I’ve done something I never thought I’d even consider doing in the past.
I’ve done away with my coffee addiction.
I honestly used to look upon non-coffee drinkers with great suspicion. How can you possibly wake up in the morning and not think of coffee? How can you have a meal not followed by coffee? How do you survive the afternoon without a caffeine kick?
Parallel thoughts and questions also used to appear, though. Why am I always feeling like my brain is on sleep-mode? Why is my skin always so damn dry? Why do I get so easily anxious and jittery? Why do I often wake up tired after 8 hours of decent sleep? Why do I lack motivation when I really need it?
Never once did I blame the coffee for these issues. You simply assume that there’s a natural reason for these somewhat small daily struggles, such as a lack of vitamins, hydration, or maybe it’s because I’m not eating the right foods.
Only when someone mentioned that a hormone or thyroid imbalance could cause these symptoms did I read up about the effects of coffee, because it’s pretty much the first thing that appears when you google the above problems. That was when I decided to cut my intake down from 3-4 cups a day to 0-1.
The first few days were bad, I won’t lie. You can choose to go easy and cut down bit by bit, or you can decide to go cold turkey. Withdrawal symptoms are not fun, and they are very real. I suddenly found myself knocked out on the sofa at 3pm, beyond tired, with major headaches and a volatile mood.
However, after the first week, everything felt so much better. It’s now been over a month and I’m still amazed by the fact that I’m feeling awake. I’m alert, the fog has left my brain and I sleep better which means I wake up less tired. The afternoons are also fine, my skin is better and my mood is more stable.
And no, I don’t miss it. I do take a small cup around 10-ish, just out of habit, but never in the afternoon, and I never exceed more than one. The thing is, if you do stop and you experience the withdrawal symptoms, it means that you’re addicted. It means that you’re depending on a substance to keep you going through the day. Even if that doesn’t bother you, it’s a good thing to try out, if only to challenge yourself. I promise, if you can just get past that first tough week, you will without a doubt notice a positive over-all change!
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