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Comment by LogicFailsMe | Hacker News Reader

I once quit caffeine cold for 6 months: 2 weeks of pure hell then it was like I never craved it until life got real and stressful and I fell off the wagon. Today, I drink my espresso with a dot of lowfat milk now and life is currently too real and stressful to consider trying to drop it again. I do suspect some of us likely have undiagnosed low-level mood disorders leaving us highly functional but discontent and caffeine is the spackling compound used to plug the hole in our souls.

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I stopped drinking coffee for a month and didn't notice any difference in my anxiety/mood/etc, so I returned to my regular schedule (3-4 large cups in the mornings).

Same here, and it made me wonder, why did I go back to drinking coffee?

My best explanation is that there are effects, I just suck at self-awareness :)

Well, because I like it, and I like my morning rituals.

I quit caffeine for a year but it didn't work out for me. I felt mentally sluggish all the time; there would be times I'd be staring at my screen with my mind resisting the act of processing any information. I also noticed I became very sensitive with how much sleep I got, and if it was anything less than 8 hours the day would be miserable. I could be a special case here with altered brain development since even as a small child I was drinking liters of black sun tea. So since my withdrawal experiment I've highly regulated my caffeine intake with pills with a maximum of 200mg a day before noon, although I will sometimes cut back to 50-100mg a day during periods when my life isn't running full steam. This has worked out well for me.

Caffeine (like all stimulants) can alleviate symptoms of various dopamine-related disorders, like ADHD. I'm sure many people are self-medicating.

When work was chill I went to decaf for the morning espresso on weekdays, and enjoyed real coffee on weekends. I took glee in withholding energy from work that I redirected to my personal time.

Then when work picked up, I went back to regular coffee everyday.

I don’t think there’s a hole in my soul though. And caffeine degrades my personality a little bit (to my own judgment).

This study considers caffeine concumption outside of coffee, so an alternative caffeine source might be worth looking into. That was my takeaway, at least. I also drink espresso, for the caffeine and the noticable ease on my gut compared to drip or pressed coffee.

When I'd quit coffee in my 20s and 30s I'd get serious headaches. In my 60s, no headaches at all.

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