I Quit Caffeine… Cold Turkey.
For years I have been a self proclaimed coffeeholic. If you have stumbled upon this article, you yourself most likely take pleasure in the more caffeinated experiences of life; and if there’s one thing addicts like, it’s a comparison competition. Mostly only drank water and coffee and averaged a 12 cup pot per day. I would routinely get agitated when my wife would also drink the morning’s fresh brew as I already had a system for how I would divide my caffeine intake throughout the day.
Eventually, it got to the point where I would have half a pot drank before I even left the house and would routinely run out of reloads, which I kept in my handy thermos. I notice myself often feeling jittery in the mornings, increased irritability, and having trouble sleeping. I felt it was time to give the caffeine a rest.
Any normal person would look at this self assessment and simply decide to cut back. Perhaps I would be happier with the results if I were to regulate my coffee intake allowing my body to readjust to a less caffeinated life. That would have been a responsible course of action. That’s not what I did. I decided to wake up one morning and basically cut caffeine out of my diet completely. Cold Turkey!
As I know that worldwide there are many coffee addicts, I figured there would be plenty of people curious about the “what would happen if” when it comes to kicking out caffeine. I must also state that I have done no research scientific or otherwise to know “what’s supposed” to happen. This article is written purely from my own experience and I am not suggesting in any way that any other person would have a parallel experience should they give up their favorite morning brew.
Physical Changes
You will never realize how much you need coffee or the caffeine therein just to feel normal unless you decide to go a day without it. As a person who generally doesn’t realize the effects of caffeine; because I am so used to abusing it, I can tell you with absolute certainty that I definitely felt the effects of the lack of caffeine.
On my first day without coffee, I woke up feeling like I normally do; half asleep. Usually I wake up, brew some Maxwell House 100% Colombian and take at least a few sips before I climb into the shower. This morning, I just looked around aimlessly, for what to do, then got into the shower. I figured that the hot water would shake me awake without the aid of my caffeine elixir. I was wrong. When I got out of the shower I felt awake, but groggy; as if I had stayed up all night. In reality, I had gotten more sleep than I usually do. When I tried to describe how I felt to my wife, I told her it felt like I was thinking and moving in slow motion; or everything else was happening really fast.
This feeling of grogginess not only continued, but worsened as the day dragged on. I thought it would get better during and after lunch but it did not. Finally, after work, I got home and literally couldn’t imagine doing anything else but going to sleep; even though I was terribly hungry. I got some food, devoured it, and still felt as though I just wanted to go to sleep. The grogginess finally manifested itself into a really bad headache that took some Tylenol and a hot shower to soothe to the point that I was actually able to go to sleep.
This behavior is terribly uncharacteristic of me; usually, I go home and play with my 3 year old for a few hours before eating dinner, getting him bathed and transitioning to bedtime.
I literally felt as though I was sick, except I didn’t feel sick; I just felt uninterested. I will also admit that I chose a terrible time to kick the caffeine habit as it is also allergy season in Oklahoma, which doesn’t make things any easier.
Odd Cravings
I lightly touched on this already, but I also spent day 1 incredibly hungry and thirsty. I usually drink coffee throughout the day; sometimes that’s 90% of everything I consume. So, what am I gonna drink if I’m not consuming caffeine? I drank around seven or eight glasses of water during the day from the work water cooler. I literally filled my insulated cup I usually drink coffee from and chugged the water seven or eight times. Oddly enough, I never felt like my thirst was satisfied.
I felt hungry all day. I have a job where I live close enough to go home for my hour lunch break, so as something I usually do; I fried seven eggs for lunch which I ate with a little hot sauce. Consumed that, still hungry. Ate an apple, still hungry. Ate a bowl of cereal, still hungry; but there was nothing else to eat. After work, I was starving. Ended up eating a whole calzone, and snacking on some chips.
Now some of you may be saying, what’s so abnormal about that? Well, I do like to eat, and I do get thirsty. But usually I fill my work cup about 3 times during the day (with coffee) and that gets me through the working hours. I do like to eat, but usually I will fry five or six eggs and that’s plenty for lunch. For context I’m only six foot tall and one hundred and seventy pounds. The intake of this day was absolutely excessive.
Emotional Changes
Now this one is a little tricky cause I don’t know if it would really be classified as a “change.” I definitely spent the day feeling angry for no reason; feeling semi-depressed, and very irritable. I’m not saying that this is normal for me, cause it’s not. It is, however, normal for me when I feel sick or have a headache. Both of those qualifications were met that day. Even when I got home I felt irritable towards my three year old and wife. Don’t worry, I am an adult and can control my emotions; I didn’t act mean towards them, I just felt mean towards them. Still, not a positive outcome I was hoping to find by dropping caffeine and kicking the coffee habit.
So this is where I leave you. After surviving the day, I made the decision to consciously separate myself from caffeine until I have the opportunity to make a decision about whether or not it is a substance worth giving up. As I stated earlier, I currently have done no research; I also have no plan. I may give up caffeine for a week, maybe for a month, or I may never go back to it.
I do feel, however, that I will turn this journey into a series of articles if only to track my ongoing progress. Any thoughts, insights, or anecdotes about the subject are appreciated. See you on the next one.
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