's still a good idea to not step on dirty rusty nails. There are no exceptions here.
I don’t know what ‘people have different baseline biochemistry’ really means. Approximately zero humans survive on sulphur and chlorine in place of nitrogen and oxygen. This argument tends to overlook the fact that people are mostly similar, and there’s enough of us that we have decent data on how similar we are. Humans are all approximately the same construction, and have approximately the same reactions to most things. It’s true there’s tons of minor variability for some things, but no serious science or health advice that will fail to mention or acknowledge that variability. My advice (which may or may not work for you) is to ignore people who say health advice must fit all people… and also ignore people who say that no advice will work for them, or even that advice that works for most can’t work for them without trying it first.
I feel like a good default assumption is that something that works for the average person will probably work for me too, so try it first, and then look for alternatives if/when I find out it’s not working. This is still a good default assumption even when accounting for the ‘flaw of averages’ (cf. the Air Force story about cockpit design) - most of us will fit the the average for most things, even while at the same time most of us will be outliers for some things.
I keep seeing people take statements that are valid within reason to the extreme.
In broad strokes, most things about humans are true, but there is certainly nuance and variation between people. Probably because we don't fully understand the things we think we do.
After a while, I started to wonder if coffee is good for me also. So I quit cold turkey for a few weeks as an experiment. I couldn't believe the effect it had. I am angry at myself that I didn't just do this earlier. I sleep fine all night now, I don't have to pee as often, my anxiety is basically gone, I feel better about life in general, my brain fog disappeared, and I no longer have "good days and bad days" mentally, just good days.
There is no more powerful drug or therapy in the world than:
1) Exercising regularly.
2) Eating healthy.
3) Quitting the stimulants.
Then I looked into it more, bought my own press and grinder, started taking one cup a morning with the dosage I want, occasionally a small extra but nothing after 2PM. The effect is pretty nice. On average, I feel a bit better with it than without.
I feel like caffeine is a *results may vary topic, every time it is discussed many people have wildly different experiences.
When I didn't the headaches were terrible in the first few days of fasting.
And very few people drink 1-2 cups. The travel mugs and typical coffee place cups are close to this danger range.
So what they're saying is too much of a (good? fine? reasonable?) thing can be a bad thing? Not sure this supports a case against caffeine.
You should look up what happens if someone consumes too much salt!
If people are drinking 3 travel mugs a day... then sure...? Not sure what that changes.
People are eating too much salt in general - which already has negative impact on health.
this is great news.
[0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2023/12/12/panera-ch...
Regardless, not sure what this has to do with the overall point, which is that you could consume multiple "high-caffeine" drinks and still be well under the amounts discussed in this study.
It’s very easy to get into the habit of extremely high caffeine intake, speaking from experience. Not only is caffeine in many drinks and extremely well distributed, its psychological effects are pretty mild. But I think the worst part is that people don’t really think about how much caffeine is in the coffee they’re drinking because it’s hard to measure.
Stop the hyperbole.
A Stanley Mug, like the recent Stanley x Starbucks collaboration is 40oz. I believe this may be what they are referring to.
However, it's rare that individuals with the 40oz mugs are filling them with coffee, and if they're with espresso drinks, it's more likely that the volume of milk is increased rather than consuming 8 shots of espresso.
I'd assume most people with travel mugs that consume coffee are using 10 - 16oz mugs like myself?
Shit like this is why nobody trusts science anymore
“The association between coffee consumption and dementia was non-linear (Pnon-linearity = 0.0001), with evidence for higher odds for non-coffee and decaffeinated coffee drinkers and those drinking >6 cups/day, compared to light coffee drinkers.”
So, reading the study, not drinking coffee is bad and drinking more than 6 cups a day is bad too.
The hardest thing about giving up caffeine has to be the immediate effects. Your body takes it as a massive shock and you're stuck with what feels like a migraine for 2 days. Not fun.
I know decaf still has some caffeine in it, but it's a compromise for something different – for a month of cold turkey I thought I had cravings for caffeine, but it turned out it was hot drinks I was after. I think it's the one luxury I couldn't be without.
Yup, but you can wean yourself off gradually and it's fine. I've done it several times -- just reducing it by 10% of your original amount each day, so you spread the effect out over 10 days. At least for me, zero headaches.
Not gonna lie though -- there is a generalized feeling of a little bit of extra "grogginess" each day. But much less than if you've come down with a cold, for example. And it's far less painful than going cold turkey.
Because you're right -- otherwise the 2-day migraine is awful.
As stupid as it sounds I forgot that it was an option. There's something clean about saying "I won't have any more of X after this date" and sticking to it. Although I could've tapered off beforehand!
Also: caffeine doesn't make you more alert, it just borrows alertness from the future by blocking the receptors where Adenosine attaches to. The enzymes are still produced, they're not going anywhere.
i also got headaches when i quit caf coffee, though i didn't realize that it was because of that at the time.
But IMO, including the Reddit comments makes his post less convincing/credible.
Sleep quality aside though, I thought my anxiety was due to stressful job, but maybe it's due to all the caffeine I have in an attempt to be productive.. perhaps something to experiment with myself.
This, on top of the fact that caffeine has been shown to increase cortisol secretion and adrenaline, as well as boosting the effects of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain, should give a very clear indication that caffeine is going to have drastically different effects from person to person.
Anyone who is struggling with sleep, anxiety, and/or mood disturbances should consider reducing or eliminating caffeine for several weeks to see if it helps. Don't expect it to be a magic bullet to solve all problems, just like anything else. Bodies are complex, and when we are chronically suffering from sub-optimal functioning, it's a good bet that their is some complicated and highly variable biochemistry going on that's keeping the body from homeostasis / optimum function.
Not all coffees are the same. Some types of drip coffees (such as Tim Hortons) make me wonder if it's laced with cocaine.
Edit: actually this graph implies that people like the author would end up poisoned by a lethal dose of caffeine after a few weeks to months. Maybe these people exist but it can't be common.
So yes, there is some level of caffeine intake that exceeds the max rate the liver can remove it and concentration would increase indefinitely.
Is there any time T where there is zero coffee in the organism?
If the answer is there is no Tm then is there an N=number of days, where there are dangerous levels of coffee accumulated in the organism?
or are we more in an equilibrium state?
What if you think you sleep well now, but it turns out you can sleep so much better?
I'm not saying you will (I'm neither pro- nor anti-caffeine). But I am saying that unless you've tried it, you have no way of knowing. And I know lots of people who have improved their sleep in various ways, who thought they were sleeping normally/fine, and then discovered they actually hadn't been -- they just didn't know any better.
(And even if millions of people do something as a matter of culture, that doesn't mean it's good for your health. There are tons of cultural practices that are bad for health, or bad for a subset of the population.)
I cut all coffeine I was aware of. Coffe, Pepsi Max, everything.
I felt no difference and noticed no change in my health tracking. The only thing I noticed was it was less social.
That said, there have been times were I had to cut down on coffee, but not because of sleep.
I personally have to make sure that if I consume caffeine in the morning, it's enough to overcome this paradoxical effect, otherwise I often end up falling back asleep.
But this goes deeper into philosophical discussions about human life and things like art that transcend the banal “useful/useless” prism.
Few things have disappointed me as much as caffeine research. If we can't get something so direct properly studied, what hope does 90% of science have?
The article is precisely about how drinking coffee, even just in the morning, absolutely can negatively affect your sleep.
Caffeine consumption is widespread. Difficulty sleeping is widespread.
That's not saying there's a clear cause and effect -- caffeine has lots of effects, and difficulty sleeping has lots of causes.
But it's just as silly to say that any association is an outlier. And given what we know about the variability of the half-life of caffeine in the body, it's an extremely plausible possibility for a significant proportion of the population.
Not "such an outlier" at all. I'm struggling to see how you could be so immediately dismissive of it.
Ok, then exactly what the heck are you drinking? Starbucks is known for having more-than-average amounts of caffeine for their coffee compared to other chains, but it’s not _that_ much. Even a cup of black tea has more tea than 1/8 of the caffeine than any (on menu) medium coffee from Starbucks.
The peak blood caffeine concentration is a lot less when drinking 5 normal (That's european for "tiny" or "ant size") cups than than if I would have had an 8 or 12 oz coffee at once in the morning, even if it was the same coffee.
In short: I drink one decent starbucks size cup of coffee. Slowly, from 8am to 4pm.
I collected some useful information in this X thread: https://twitter.com/sridca/status/1710450654500561028
+ Productivity
+ Focus
+ Clarity
+ Symptomatic cure for migraines
~+ Probable neuroprotectiveness
~ Mild anorectic
~- Unclear GERD risks
~- Weak anticholinergic - probably not tardive dyskinesia or dementia, but the long-term effects are unclear
- Increased heart rate and blood pressure
- Diuretic
- Higher cortisol levels
- Dependency
- Tolerance
- Caffeine withdrawal headaches
- Slow caffeine metabolization (CYP1A2 rs762551 CC/CA) vs. fast (AA)
When I had headaches, my neurologist told me to cut out alcohol, binge TV watch and caffeine. That helped but did not cure me.
Then during the pandemic I started the enjoyable daily habit of drinking sparkling HopTea (some caffeine, no alcohol). It's definitely a diuretic but I can't say about other symptoms
I quite believe that for many people using a lot of caffeine increases their anxiety and reduces their ability to function. I'm not one of those people. I use quite a lot of caffeine and have very little anxiety and no trouble sleeping. I am, if anything, anti-anxious. I suspect my personality type would make a great fighter pilot or air-traffic controller. (I myself would probably be bad at both those jobs, but not because of the anxiety.)
So I'd say IF you have chronic anxiety problems or you are having sleep problems, and you use a lot of caffeine, it's probably worth quitting or cutting down the caffeine to see if that helps.
What the author doesn't mention (and maybe didn't experience, but you might) is that quitting can cause splitting headaches. The two or three times I've gotten off caffeine have been miserable. I've felt worse, for longer, than the two or three times I've gone off nicotine.
A bonus effect, however, is that when I do take caffeine - usually when I need to stay alert driving at night or early morning - it's far more effective.
but to really know what they are, RCT self-experiments are the best way to work out what's really going on.
gwern has a bunch of examples (https://gwern.net/zeo/caffeine) but you should tailor yours to the effects you're most interested in.
incidentally, does anyone here have a go-to tutorial for how to set one up, how to do power analysis, etc? i'm persuaded by why we should do RCTs, but I don't have the background in statistics to confidently run them myself.
I didn't feel the transformative effects that many blog about, but I definitely felt how tired I _really_ was.
I started napping way more during the day than before, and I'd fall asleep within ten minutes or so on most nights once I hit the bed. (I had been doing CBTi for a week or two up to the time that I quit. I don't have sleep apnea.)
When I drink caffeinated coffee now (extremely rarely), I definitely feel it and definitely crash later in the day as a result. (Caffeine lasts about six hours in your system before its metabolized away.)
What I realized pretty quickly into doing this is that (a) caffeinated coffee is probably the only drug that is nearly universally socially acceptable because (b) nearly everyone is terribly sleep deprived.
It's a real shame that modern (Western) society is designed from the top-down to sweep mental and physical health under the rug in the name of "efficiency". Coffee's just one unfortunate side effect of that.
Also, it is really hard to get good decaf drip coffee but, surprisingly, much easier to get decaf espresso. I'm guessing this is because decaf versions of coffee-based drinks (lattes, flat whites, fraps) is more popular.
So what I do now is
1. Mount Hagen decaf instant coffee. High quality instant I think of as “a different drink” than typically brewed coffee.
2. Cometeer decaf coffee. It’s speciality coffee premade into concentrates. Easily the best “reliable” method of decaf I’ve found. Has more of an espresso flavor to it, but better than any alternative I’ve tried.
I didn't realize until later in life that it contributes to my anxiety. I sleep much better without it and can actually get more work done. My anxiety is also reduced to almost nothing.
I think I got into a habit of just drinking coffee every day, that I didn't really think about it.
This person greatly benefited from stopping caffeine intake which is great. It is part of the journey to understand ourselves and what makes us work/improve/feel better.
If you have a anxiety-o-meter that looks like this: [-----------------------------------]
and your baseline is here: [-------------------------X---------] - you just need a little push to go into anxiety/can't sleep mode which can come from caffeine.
But if your baseline is around here: [--x--------------------------------] -maybe some coffee in the morning, right after lunch will greatly increase your clarity/make you able to fulfill your duties. People who drink caffeine for pleasure (I love the taste of coffee and sometimes I get beans so good that I just want to drink several cups) will notice the negative effect in their sleep/anxiety levels. We must go back to Paracelsus 'dosis sola facit venenum'. The dose makes the poison.
What doesn't sit with me is that the article makes a lot of hyperbolic claims ("Caffeine is literally killing your dreams", etc) and says a lot of sciencey-sounding stuff, but then wraps it up with "no, you can't cricitize that":
> Q: Don't you care? Don't you think it's misleading?
> A: Nah. I'm not writing a philosophical treatise here. I'm not writing a lawsuit to take all coffee lovers to court. And I'm definitely not writing a scientific review.
I mean, OK, it's your blog - but you're trying to have it both ways. If you wanted to write about your subjective experience, fine. But you're making it seem as if you're presenting settled science.
If someone else had gone through my experience, they may have come back to a completely different distribution of usage. And in fact I know many people who do various combination of the 3 because of the way each affects them. We're all different.
I had no idea, but it wasn’t until I stopped that I realized I had been living life through a fog… kind of dulled down senses and reactions.
I love coffee, but I feel so much better without it I’ll never go back. I highly recommend everyone quit just to see how they feel. You might be surprised
Rather than dismiss the article, it makes me wonder how much better my life would be without caffeine. I think I will try it out and see.
Interestingly, my reaction to alcohol is similar to the one described in the article. Any amount is likely to result in a bad night's sleep and mild to extreme anxiety the next day depending on what and how much I had.
[1] https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/nasa-spiders-drugs-experime...
I quickly picked up on too much of it affecting my sleep though, I guess i had a decent baseline to compare to. so I quickly limited it to just having one in the morning workdays, and occasionally one on weekends. I still have days where I don't drink any, and I don't notice any difference in sleep.
Green tea doesn't nearly impact my sleep as much, I find it easier to stay hydrated, it doesn't give me jitters but a more calming focus, and it's a lot easier to take the caffeine in slowly, because each cup of genmaicha is maybe 20-30mg of caffeine. A pot is maybe equal to one or two cups of coffee, but with a lot more water, and a steadier slower onset.
At that time brewing a pot of coffee and drinking 2-3 cups was an incredible buzz. I'm not sure if my actual productivity was much higher (I think it was) but I certainly FELT a lot better.
Unfortunately around that time I developed a panic attack disorder. Ludicrous as it might sound to you now, I did not realize in the moment that it could have been related to coffee. I was 19 and barely in touch with my feelings and sense of self. I was essentially just bumping through life.
Fast forward 17 years later and I'm still drinking coffee. Over those 17 years I have waxed and waned in my quantities and when I would drink it. But suffice it to say that on average, I've probably consumed a Venti coffee every day for 17 years.
I did stop ONCE for 35 days about 7 years ago and didn't feel like I noticed any difference. Again though, I wasn't as aware of my mental state as I am now and it would have been easy for benefits to go unnoticed as I lost the buzz and energy that coffee brings.
I'm now interested in trying going coffee/caffeine free for a few reasons:
• Dreams. I almost never dream, and when I do, they're usually bad/anxious
• Sleep quality. I wake up and usually don't feel pumped or excited for the day. To be fair, I never have even as a kid. But I'd like to wake up feeling more "awake" and excited.
• Teeth. Noticed over the years my teeth have been slowly yellowing. If there's a time to intervene, it was probably 5 years ago but why not now?
• General mood / anxiety. I have a generally high anxiety state but "negative affect" mood disorder. Being anxious AND depressed is kind of a terrible world to live in. Basically don't have the motivation and energy to do much, and when I do anything tend to have a sort of frenetic energy that isn't very productive. This might just be my genetics but I have a theory that at the very least, coffee might be making some of the symptoms worse.
[1] https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2017/00...
The caffeine in tea, for example, doesn’t have as many anxiety inducing effects because you also get a bunch of L-theanine, which has a calming effect. To the point that many modern energy drinks have started adding it to their formula.
Personally I sleep fine with or without caffeine. Timing matters little. What really absolutely truly impacts my quality if sleep – physical activity.
One of the big things for me is coffee is not a good one to drink. The caffeine in it may wake me up but it does not fix anything else so I find myself in a state that is best described as really bad morning person for the entire morning. I may be awake but I have essentially a tension at the base of my head and feel essentially hangry without the hunger.
Energy drinks (Redbull or aussie lemonade monster) wake me up much more mellow. I have thought a few times about trying to figure out what else is helping. Its not the sugar as the coffee has plenty.
It's just not fun. I'm glad I quit caffeine!
Caffeine takes 10 hours to clear from your system. I only drink a single cup of coffee every day, at 1 PM, to clear my afternoon better.
It's not a substitute for sleep, lack of attention and your body has an upper limit. Don't abuse that limit, and you'll have none of the problems author described.
I'm telling you as a person who drank 2 liters of coffee flat, every day.
If you have 400 mg of caffeine in your body (max daily caffeine recommended by FDA), after 15 hours you will still have ~64 mg left. After 15 hours you still have the equivalent of 1 ounce of espresso in you.
When you drink in 300ml mugs with normal speed, you clear the caffeine 10 hours after your last mug. That was my point.
If we want to skew numbers, we can take pure caffeine in powdered form theoretically, but that would be very unpleasant to deal with, and is not the mode of caffeine consumption I have seen around, to be honest.
If caffeinated is your normal state, then it becomes much less effective at treating migraines, hangovers and other headaches.
> Caffeine narrows the blood vessels in your brain. Without it, your blood vessels widen.
https://www.healthline.com/health/headache/caffeine-withdraw...
If I don't get my morning cup I almost always get quite the headache, so I'm not surprised.
I had anxiety from age 20 to age 37. I've just realised I don't remember when my anxiety stopped, but it's been gone for a while now.
Learning to breathe deep down into my lower back has also helped a weird amount. Yes this is a thing. Youtube is full of physio therapists teaching people to breathe deep into your lower back.
But you know what triggers tachycardia and rushing feeling? Corn based food like tortilla, which is really ironic as I’m mexican.
That said someone close to me was doing the opposite during the pandemic and saw markedly better concentration thanks to caffeine.
I think it depends on people.
A couple of years ago, I went coffee-free for one month, just to see what it would do to me.
Sucked. I like coffee for the sake of coffee. But was happy to see "I could do it".
Could not observe any significant change in my life. Maybe felt a little less "up". I ended the experiment after one month.
I don't drink/do drugs (besides coffee).
I've also started drinking decaf on some days and there's at least 1 day a week I don't drink any coffee at all. This gives my body a chance to reset.
I'd say the regular process of mate drinking is like having a progressively dilluted coffee/tea , so I expect it to be mild...
https://treelinecoffee.com/collections/on-the-go/products/in...
It's a swiss water method decaf instant that rivals some of the best cafe regular coffees I've had.
At stores/roasters, most will tell you the decaffeination method somewhere on the bag. If they don't it's probably not a brand that cares much about their decaf, so skip it. Make sure you go for as close to roast as possible - decaf goes off a lot quicker than regular coffee.
[1] https://www.summarize.tech/www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYTSdlOdk...
To me, it is weird that all coffee revolves around caffeine; I find the complex tastes way more rewarding than the milligrams of caffeine I get from it.
It can be difficult to find roasters who actually care about their decaf coffee beans - they are more difficult to roast and some roasters still turn up their nose at it. Decaf beans stale faster (both before and after roasting) so it's even more important to get fresh beans from a good roaster.
One of the common methods of decaffeinating coffee uses supercritical CO2, which is in my view significantly less scary than the “proprietary green coffee extract” used by the Swiss Water process.
I suspect neither is actually harmful. And neither is the chemical solvent based decaf, honestly. Not in levels that are meaningful to health.
Something that has literally nothing potentially bad for you in it (eg co2 process) seems like it would by necessity be healthier. Again I don’t think any of the processes are actually harmful. Even the scariest MC process (ie dichloromethane) seems perfectly safe to me.
tldr: - caffeine is known to increase anxiety, heart rate and disturb sleep - YMMV and it even might vary depending on your age, phase of life, other activities - if you observe feeling stressed, problems with sleeping or winding down, try to avoid caffeine/alcohol/etc. for a few weeks and observe if you feel better
I think the second week is generally the worst, but I always forget until I'm there. After I'm through the withdrawal I do feel that I'm better balanced. Of course then eventually there's something in my life I just need to push through, so I start down the path of doing a little caffeine, then a little more the next day to make up for that, etc. I liken it to a high interest loan, and the only way I've found to pay off being the aforementioned cold turkey.
What really weirds me out is people who talk as if caffeine is not a psychoactive drug. You mention to a doctor that you're currently on 300mg/day of caffeine and they look at you like you have three heads for bringing this up. I don't know if it's people's own cognitive dissonance from enjoying "coffee" but programmed with "drugs are bad", or if caffeine really just affects me more than the average person, or what.
It took me nearly a year before I started waking up feeling ok and not foggy.
I had never had issues sleeping before. Anxiety hasn’t changed either. But when I read about people writing that they felt great first or second day after quitting, I know it’s a total horse shit. First week or two were absolutely awful.
I have not noticed anything really positive or negative after quitting. Except of the blood pressure that is easier to manage. I still hope I get to go back to coffee one day again lol.
TL;DR: Probably mostly harmless in medium quantities, but no real proven long-term benefits. So if you enjoy coffee, just drink in moderation.
If you're not mounting an honest case against caffeine, don't call your article The Case Against Caffeine. If your evidence is cherry-picked, as you admit it is, it's disingenuous to have a section called The Science Of Caffeine-Induced Anxiety.
yes, not drinking coffee makes you a super special person. good job you!