A year without caffeine (part 2)

http://bryanalexander.org/2013/01/06/a-year-without-caffeine-part-2/

by sramsay • 14 years ago

231 124 14 years ago

if you haven't (though i suspect you have) i would suggest giving napping one more try now you're caffeine free. it's seriously good if you can get it to work.

meaty• 14 years ago

This is good but the amount of times I've gone past a bus stop or station recently is insane :)

doctornemo6• 14 years ago

Good thought, andrew, but it still doesn't work for me. It's hard to wake up from a nap, and I'm dazed - and tired! - afterwards. I've tried this all times of day, and each time it's like being clobbered by a baseball bat.

nedwin• 14 years ago

I have had similar issues so mostly a "nap" for me is closing my eyes while laying down in a dark room for 20 minutes at most, often with my hands behind my head.

I always feel really refreshed afterwards. YMMV

geoka9• 14 years ago

Reading this gave me chills - the symptoms of withdrawal described here are not unlike those of a heroin addict gone cold turkey.

I can't imagine normal healthy people routinely taking a drug and teaching their children to take one. And yet this happens with coffee all the time. Many are even proud of their addiction ("coffee snobs").

pretoriusB4• 14 years ago

>I can't imagine normal healthy people routinely taking a drug and teaching their children to take one. And yet this happens with coffee all the time. Many are even proud of their addiction ("coffee snobs").

It also happens with sugars, salt, corn syrup and tons of other stuff.

Lots of things can be a "drug". Coffee, when drank in moderation, is actually absolutely beneficial to one's health.

brador• 14 years ago

Salt and corn syrup are drugs? Explain please.

marvin• 14 years ago

Do you have a citation for the "caffeine is healthy" claim? This seems like rationalization to me; as a non-drinker of caffeine, coffee seems like the number one legal drug in the Western world.

frewsxcv• 14 years ago

> It also happens with sugars, salt, corn syrup and tons of other stuff.

Citation needed

desbest• 14 years ago

There was a heroin addict who filmed himself going cold turkey for his family, and at the end of the video, was himself on camera, having a brain hemorrhage.

Very unlike caffeine.

herdrick• 14 years ago

Actually, withdrawal from heroin is a trivial matter. http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/3212846/withdrawal-from-...

Unlike alcohol, for example.

ahelwer• 14 years ago

Anecdotal evidence I know, but I was a three cups/day guy for a while then quit cold turkey. After about a week of feeling a bit fuzzy and irritable I was back to normal. Is this atypical or something?

jessriedel3• 14 years ago

Opiate withdrawal can be extremely unpleasant, but the direct health risks are very low. Things like methadone exist to make things psychologically easier and reduce the rate of relapse. As mentioned, alcohol withdrawal is actually much more dangerous.

bpatrianakos4• 14 years ago

You're right that it's very extremely different than caffeine but a brain hemorrhage? That's not typical of opiate withdrawal at all. In fact, even in the most severe cases of opiate addiction, the withdrawal itself is rarely life threatening. Very rarely life threatening. The drug class that does have a potentially fatal withdrawal syndrome is the benzodiazepines (anxiety meds like Xanax and I'm not sure if alcohol is in that same class but it has the same withdrawal syndrome). The danger with those are fatal seizures most of the time. But opiate withdrawal can't kill you unless there are other underlying conditions or something. I say this because drug education in the U.S. is awful and most people only know the misinformation they were taught in school and get the wrong idea from something like what you mentioned, a video where the guy has a hemmorage at the end which was most likely unrelated to opiates.

That said, all addiction is very similar. I would say that people more often than not really mean dependence rather than addiction when it comes to caffiene but the problem is that most people think of those terms as being the same thing. They're not. Dependence can exist separately of addiction but addiction will always go together with dependence. Dependence is (very simplified here for brevity) when your body relies on a substance from outside itself to function normally. Usually that's because you've put a substance in for so long that your brain downregulates certain chemicals because you're replacing what's already there with something from the outside. Take the substance away and it takes a bit for the body to realize you won't be putting in any more nicotine or caffiene or opiates so it takes a while before it starts producing enough acetylcholine or adrenaline or endorphins or whatever the case may be. Addiction is dependence plus a certain set of behaviors (again, trying to be brief and simple here). A caffeiene "addict" (read: dependant) isn't going to rob the local Starbucks to get a fix like a true addict would. You don't see these caffeine addicts ruining their lives because their persuit of coffee is interfering with their jobs or their marriage and such.

There's a big difference not only between the withdrawal syndromes but I also think an important point is to stop thinking of these people with such stories as addicts. They're probably just dependent. A guy who gets sick if he stops taking his antidepressants is dependent. A guy who can't stop himself from downing medication X and puts his persuit of substance X above all else with serious negative consequences in other areas of his life is an addict.

lambda3• 14 years ago

I've been addicted to coffee before, quit it for a couple of years, then chose to start drinking it again. It wasn't nearly as bad for me as described here. Sure, it's a week in which your life sucks more than usual, and you have a kind of constant nagging headache. But then it's over, and you're fine. It's really nothing like a heroin addict going cold turkey; though I've never tried heroin, from what I've heard of going cold turkey on heroin, it's far more harrowing. Perhaps the OP is exaggerating slightly, or perhaps he had a stronger reaction than I did. Given other people I've talked to who have quit caffeine, their experience is about like mine; a week or so of nagging headaches and just feeling kind of lousy (like a low-grade flu), and then you're fine.

I decided later on that I really liked the regularity of coffee; something hot and stimulating every morning, that I would be able to look forward to. I also like the taste of coffee (once I acquired a taste for it). And caffeine does improve productivity; the additional wakefulness and concentration are helpful. Now, when you get addicted, you lose that benefit; the same amount of caffeine puts you back at your baseline performance. But I can, on occasion, have a second cup of coffee when I need a little boost; it's a lot easier for me to do that when I'm drinking coffee regularly, since if I have caffeine when I'm not drinking it regularly, I find it makes me a little too jittery and anxious. Being used to it helps smooth out its effects.

And furthermore, there is research that has shown that caffeine can be neuroprotective. There are several pieces of research linking caffeine intake to reduced incidents of Alzheimers, in both mice: http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/16938404/reload=0;jsession... and humans: http://epicentre.massey.ac.nz/EJC/Stuff/PastPapers/Papers_20...

Now, that's not to say that caffeine isn't without its downsides. That week of withdrawal symptoms did suck; and if I need to quit again, or don't have access to caffeine for a few days, it sucks all over again (especially if I'm too sick to drink coffee, I now wind up with withdrawal symptoms on top of my existing problem). And for some people coffee is too hard on the stomach, or can cause other problems like anxiety; whether that's the case for you depends on your body.

Caffeine can be either helpful or harmful, depending on the person and how you use it. The harm generally is fairly mild. I started drinking it this time around consciously, knowing full well what it's like to quit, and knowing what the advantages are, and I decided that the advantages outweighed the disadvantages, at least for myself.

georgemcbay• 14 years ago

I doubt the author's experience was actually as bad as going cold turkey off heroin, but he does describe a caffeine intake amount that is nearly unbelievable to me and I'm someone who probably drinks way too much caffeine myself.

pkulak• 14 years ago

Hey now, let's not lump all addiction together. I'm a coffee snob (I drink 2 2-oz shots a day), but I'd say that 60% of it is because I love the taste of coffee. The other 40% is the ability to regulate my alertness better and that it's tough to find good decaf coffee.

I've quit caffeine several times. Each time I get headaches each morning (which can be controlled fine with aspirin) for about a week. Then I'm done. I've always gone back though after a couple months. I'm also addicted to chapstick. Those are my two addictions and I'm fine with them.

bpatrianakos4• 14 years ago

As a recovered heroin addict I can say they're very different from going cold turkey. The symtoms may be the same but the intensity is the huge difference. Also, the mental process is very different too. Whenever people ask me what it's like I always say I'd rather have the pain of childbirth or terminal cancer. Pure hell is what it is. Oddly enough though, it's often times the more "benign" addictions that are hardest to kick. Maybe because there's less pressure to do so or because they're more socially acceptable.

Caffeine, like heroin,isn't completely bad in and of itself though. It's the effect of taking too much and becoming dependent on it that are the real problems. Even vitamins can be harmful to your health if you take too much (which is luckily quite hard to do because the body just can't absorb them efficiently, at least in pill form).

Drugs aren't bad. Behaviors are bad. What we do with them are bad. I'd have no problem having a cup of coffee with my child (if I had one and the kid was old enough). Now, had I not experienced real, severe addiction myself I don't think I'd feel this way and I can understand if others can't understand why I feel this way.

noveltyaccount2• 14 years ago

"'What’s it like,' Karla asked me once, 'cold turkey off heroin?' I tried to explain it. 'Think about every time in your life that you’ve ever been afraid, really afraid. Someone sneaks up behind you when you think you’re alone, and shouts to frighten you. The gang of thugs closes in around you. You fall from a great height in a dream, or you stand on the very edge of a steep cliff. Someone holds you under water and you feel the breath gone, and you scramble, fight, and claw your way to the surface. You lose control of the car and see the wall rushing into your soundless shout. Then add them all up, all those chest-tightening terrors, and feel them all at once, all at the same time, hour after hour, and day after day. And think of every pain you’ve ever known—the burn with hot oil, the sharp sliver of glass, the broken bone, the gravel rash when you fell on the rough road in winter, the headache and the earache and the toothache. Then add them all up, all those groin-squeezing, stomach-tensing shrieks of pain, and feel them all at once, hour after hour, and day after day. Then think of every anguish you’ve ever known. Remember the death of a loved one. Remember a lover’s rejection. Recall your feelings of failure and shame and unspeakably bitter remorse. And add them all up, all the heart-stabbing griefs and miseries, and feel them all at once, hour after hour, and day after day. That’s cold turkey. Cold turkey off heroin is life with the skin torn away.'"

- Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts

redwood2• 14 years ago

I recommend reading "Shantaram" if you want to get a written sense (not that I can confirm its accuracy) of the total hell that is cold turkey off heroin. Both may be tough and painful to quit, but in "Shantaram" the turn off heroin is described as: imagine everything that is in any way good in your life, your being: warmth between your toes, energy to look up at the sky, hope for tomorrow, etc: now imagine every single shred of that positive-chemical-energy is shredded. What's left is all the horrible pain of being with none of the chemicals that help us get by. Or something like that. Great book, mostly about Bombay in the 80s and heroin only has small focus, but really worth the read!

doctornemo6• 14 years ago

Shantaram is a terrific read.

noveltyaccount2• 14 years ago

Great book. I just posted the full quote above. Cheers.

yawgmoth• 14 years ago

Sort of an odd question, but have you found that the flora of your mouth changed when you cut out all of the acidity and sugary drinks? Less plaque \ bad breath?

How long does it take you to go from first opening your eyes when you awake, to being 'normally awake'? One of my big things is to get out of bed ASAP and get a dose of caffeine right away (powdered, usually). It's a fairly small dose (50mg) but I found that I really despise the first few waking moments enough to keep it up.

mtrimpe• 14 years ago

I quit caffeine cold-turkey about a month ago and when I was still drinking caffeine I was much like you brewing a killer espresso at home or having an energy drink on the way to work.

The basic gist seems to be that caffeine allows you to not have a healthy morning ritual. After you quit you'll have to learn to have a decent breakfast and ideally some exercise as well, since otherwise you'll most likely just be a zombie until lunch every day.

This post, which includes some self-reflection, is the best on the topic I've come across: http://zentofitness.com/a-story-about-100-caffeine-free-livi...

omegant• 14 years ago

Well I don't drink coffee (i can't remember if I've ever finished a cup), and I love to sleep (not an early bird). I can tell you that I have to wake up at Retty early hours (like 5 in the morning or earlier, never the same hour) due to my work, and I never feel sleepy the way coffee drinkers do. Neither I need to exercise. I am also aboe to have heavy breakfasts very early, unlike coffee drinkers who usually can't eat more than a toast. I don't know that many people who doesn't drink coffee, so I don't know if my experience is common or not.

vasco• 14 years ago

Never having liked the taste of coffee, I rarely drink it. I think the first time I had one was in a school field trip where everyone decided to pull our first all-nighter. Now I only use it when I need to finish something with a deadline and I can't possibly sleep to do it (this would be mitigated with better time management, but alas, this is how it is).

Never having made an habit of it though, a single espresso (1 once) gives me the jitters, a slight disturbing feeling in my heart area and keeps me fully pumped up for about ~4 hours if I am falling asleep when I take it.

I think this way of using it is much more valuable than "wasting" it by accustoming my body to a morning "pick-me-up" ritual.

zanny• 14 years ago

I used to be addicted to soda as a kid, but quit it in high school. Now 21, I can count the number of caffinated beverages I've drunk on my hands since 16. I get the same reaction to caffeine now.

It is really scary to think the norm is to guzzle that stuff like candy daily.

jrockway3• 14 years ago

It's less scary if you realize that different people react differently to caffeine.

ulyssesgrant• 14 years ago

I agree with your utilitarian approach to coffee, I drink it with the same mindset. The only problem is I love the taste, the smell, just the whole experience of a good cup of coffee.

mirsadm• 14 years ago

I love coffee and drink it pretty much every day. The issue I found with coffee drinkers in North America (when I lived there) was that most people would order huge cups of extremely sweetened coffee. I use to call it sugar water with coffee flavor. The general level of quality of coffee was also quite poor.

I generally drink my coffee with a little bit of milk and no sugar. It is quite easy to do when you get an amazing shot of espresso (or make it yourself at home with an AeroPress for eg.)

I never really feel any kind of disturbing feeling from coffee. I do get that feeling from energy drinks and generally avoid them.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

This is pretty inspiring. It is always amazing to people how much diet and exercise affect their health, which I find amazing that they are amazed. Its fundamental. Of course the ulcers could have been cleared up with the right antibiotics [1] but regardless, Bryan is in a much better place than he was and it doesn't matter which path he took.

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/ulcer/consumer.htm

Evgeny• 14 years ago

It is always amazing to people how much diet and exercise affect their health

This is true. It is equally amazing to me how much abuse the human body can take before it actually breaks down. Sometimes I think it would be better if the results of bad dietary or exercise habits revealed themselves faster - I suppose it would be more convincing and easier to undo the damage.

gfunk911• 14 years ago

This is a very interesting observation. Fail fast....

enjo• 14 years ago

Even worse, undoing the damage can take a very long time. It's hard to make the change to exercising and eating right when the results (energy and the like) can be months away.

Maakuth• 14 years ago

One has to remember that our bodies' ability to cope with all sorts of diets and environmental factors was most probably a very beneficial thing for prehistoric man. For them it wasn't possible to just change their diet or lifestyle, if their tribe didn't catch game in some time, coping with less nutrient food was essential. And vice versa, when they got some meat, it was good that the body stored fat so they could survive until the next kill. For us, it could be nice if bad lifestyle choices manifested themselves faster in our condition, but that would have killed our ancestors.

handelaar• 14 years ago

Had you read the article, you'd know that link describes something the author actually took time to tell you wasn't available to him.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

Since I did read the article perhaps there is something else you missed?

NeilRShah• 14 years ago

Thanks for the article - that was a good read.

jperras3• 14 years ago

The title seems a tad misleading. The author describes some relatively major lifestyle changes (huge changes in diet, sleeping habits, large increase in aerobic/anaerobic physical activity), of which the elimination of caffeine is but a small part.

I used to have some very bad problems with acidity as well, to the point where my doctor thought I might have had acute ulcerative colitis, but what fixed it for me was sleeping more, eating better, and exercising more frequently.

I still drink 1-3 cups of coffee a day (every few months I go for a week without coffee, just to make sure I can still function without it), and have had no flare-ups or problems since I changed the rest of my lifestyle habits.

benjaminwootton• 14 years ago

If you don't mind, could you explain what your problems with acidity were?

I've had a few issues over the last year or so and I'm only just making the link back to an acidic diet (diet coke, spicy food and chocolate being the main ones!)

jperras3• 14 years ago

When I was in university it got to the point where drinking tap water was difficult; forget orange juice, coffee and pasta sauce. In addition to the physical pain of consuming anything that was remotely acidic, the frequent (6-8/day) bowel movements of sometimes very bloody stool is what finally made me go visit my doctor.

Those days I was pulling all-nighters every week or so, sleeping 4-5 hours on nights where I actually went to bed, ate complete crap (typical university student), and hadn't done any sort of exercise other than walking to-and-from class for a solid 12 months. Yes, I was drinking 3-6 cups of coffee and/or energy drinks a day, but it was when I fixed all of the other stuff (mainly sleeping & eating better) that I started to not feel like death every day.

jobu• 14 years ago

I started having issues with ulcers and acid reflux in college, and for over a decade I took Prilosec (omeprazole) to control it. Last year I started drinking wheatgrass and other veggie shakes (and trying to eat a little healthier in general), and I've been able to stop taking the Prilosec with no major acid issues.

It started when my brother forced me to listen to one of his self-help CD's from Tony Robbins about the acid/alkaline diet (http://www.alkalinephdiet.com/anthony-robbins-alkaline-diet/). Mostly I view that stuff with a huge amount of skepticism, but my stomach will vouch for this one. As long as I have a veggie shake or a couple salads each day I'm able to safely drink coffee and alcohol, and occasionally eat pizza and other spicy food.

nohat2• 14 years ago

Exactly. The focus of the whole story is on caffeine, but dropping caffeine is quite minor in comparison to eating better, sleeping better, and exercising more. I think it's general consensus that caffeine withdrawal takes no more than a week.

cma• 14 years ago

But there is a substantial link between dropping caffeine and sleeping better. And there is a link between sleeping better and getting more effective exercise. And it is hard to get effective exercise and still manage to live on something like Mountain Dew (which might prompt an improved diet).

jessriedel3• 14 years ago

FYI, the dominant theory is that ulcerative colitis is an autoimmune disease, and the inflammation in the colon has nothing to do with what is eaten. Instead, it's due to the immune system deciding to attack the intestinal tissue. It might be provoked indirectly by things like stress, but coffee or other food are not thought to trigger flare-ups.

(That said, some people find they can reduce their discomfort by modifying their diet once a flare-up begins. But there is no evidence that diet either provokes flare-ups or induces remission.)

jperras3• 14 years ago

Good to know. My doctor suspected that I might have ulcerative colitis, but luckily it was not the case. I was highly symptomatic due to my incredibly poor lifestyle habits that I described elsewhere in this thread, so suspecting that I might suffer from UC/Crohn's disease wasn't completely out of left-field.

IamBren3• 14 years ago

While that may be the dominant theory it doesn't appear to be true. I follow a doctor out of NJ who uses dietary intervention to successfully treat a lot of diseases most doctors will say are "incurable", including ulcerative colitis, IBS, lupus, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes (the adult onset type). He has an entire newsletter devoted to the following:

Inflammatory Bowel Disease – Aggresive dietary modifications hold key to relief and recovery.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome – Recovery requires adherence to high–nutrient, fiber–rich diet.

Nutritional and Dietary Protocols for IBD – These nutritional basics have helped hundreds of patients.

A Crohn's Success Story – IBD patient makes recovery even after two surgeries.

Specific Carbohydrate Diet – Lack of scientific support and low success rate on this diet.

Eat For Health Recipes – The highest scoring recipes from Dr. Fuhrman's newest book.

https://www.drfuhrman.com/members/NewsletterDownload.aspx?is...

He shows (with references to back every claim, as with all of his writing) that these diseases DEFINITELY have a LOT to do with what is eaten.

The newsletter is $7. I wish it were free for as important as I feel this issue is. I would hope that before you continue to make such definite, and possibly dangerous claims, that you would fork over the money to at least make sure you're not helping to send people down the path of needless pain and suffering.

samratjp• 14 years ago

He wrote a first part here - http://bryanalexander.org/2013/01/04/a-year-without-caffeine... (this was on HN earlier and sets the context for the caffeine free lifestyle).

curiousDog• 14 years ago

Could you expand on your diet changes? (For eg: General breakfast, lunch and dinner?) I have the same symptoms and have a colonoscopy scheduled to check for ulcerative colitis.

I'm in my mid 20s and lead the typical unhealthy lifestyle (eat out everyday, lot's of spicy food). Only recently have I started having these problems (severe heartburn, stool 6-8 times/day etc) Sigh..guess I'm getting old already..

phormula• 14 years ago

Why wouldn't he just get treated for H. Pylori if he had stomach ulcers

mynegation• 14 years ago

Author is not talking about that, but from what I know testing for H. Pylori and E. Coli is part of any endoscopy. Stomach ulcers may and do appear even if there is no harmful bacteria in a stomach.

jrockway3• 14 years ago

This was my thought. The author does mention a combination of drugs that his doctor put him on, which is probably the "triple therapy" of antibiotics and a proton-pump inhibitor.

After this part of the story, incidentally, is when he starts getting better. Maybe it was the lack of coffee, but the antibiotics were probably helpful too.

doctornemo6• 14 years ago

I should have mentioned this, and will revise the post: yes, I was tested, and no, H. Pylori wasn't the culprit. Which is rare.

jakeonthemove• 14 years ago

Going off caffeine gives me 2-3 days of indescribable headaches, then it's a pronounced fatigue for another 2 weeks. It ain't pretty.

However, if coffee must be eliminated from your diet, I believe you can always use caffeine pills - same energy without any side effects on the stomach.

jrockway3• 14 years ago

I think the caffeine itself is linked to the stomach irritation, actually.

rdtsc2• 14 years ago

I like the taste of coffee but don't feel like a need or want the caffeine boost. Decaf coffees don't taste the same though either. So once in a while I go for about a week or so of drinking coffee, then quit and pay for it with headaches.

jacques_chester3• 14 years ago

Decaf taste depends a lot on the process. Out of the different kinds I've tried, CO2 distillate is best.

Mz• 14 years ago

I am medically curious and would like to hear the dehydration story. :-)

rcthompson• 14 years ago

I personally have never been a caffeine user. I had always assumed that if I used it regularly, my body would eventually counteradjust so that I would require coffee just to bring me back to my original baseline level of alertness. Can anyone comment on whether this is the case?

Posibyte2• 14 years ago

I have a purely anecdotal case. Before my Junior year of college, I had drank about four cups (two coffee cups) of coffee every morning since I was twelve. That's about nine years of coffee consumption for me. I stopped one day a year-or-so ago, and besides the two-day migraine, it didn't have any noticeable effect on me thereafter. I still drink coffee every now and then, especially during points where I'm lodging with my parents. I can't tell a difference when I drink coffee or not, other than I think more clearly with coffee. I'm not jittery with or without, or craving coffee abnormally.

Again, anecdotal. I have no idea if this is the general case.

Dylan16807• 14 years ago

That means you adjusted back quickly, but it doesn't really answer the question. Which is: If you have coffee almost every day, does it still provide you an alertness boost?

suhastech• 14 years ago

> I think more clearly with coffee

Was that your baseline level without coffee? That's hard to know.

thrownaway2424• 14 years ago

I'm pretty sure that's the case, at least for myself. If I drink coffee every day, then I have normal levels of mental function when I am on caffeine and lower than normal at other times. I like coffee though and decaf just doesn't have the flavor, so I alternate weeks with and without coffee. Seems to work for me.

Sami_Lehtinen• 14 years ago

I personally know, thats exactly the case. Also lack of sleep will make you go way below where your normal baseline would be.

mahyarm• 14 years ago

For me it's a sleep thing. If I enough/plenty of sleep then caffeine doesn't do much, otherwise it can help a lot.

driverdan• 14 years ago

This is common with many types of drugs, especially stimulants. Your body's systems are homeostatic, they have a self regulating balance. When you introduce a drug that disrupts this your body attempts to compensate.

This is why users of stimulants, like caffeine, have to increase dosages over time to maintain the same effects. It's also part of why you have withdrawal.

eli_gottlieb• 14 years ago

Definitely. If I drink more than a cup of coffee (admittedly, coffee here is strong stuff) per day, I would get anxious, derpy, and a little physically dependent. I restrict my caffeine to one cup of coffee per day and one or two cups of tea in the afternoon for just that reason.

Sindrome• 14 years ago

I think I could do a year without caffeine. But a year without alcohol? IMPOSSIBLE.

evincarofautumn2• 14 years ago

It’s interesting how they’re both so important to humanity. We socialise over alcohol all the time, and we’re more productive with a little bit of caffeine each day. Plus it’s generally safer to drink beer and boiled beverages than water.

peteretep• 14 years ago

I just finished my first year without it. First few months were pretty hard, but I got over it. Saved a bunch of money, got more confident in social situations, lost some weight. It was good enough, I've just started my second year...

drivebyacct2• 14 years ago

This is scary to read. GERD, Barrett's Esophagus and acid reflux is not to be taken lightly. It is life altering. I have a relative who has to take 3 days every year to be sedated and have their throat stretched, another 3 later to have it scoped and this is after the surgery that effectively tied her esophagus in a knot (she can't physically vomit).

If you're popping antacids all of the time, be wary.

evincarofautumn2• 14 years ago

Not to mention the hazards of excessive antacid use, such as bezoars.

hobbyist• 14 years ago

Why is green tea not included in the drinks to be avoided. I thought green tea also contains caffeine.

doctornemo6• 14 years ago

It does not, according to the various medical people I asked. Alas, I still don't like the taste.

Tichy• 14 years ago

Hm, weird, can't imagine that is true. So where does the caffeine in black tea come from?

wsc981• 14 years ago

Since both green teas and black teas are made from the same plant -a plant that contains caffeine- it seems likely both tea variants contain caffeine. The withering & oxidation processes might increase the caffeine in black teas though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_processing

If you want a caffeine free tea that tastes well (imo), consider Rooibos tea. It contains no caffeine whatsoever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooibos

krallja2• 14 years ago

This seems like the place to point out the difference between a tea and a tisane: rooibos is a tisane, or "herbal tea," because it is not made from a tea plant.

rdtsc2• 14 years ago

I like Rooibos tea. Just ordered a huge bag from Amazon. But because it doesn't have caffeine, it doesn't have the same wakefulness effect that tea does.

I also drink coffee sometimes. And even though both contain caffeine there is big difference. When I talk about tea's wake-fullness it is more like alertness, a much more gradual and pleasant effect than coffee. Coffee is like having someone constantly slapping me on the face. It is more noticeable and it is too distracting. But I also happen to like the taste of a good cup of coffee so I drink it then quit after a while, get headaches, go back to my tea and then after a month of two do it again.

prtk• 14 years ago

I guess deleting facebook account will have similar healthy effects on peoples minds.

kysol• 14 years ago

I've been without coffee for two months now. Having been someone that loved coffee and needed it to "survive" the daily work environment, if I was to have just quit it voluntarily, it wouldn't have happened.

For me I was on a business trip where I fell ill prior to the flight home. Lets just say that it wasn't pretty, my girlfriend picked me up from the Airport struggling to stand up. The next week I wasn't able to eat anything surviving on water.

Seeing that I consumed an unhealthy amount of coffee daily, and how I hadn't had one in a week, I decided to make the break while I could. I was already weak from what ever I had picked up on that trip, but it was nothing to the next few weeks. I was lucky to only get mild headaches, but the lethargy and the sleepless nights drove me insane.

Having read this article, I'm now re-thinking what I eat as well. I too challenge the heat of my curries... and thanks to desk jobs I don't get out that much. Looks like I'll be changing things shortly.

One kicker that has happened to my health since this change, an ailment that I had never had prior to the removal of coffee, has caffeine as a way to help reduce the effects. My body... hates me.

chimpinee• 14 years ago

Coffee withdrawal headaches and tiredness can be reduced by taking caffeine pills (approx 50mg per day for five days).

mleonhard• 14 years ago

> I get as much work done as I used to.

I get more work done without caffeine. When I use caffeine, my attention level spikes and plunges. The increased productivity of the spikes doesn't make up for the dips.

tsahyt• 14 years ago

2 years ago, I was drinking 12 cups of coffee on an average day. More than that on days when I had night shifts. For some unknown reason I suddenly started reacting weirdly to all the caffeine. Somehow it sparked anxiousness in me. So I decided to stop drinking coffee altogether, since only a single cup would make me feel and behave strangely.

At first it was hard to concentrate, I had headaches, it was harder to wake up in the morning, etc. However, after two years I wonder why I was drinking coffee in the first place. I feel calmer and more relaxed nowadays and I'm capable of greater workloads now without feeling too exhausted.

Going without caffeine also made me appreciate the power and importance of sleep. In the fast-paced world we're living in, I believe people underestimate that. I honestly know people who think they can achieve more by sleeping less. In my opinion they couldn't be more wrong about it. A good night's sleep is what productive days are built upon.

A year without caffeine (part 2)

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