Today I have gone without coffee for 30 days.
It’s been an interesting experiment.
I started drinking coffee at a pretty late age, probably around 22 or 23.
Since then I’ve consumed three cups or more every day.
Lately I’ve become more interested in my own personal energy. And being hooked on coffee is a bit like the curve above. :)
So I wanted to see how getting rid of the coffee would affect my energy, mood and effectiveness.
I know that some get off coffee by slowly decreasing the amount of coffee they consume each week and perhaps by replacing it with tea or non-caffeinated alternatives.
I took another approach.
30 days ago I came down with a bad cold and pretty much knew that I would spend a few days in bed doing nothing more than reading and watching some TV.
I also knew that going without coffee would make me very sleepy.
So I combined the two things. I stopped drinking coffee and then I was sleeping a lot the next few days.
This made it easier to get through the most unpleasant days of sneezing and having a fever. And since I wasn’t doing anything special anyway it was OK to feel drowsy and sleep a lot.
Towards the end of that week my cold had decreased in power and so had my sleepiness.
Since then it’s been no problem to not drink coffee and I have experienced some positive benefits.
The big one is that my ability to focus has improved. That has affected my life in a few ways:
- It has become easier to focus just on the task in front of me and shut out the rest of the distractions.
- I’m less prone to procrastination. I didn’t really notice it while I was drinking coffee but my mind seemed to wander off in all kinds of ways a lot of the time. Now it’s easier to single-task and focus on one thing and I don’t feel the same need to check email or other distracting stuff.
- I’m calmer. I’m a calm person to begin with but getting off coffee calmed and slowed my brain down. So I feel more relaxed more of the time. And it’s easier to think with clarity.
Getting of coffee has been a positive experience for me. It’s actually had more of a positive effect than I would have expected. I thought I would feel a little less stressed overall but it has made a significant dent in my ability to focus and concentrate. I also used to feel tired after a meal and used coffee immediately after the meal to boost my energy levels. Now I have a much more even energy-curve throughout the day.
So I’ll continue to stay coffee free and perhaps sprinkle in a cup of green tea or two once in while. I would recommend trying to go coffee free for 30 days and see how it affects your mind, body and life.
One way is do it like I did and go cold-turkey (perhaps the next time you’re ill or during some vacation days over the holidays). Another way is the one where you slowly decrease the amount of coffee you consume each week. And perhaps replace some of the coffee with less caffeinated teas or a couple of cups of decaf. If you get bad withdrawal symptoms then the second method may be the most useful one.
Henrik Edberg is the creator of the Positivity Blog and has written weekly articles here since 2006. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Gothenburg and has been featured on Lifehacker, HuffPost and Paulo Coelho’s blog.
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I quit caffeine while I was pregnant almost cold turkey. It wasn’t intentional, I just lost the taste for it. I say almost because I would drink a soda only when I got withdrawal headaches. Since I didn’t really have any desire for it except to get rid of the headache, it was purely medicinal.
Two months later I miscarried and now I’m back up to 3-4 sodas a day. Darnit.
Bravo for getting rid of coffee!
I’m still struggling to get rid of caffeine. I took the plunge on removing soda a while back, but that was more about the sugar. It’s been my experience that while you can work with either method (cold turkey or gradual), how you react to the shock is the telling factor in which one will work the best for you.
Great job!
It’s extremely difficult to break any addiction, but when you do, you get an immense feeling of freedom and liberation.
If you work out, I’m sure you notice a difference there as well?
Timely post. I am on day 39 without coffee. I only drank a couple of cups a day and don’t notice such pronounced positive effects but, still I am glad I stopped and I certainly don’t miss it. I especially don’t miss the twice daily Starbuck’s tax I had been paying.
Wow, this was timely. I just returned from my doc’s office who explained that the heart flutters, sleeplessness, fatigue, breathlessness, and inability to concentrate is all linked back to my caffeine intake. And after all the expensive heart tests!
I had a *major* coffee addiction. I wasn’t feeling wired, but I just started feeling really yucky. It felt like all the coffee was turning me into a human garbage dump.
The previous times I had tried to quit I found myself giving into the caffeine lure and starting up again.
So I finally found the trick that worked: I realized that I really didn’t need to quit caffeine, I needed to quit *coffee*. So I gave myself full permission to have all the caffeine I wanted, and switched to very strong black tea.
It worked really well. I’m drinking a LOT of tea now (mostly green tea now) – We’re talking about 10-14 standard cups brewed very, very strong. Maybe I’m getting even MORE caffeine that before, but I’m sleeping better, and generally feel a lot better.
Some day I’ll deal with the issue of self-medicating myself with caffeine, but until then this is a pretty good solution for me.
Interesting article man. I posted this one last week entitled:
“Coffee Drinkers Beware: Facts About Caffeine you Did Not Know”. You should check it out. Here the link:
http://www.wethechange.com/coffee-drinkers-beware-facts-about-caffeine-you-did-not-know/
Enjoy man and stick with it!
Todd Goldfarb
Founder, We The Change
Coffee puts the system under the strain of metabolizing a deadly acid-forming drug, depositing its insoluble cellulose, which cements the wall of the liver, causing this vital organ to swell to twice its proper size. In addition, coffee is heavily sprayed. (Ninety-two pesticides are applied to its leaves.) Diuretic properties of caffeine cause potassium and other minerals to be flushed from the body.
All this fear went away when I quit, and it was a book that inspired me to do it called The Truth About Caffeine by Marina Kushner. There are five things I liked about this book:
1) It details–thoroughly–the ways in which caffeine may damage your health.
2) It reveals the damage that coffee does to the environment. Specifically, coffee was once grown in the shade, so that trees were left in place. Then sun coffee was introduced, allowing greater yields but contributing to the destruction of rain forests. I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else.
3) It explains how best to go off coffee. This is important. If you try cold turkey, as most people probably do, the withdrawal symptoms will likely drive you right back to coffee.
4) Helped me find a great resource for the latest studies at CaffeineAwareness.org
5) Also, if you drink decaf you won’t want to miss this special free report on the dangers of decaf available at http://www.soyfee.com
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! Specially STARBUCKS COFFEE. ULTRA CONCENTRATE…I noticed that coffee perks me up and then gets me unfocused and depressed…May be STARBUCKS puts PAXIL in it!!!
I remember when I went to FRANCE during Summer since STARBUCKS WAS NOT THERE, I did not drink coffee at all.
My body after a week did feel better, MY HAIR STOPPED FALLING?? generally speaking I felt better…I noticed VERY FEW MEN are bald or balding there…..
Return to the US and guess what COFFEE COFFEE STARBUCKS etc…side effect? Irritability, depression, wandering mind.
BRAVO FOR THE BLOG!!@!
I quit coffee and most caffeinated sodas when I hiked the Appalachian Trail. It was totally cold turkey, and at most I had coffee and tee maybe 10 times over the course of 6 months. I did not have any withdrawal. I did discover Yerba Mate. Which is from South America, and supposedly it gives you a more mellow and longer lasting “high” so to speak. I have not crashed like I used to after drinking coffee. I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to stain my teeth as badly as coffee.
I can’t believe I get so much valuable information from here, I’m coffee addicted until I drink 2-3 times per day. I even lost my control sometimes and drink it before I sleep. What a nightmare, you’ll have a BADDD time sleeping.
After reading this post, I decided to quit caffine entirely but it seems to be so hard. I’m still wondering how it’s feel not drinking it by tomorrow morning.
Anyway, i’ll give my best try and I should be posting this to my blog. Great stuff!
Thank you all for your comments and for sharing your experiences with coffee.
Kevin: What kind of difference were you thinking about?
Stephen: I’ve become a little curious about Yerba Mate since I’ve read Tim Ferriss praising it so I’ll probably give it a try sometime. Thanks for sharing your experience.
And good luck with giving up coffee, Kenneth.
I am two weeks coffee free and found this article very interesting. I decided to quit because I didn’t like how dependant I was on coffee and also because I’m doing yoga and trying to eat healthy. I had no idea that the heart palpitations I was experiencing were because of coffee! I thought about it after reading this article and realized I haven’t had any in two weeks! Interesting. I’m more determined than ever to stay off coffee. My wallet is a little heavier now that I’m not going to Starbucks several times a week, too.
I quit cold turkey like you. Three days of major headaches, but that is all gone now and I feel great. I also realized I’ve been concentrating better at work. Who would have thought? Thanks for filling in the blanks for me.
I used to drink coffee and diet Pepsi all the time, after work I wouldn’t drink any caffeinated drinks. I would sleep OK. When I woke up in the morning I didn’t feel tired as such, but my head definitively felt very fuzzy, I didn’t put this down to what I was drinking at the time….
I’ve read a lot of bad stories over the last year about the additives in Pepsi (and Coke), so one day I decided to cut out diet Pepsi. Now I drink fizzy water with a splash of fruit juice added. I still drink a cup of strong coffee (black no sugar) in the morning and sometimes in the early afternoon.
One day I ran out of coffee, but had some Pepsi Max in the house that I keep when friends come over, so I drank the Pepsi Max instead. Yuck – All I could taste was the sweeteners, it tasted far, far too sweet. The next morning I had that same ‘not tired, but fuzzy’ feeling again!
I have no idea what caused my bad feeling in the morning, but I do feel a lot better for cutting out ALL drinks that contain anything man-made and reducing my caffeine intake dramatically. Also getting up in the morning is a lot easier now.
For me, I found quiting diet Pepsi very difficult because water was just too boring, and I’ve never liked drinking too much fruit juice as it contains too much sugar. The real break through was drinking fizzy water with a splash of orange juice. (1 part OJ, 10 parts fizzy water). Initially I did miss Pepsi, until my taste buds adjusted. I really enjoy my replacement drink.
I’ve found a few cordials in the UK that don’t have any junk in them, except they contain a TONNE of sugar – but its nice to have a treat now and again (Elderflower is my favorite). The only additive I do allow is Citric Acid, which is found naturally in lemon juice.