Why I quit caffeine
/“Caffeine is the world’s most commonly consumed psychoactive substance.”
To give you an idea of my personal caffeine intake, let’s take a look at last Friday: I took the day off of work, but still woke up early. I started the day with a coffee, and because I had to go to Northampton and Milton Keynes I had a little road trip ahead of me. I stopped off at the garage to grab some Red Bulls, and again to get some coffees.
After a somewhat heavy night out, I woke up to find a whole room in the hotel full of coffee, I happily had a few espressos and a cappuccino before heading to the shop to grab some food, where you guessed it, I had another coffee.
So I hope you can see where I’m going with this, I consume a lot of caffeine.
I decided to take a step to truly asses my relationship with this wonderful drug, and to try and appreciate it again instead of abusing it.
Day One.
I woke up Monday Morning, felt a little groggy, but I woke up with a cold!
So it was a bit more of a push to get me through my day at work, I managed to avoid the coffee runs in favour of water.
The hard point on the first day was breaking the routine.
Just to notice the amount of caffeine I consume in a day was eye opening.
Going through Costa on my lunch break (where they sell a quadruple espresso for just 70p!) and then after work, just to pop into the shop and to be greeted with some new Monster branded cold coffee on offer! I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy.
Day Two.
Waking up is something I find quite easy… but not on day two. It was like I had been traveling at 100 MPH and out of nowhere I had slowed.
I went to the shop and after starring at drinks for 5 minutes, landed on a Voss water and slugged myself to the gym, if you have me on Instagram you would have seen the struggle! I couldn’t find the motivation to do a lot, on a normal day I would have had a coffee at home and a Red Bull In the car ready for when I finish. I have found my appetite was crazy, just consuming anything I could find in the office, and we have tons of snacks…dangerous.
Day three.
I was a little better prepared on day 3, the night before I went to Sainsbury’s desperate for some sort of fix and found these Polish drinks called Oshee (full nutrition info here) and they contain 0.0 mg of caffeine in them! With the added placebo effects of the can they are a great substitute, although they only recommend one per day!
I woke up at 5:57, beat my alarm but still had this grogginess that I just couldn’t shift! After driving to the gym singing Billy Joel then drinking the contents of this new drink I had a pretty decent session and found my energy levels to be okay.
After settling at my desk I found my energy started to drain…FAST!
I started to feel my eyes rolling back into my head, it was a tough battle but I got through it!
Day four
Thursday… woke up feeling okay to start, headed to the shop to grab a few smart waters and went to the gym with my pal, Ross.
It felt like my energy levels were good, and I made a conscious effort to avoid consuming all the snacks (I had some…). I opted for a can of diet lemonade to keep me going with some tangfastic Haribo’s on hand to provide some nasty sugar energy when I dipped.
I also noticed I had been getting mild headaches that seem to have faded away by the end of day four. It was my intention to wait until Saturday to get back onto the caffeine but I really missed being proactive and making content. My friend Mark messaged me saying how he hadn’t seen anything from me for a little while and I can honestly say I’m sorry.
I have had so little energy, with most nights coming home to a nice meal cooked by my wife only to treat her to me snoring on the sofa before 10:00pm (sorry Emily!).
I also have some gigs at the weekend so I need to be on point for those!
Day Five.
I am finally ending this. I originally aimed for one week, but I’m taking into consideration the maximum effective dose (M.E.D).
You see; if you were to sunbathe you only need around 15 minutes exposure to UV, any more and you exceed the M.E.D thus any further exposure would be pointless. I woke up this morning feeling like I had lots of energy and stayed up well past 11:00pm last night.
My journey has been completed and I have accomplished what I set out to do, i felt great on my drive to work and had my first coffee (iced cooler from Costa) at around 8:40. 10 minutes later and I could feel the caffeine surging though my whole body!
I felt like a kid high off of sugar, I took a drive out on my lunch to find out the gender for my new baby, I had the music all the way up, singing the whole way.
Taking away something you take for granted can really make you appreciate their value. When you bring that thing back you will be more aware of how much you consume.
“What gets measured, gets managed.”
If I’m honest I went into this with the idea that I could clear my receptors so when I have caffeine after the week I would go wild with energy like I haven't for years. After looking into it the studies as I go through this I concluded on day two that it doesn’t benefit you all that much.
In fact, take a look at the following symptoms of caffeine withdrawal:
Headache -for me this was mild but tolerable.
Negative mood -I didn’t feel all that negative just super tired!
Nausea and Vomiting -Nope.
Mental fogginess -100%. This was by far the worst thing.
light-headed or dizzy -Very infrequently but this did get to me.
Increased appetite -I felt like I didn’t stop eating the whole time!
Add in the fact caffeine withdrawal can cause anxiety and depression!
For me personally I wanted to do it as a challenge, I have had messages saying: “It’s not that hard, I don’t even drink tea or coffee”. -That’s great Owain but it’s the withdrawals I’m suffering from.
To put this experience into perspective; I found this harder than quitting smoking. You see I have been absolutely addicted to caffeine since 2008, that is longer than I had smoked for, and I thought it was time to face another problem in my life.
I think the next culprit I will be going after will be sugar. But I’m going to leave that for another week, for now I’m going to enjoy some coffees (in moderation) and appreciate them, instead of abusing them.
Is there something you could give up for a few days? Let me know I really want to hear about it, I love getting messages from people who are inspired by these!