An Unexpected Benefit From Quitting Coffee – 10 Months In

After the first few weeks I didn't feel groggy in the morning without the coffee, but I definitely wasn't feeling any more rested. It didn't help me get to sleep any easier either. It also didn't help me get going in the morning any faster.

It did have some benefit to anxiety, but after I improved the original source of that anxiety (work related) I eventually went back to having coffee again simply because I really enjoy the flavour.

I had what felt like withdrawal symptoms: a strong headache, muscle aches, and I was really cold. It lasted for two days, until I took a minuscule sip and everything went away within five minutes.

That made me realize the extent to which I was actually addicted, and how dependent my body was on it.

I managed to quit and stayed caffeine-free for about a year.

But one day I said, “Just one cup won’t hurt,” and oh boy... it was like having superpowers. I was so focused, so wide awake. Of course, I’m an addict again. :(

Caffeines half life in the body is strongly tied to age. As you get older, the half life gets so long you cannot metabolize a normal dose in 24hours. That is why people over a certain age often drink decaf.

So just because you can drink 5 cups a day at 25 doesn't mean it's the same at 65, or even 35.

The first couple paragraphs list (1) regular sleep schedule and feeling more rested, (2) "no zombie feel" first thing in the morning, and (3) less anxiety. And then it says "I still feel these benefits are true but I've also discovered a new one."

So what's the new one?

The rest of the article seems to discuss #2 again -- that the author can wake up and be productive without the kick-start of coffee.

Is there something I'm still missing in the rest of the article? (Yes, I've had my coffee today.)

Glad it's working out for the author, though!

I quit caffeinated coffee two years ago. A roaster nearby me came out with a decaf single origin that was so good, it not only convinced me that I don't need caf'ed coffee anymore, but it also won the 2024 US Brewers Cup.

During that time, I was also changing my sleep schedule as part of CBTi therapy I was undergoing to fix (or, more accurately, quell) a bout of sleep insomnia. The schedule was "wake up at 05:00 every day, including weekends and holidays."

The standard two weeks of caffeine "hangover" were pretty brutal, but the sleep improvements and lessen jitter were indisputable.

What was equally indisputable were my pronounced bouts of sadness/despair and, consequently, my strengthened desire to be alone. (I, like our cats, tend to want to be alone when something's wrong.) My drive and motivation to work also nosedived. Getting into anything, especially anything mundane, was a real challenge, even after changing my work environment and morning routine.

My ability to even _think_ was compromised. Putting together sentences and recalling phrases was harder. (The ability to do my job, motivation notwithstanding, wasn't affected, though.)

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A new Saturday morning routine helped me connect the dots.

One of my favorite coffee shops opened up in my town recently. They have this coffee drink that is just the absolute best, and the shop itself is very cozy and great for reading. It was only natural that I'd eventually start my Saturday and, now, Sunday mornings there.

That coffee drink is caffeinated, and they didn't have a decaf option. I didn't care. Like the decaf bean that got me started on this whole kick, this was the only drink that I'd make an exception for.

Without fail, I'd be a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON about 20-30 minutes after finishing that drink.

Happier. Much happier. Talkative. Eager to work. Basically I'd become my old self again.

A shot of espresso did the same thing. It kept me sharp on long road trips and was (is) a fantastic pre-workout for my two hour heavy lifting days.

Coffee basically masked what, I now think, are symptoms of a minor depression. Which adds up: my work experience post-COVID is much worse than it was pre-COVID, the proliferation of AI has really taken a toll on me, and lots of stuff about the world just _feels_ worse.

I now drink caffeine sparingly with tapered draw downs, i.e. 2 cups on Monday, 1 on Tuesday, none on Wednesday and Thursday, 1 on Friday and 2 on Saturday and Sunday. I'm also selective about how I get my caffeine. I don't want to lose the sharpening effect it has or get dependent enough on it to need mountains of the stuff to chase the same benefits. (I know that my baseline will increase, since that's how drugs work.) Like other posters have said, I avoid caffeiene after 14:00, though I'll break this rule if I'm going to be out late, as caffeine has a ~6hr half-life.

Nonetheless, I'm really thankful for the two years of abstinence from it, as it finally convinced me that therapy for _just this_ might be worthwhile.

(My sleep has remained much improved. I no longer get up at 05:00 --- I am 10,000% convinced that I am NOT a morning person --- but I haven't had nearly as much trouble falling and staying asleep. CBTi helped tons, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone struggling with sleep --- after getting a sleep study, of course!)

I quit drinking coffee a little over two years ago. I had a pretty strong addiction to it. I've got a Moccamaster that happily brews 10 cups and was drinking it 16oz at a time. There were plenty of days where I would need to run the Moccamaster multiple times. That said, it's tough to know exactly how much caffeine you're getting because there's a lot of variance in steep time, so YMMV. Coffee that I'd buy at a cafe definitely hit harder than what I was drinking at home.

I eventually went from drinking coffee, to measuring my caffeine intake with 100mg caffeine pills + decaf coffee for the routine, to green tea which said it was 50mg, to 50mg caffeine pills w/ 100mg l-theanine, to white tea which said it was 10mg, to nothing. I did that for about a year before eventually adding a premium green tea brand back into my cupboard, but only drinking it irregularly as well as having 50mg caffeine pills very irregularly.

One negative that went away entirely was armpit sweat. It was really common for me to have completely damp pits throughout the day due to the caffeine.

Another negative that went away was my energy would crash at the end of the day. I felt a bit sequestered into a timebox of when I'd be functional.

One thing I still fight with is cueing myself to "click on and do stuff" in the morning. It definitely gets easier the longer I go without caffeine, or the more structure I have in my day-to-day, but on open-ended days it can still be tough.

Also, if I do take any form of caffeine, my body immediately remembers the addiction and very much so would like to have more caffeine the next day. It seems great in the moment, but then suddenly one morning I wake up groggy, sort of like I'm hungover, and I'm like, "Oh yeah. This is what I stopped feeling and enjoyed, I remember now." and try to get myself back off of it. It only takes a few days for this to happen even at 50mg/day doses. This isn't entirely surprising because the half-life of caffeine is 8 hours, so 50mg/day builds up inside you at 6.25mg/day.

One positive is that it's really nice to be able to use caffeine in situations where opportunity cost is high rather than being continually reliant on it. I went to a friend's party a couple of weekends ago, we camped outside and stayed up all night, and I needed to pack up my tent the next morning on ~no sleep. Four ounces of coffee was enough for me to feel like a 100% fresh human all day. Super useful.

One negative is that caffeine absolutely fucks up my sleep schedule if I do take it now. It's not uncommon for me to struggle to fall asleep until 3am if I have any caffeine on a normal day unless I go run 7+ miles and drive my body into exhaustion. This includes something as innocuous as a diet coca-cola. (Note that diet soda has more caffeine than regular soda to account for the loss of energy rush from sugar.) I think this might be solvable with even lower mg doses of caffeine pills (like 10mg), but society is really geared towards marketing large amounts of caffeine to people so you have to be careful.

Overall, I am happy with the change and would like to continue with it, but it feels like a pretty fragile escape from addiction compared to other substances because most days I find myself wishing I was "more of a person" and caffeine tends to make me feel like "more of a person" but only temporarily and with a cost. So there's an internal struggle there. I contrast this with something like quitting marijuana where there's very, very rare days where I'll think, "It would be nice to be stoned!", but 99% of the time I'm just happy to be thinking more clearly.