Not A Blog™

A few months ago, I became tremendously disgusted with myself. I had been looking ahead to my weekend schedule, and I realized that every time I did anything, I needed to account for the intake of coffee. It wasn’t so bad if I was doing nothing. I have a coffee maker and an assortment of grounds. The problem was any time I was busy. It became a matter of making sure I stopped somewhere and shelled out a couple bucks, or otherwise had access to coffee. To miss this ritual was a sentence of headaches. It was another few weeks before I took any action, but by then it was pretty clear what needed to happen. I decided to quit coffee.

I started drinking coffee in high school. My parents would make it over the weekend, and it got to where I’d always have a cup, too. It was a once-per-week or less activity, but it was often enough that when I got my post-high school job at the bank where the drip from the office pot was free, I started drinking it regularly. It doesn’t take long to get hooked.

Coffee is neither as stigmatized, nor as bad for you as other legal addictive substances. In fact, I think the opposite is true. The professional with a triple-shot espresso is someone we’re expected to look up to. This man is such a productive member of society that he requires a daily infusion of stimulants in order to even function. The businessman in a suit is professional, but the businessman with coffee means business.

And sure, I’ve been there, walking into meetings with my portfolio and my coffee. I like that feeling. It gives you something to do with your hands. It really does mean you’re serious, and regardless of where you’re looking, if you’re sipping coffee, you’re paying attention. Make brief eye contact over the rim of the cup and you can get away with a lot.

A few studies have been done showing that moderate coffee intake has no adverse side effects, and may even be beneficial. They all agree: 1 to 2 cups a day is good. I’ve been drinking two cups a day since starting college, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less, but always two cups. Well, two mug fulls.

What I never considered until a few months ago is that a scientific study’s version of a cup is not the same as the cup I have on my desk. As a defined unit of measure, A cup is eight ounces. A cup is also a thing that holds liquid. A cup can hold significantly more than a cup. The mug I’ve been using is a 12 oz container, meaning two of those equals four cups of coffee. Not as healthy as it would seem.

Considering that I hated having to always account for coffee in my schedule, plus that I was drinking too much, I decided to wean myself off the stuff over a week. It was also partially an experiment, because I’ve heard other people talk about how they had so much more energy after giving up coffee. That sounded like a bit of hyperbole, so I figured if nothing else, I can just tell everyone else how it went for me.

The first week was me drinking progressively less caffeinated coffee each day. I started with a cup and a half of regular plus a half of decaf on Monday. By Friday, I had only a single cup of decaf, and then on Saturday I didn’t have any.

I thought this would allow for some tempering of the inevitable caffeine headache. Indeed, it may very well have tempered it, but it also hung around for a while. I had mild gnawing pain towards the end of the week as I kept drinking less, but what really surprised me is that I had various strengths of caffeine headaches the entire next week, as well. If you’ve got it in your head to try this, you might have better luck spreading it over two weeks. I am also curious as to how bad it would have been if I just quit cold turkey. I’ve missed my coffee in the morning a few times in the past, and it is not pretty.

But more interesting is how I feel now that I’ve gotten over the transition. I’ve been caffeine free for about three weeks, now, and while I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s been life changing, I have noticed some very definite differences from before.

The biggest difference seems to be this: the highs and lows of my energy level during the day are less extreme. It’s not that I necessarily have more energy, just that there are less times when I have very little energy. Then again, my highest levels of energy also do not seem to be as high. This doesn’t bother me though, because I still do fine. I’m just not jittery. That’s probably better for my blood pressure.

For example, I am not a morning person. I hate leaving the warm cocoon of the covers (except in the case of summer, in which case I hate leaving the laying down position), and it takes some time for me to collect my thoughts. While on coffee, I wouldn’t become alert until I had some, and I would just mumble at anyone who tried to talk to me. This period of time from actually waking up until the first mug of caffeine hits is a very low point of energy.

This would be followed by a spike of high energy as I finished off the second mug, at which point I would be jittery and excited, even though my job is to sit in front of a computer and click the mouse around. This would taper off until lunch, when I’d eat something, gain a bit of energy and then completely crash after lunch, to the point where I almost couldn’t keep my eyes open. I can’t drink any caffeine after lunch, however, because it quite literally does keep me up all night, so I would put up with this terrible drain until I slowly started to crawl my way out of it by dinner, and then the evening meal provides a nice level of energy until bed. Repeat.

Since I’ve stopped with the joe, The peaks aren’t as high and the valleys aren’t as low. I still don’t like to get out of bed in the morning, but once I am, it’s not such a big deal. By the time I actually get to work, I feel as if I’ve already had a cup. I still reach my peak mid-morning, but it’s not as high. Then again, my heart’s not racing, either, and I’ve found that I prefer not being artificially stimulated.

Lunch provides energy, but what is probably the most noticeable change to me is that I no longer have the post-lunch crash. I don’t feel worse after a big lunch than at any other point during the day, and I certainly feel better than when I used to drink coffee. There’s nothing to recover to after work, so I actually get a bit more done when I get home, rather than just sitting around surfing the internet for an hour as I work up the gumption to do something.

There have been downsides, as well. First of all, I can’t ignore being sleepy. I used to be able to. I suppose this is useful for the workaholic, but in fact I prefer not tricking my body into thinking it’s less tired than it is. This is probably beneficial for me in the long run, but I already recognize that I need a lot of sleep, and since I’ve dropped coffee, I’ve quickly returned to needing to get my regular allotment of sleep, which is more than I have been giving myself over the past two years or so. Without a daily dose of caffeine, it’s become extremely difficult to ignore this sleep dept. I think when I get caught up, though, things will be even better, so while it sucks, it’s ultimately a good thing.

Also, I really miss drinking a hot beverage in the morning. It doesn’t seem like this would be a big deal, but it’s a definite comfort that I’m missing. From what I can tell, hot chocolate doesn’t have caffeine in it—or it doesn’t have as much—and it has chocolate, so I might try substituting that. But I’ve been drinking water all day including first thing in the morning, and for as much as I like water, it’s just not the same.

All things considered, was it worth it? Sure was. Not so much for the improvement in energy fluctuations throughout the day, but because I just don’t need coffee anymore. I don’t like being dependent on something that doesn’t provide obvious, quantifiable benefits, and it seemed like caffeine was one of those things. If I didn’t get it, I got a splitting headache, but if I did get it, I could live my life normally. Well plenty of people live their life normally without the caffeine, and to be honest, I became a little jealous of them.

This is not to say I’ll never go back. If I need the boost, I may have a cup—and possibly start drinking it on a regular basis again—but it’s nice to know that I really can live fine without it.

-Ted