I Trained My Brain with Black Coffee: Here Are My Results After 30 Days
From sugary Starbucks drinks to guzzling black coffee like a pro
I used to be a fake coffee person.
I’d tell people I love coffee. When actually what I loved was having lots of cream and sugar with a side of coffee. I’d dilute my coffee so much that it wasn’t coffee anymore.
Unpopular opinion — most Starbucks drinks are desserts in liquid form.
It’s strange as I’d drink coffee before going to bed. Instead of keeping me awake, it’d help me sleep. Probably because it was super loaded with sugar that it’d make me lethargic instead of active and alert.
I used to envy my friend Julia for drinking black coffee every morning. What a psychopath! Who does that? How can you drink black coffee straight up? It’s so bitter. But secretly, I used to think it was cool.
I heard Julia once say drinking black coffee didn’t come naturally to her. It was an acquired taste.
This was an aha moment for me. I decided to challenge myself by doing an experiment. Let’s drink black coffee for 30 days in a row.
If by the 30th day, I acquire the taste, well then I can consider myself a black coffee person. If at the end of 30 days, I still hate black coffee, I can give it up and go back to my double-double order at Tim Hortons. At least, I’d be able to say then that I tried but it didn’t work for me.
Day 1–10: I hate myself. Why am I forcing myself to drink this god-awful bitter-tasting beverage? My caramel macchiato order at Starbucks was one of the few pleasures in my life.
Day 10–20: I guess I could get used to this. Let’s take it up a notch. Enter double espresso shots and Americano.
Day 20–30: What the hell have I been consuming in the name of coffee for the past few years? Sugar is bad. I started feeling holier than thou.
Just kidding about the last part. I don’t pretend to be somehow better than a regular coffee drinker just because I can take it black. To each their own.
What I discovered from my little experiment:
- To create a habit, give it 30 days. At a minimum. Gives time for your internal system to reset and adapt to the new habit you’re trying to solidify.
- My taste buds completely changed. I developed a strong aversion to the sweet stuff. Donuts, Timbits, cakes, pastries, croissants, and chocolates (except dark chocolate) suddenly tasted so sweet that I couldn’t eat the full thing. I’d have to break it in half and share the remaining half or eat it slowly over a couple of days.
- I made a ritual that every time I drink black coffee, I’ll also work at the same time. My brain would light up every morning craving the intense strong taste of black coffee. It was an indicator that coffee time was also my time to journal/read/work.
- I tracked my habit. Counting down the calendar days to day 30. Initially, it was out of annoyance wanting to know when I can put an end to this self-inflicted torture. Eventually, it switched to this streak that I was addicted to and didn’t want to break.
What surprised me the most about drinking black coffee is NOT that I could drink black coffee and enjoy it. It was that this tiny habit had spillover effects in other parts of my life.
It made me feel more focused, and productive and gave me an appreciation for the true taste of coffee without its flavor being masked by sugary content. It made me question what other habits I could change or create with a 30-day experiment.
It also hit me that a habit cannot be created in isolation. If you want to sustain a habit, make a fun ritual out of it. Find ways to integrate the habit into your daily life alongside activities you enjoy doing.
For example, I love reading books. Reading on my kindle was my cue to drink espresso. Somehow, the one activity I enjoyed made this other activity more palatable. To the point where I started looking forward to drinking espresso and couldn’t imagine reading without it.
If the habit doesn’t stick, give yourself a free pass. You’re allowed to quit. But. There is a huge BUT. Only once you have given yourself an adequate timeline to work through it. It could be 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, or 1 year. Whatever. There has to be a minimum threshold of participation you need to clear before you consider quitting.
Quit or not quit, either way, you’re winning. If you quit, you’ll walk away a person with new experiences who experimented and realized what they don’t want. If you don’t quit, you’ll walk away a new person with new habits in place that can supercharge other aspects of your life.
Have you ever tried doing an activity for 30 days straight? What were the results? What are your insights on building daily habits? Tell me in the comments below.
