I Started Drinking Coffee Again After 10 Months — Big Mistake
Why I quit again after just two days
I was a heavy coffee drinker for the past 20 years. By heavy, I mean 4–5 big cups of dark roast a day. I know, maybe a little excessive.
It didn’t bother me. I felt fine. It was part of my morning ritual. Wake up, roll out of bed, drag my feet like a zombie to the coffee machine and down goes the first cup in less than 10 minutes.
I wasn’t a pleasant human being to be around before I had my first cup.
It was part of my personality. Coffee made me who I was.
My perception of coffee changed when I came across a book called Caffeine Blues: Wake Up to the Hidden Dangers of America’s #1 Drug (affiliate link), by Stephen Cherniske, M.S.
Reading it made me realize I don’t know who I was without caffeine. There hasn’t been a day in my adult life without some sort of caffeine that I can remember.
So I decided to quit cold turkey.
And it wasn’t easy.
I’ve written a full story on the challenges of actually quitting the first time which you can read here.
Why am I sharing this with you? I feel I‘m obligated to after I have come to realize just how caffeine affected my life, my mood and my focus.
If you are a heavy coffee drinker and have issues with sleep, anxiety, focus, and in some cases inflammation, this story might be an eye-opener for you.
I want to emphasize that this is my experience with caffeine. I’m not a medical professional and you should regard this story as my personal experiment. It might be completely different for you.
You might ask yourself why I even started drinking coffee again? I was feeling great, didn’t really miss it and had no intentions of going back.
While listening to a podcast where they discussed the effects of coffee, a former coffee drinker had stopped but figured out a way to use caffeine to his advantage.
He said that he only drank coffee on Thursdays. That was the day he scheduled his most creative work. He went on to say he never has more than two cups of coffee that day and that it helped him stay focused for a long period of time.
He argued that only drinking it for one day a week brought out the benefits of caffeine that he then implemented into his workweek. On top of that, it also helped with his intermittent fasting by suppressing hunger.
When I heard this I thought you know what, this almost makes sense. I’m going to give that a try just to see how caffeine affects me after living this long without it.
The next day, I brewed myself a nice pot of dark roast coffee. One thing I still enjoy is the smell of freshly brewed coffee. My wife still drinks it so it was readily available for me.
I had the first cup around 10 am and at first, I didn’t notice anything different. The workday went on and I wasn’t extra energetic or jittery. Keep in mind I usually don’t eat until 1–2 pm so this was on an empty stomach.
As the day went on and I was set to upload and publish my YouTube video that day, I started getting anxious. This anxiety seemed to come out of nowhere. I started second guessing my work and overanalyzing it. By this time I’ve had my second cup of the day.
I also noticed I was sweating more from my armpits. This is a problem I’ve had for years that I didn’t even realize had stopped once I quit coffee. It was now back.
Other than the anxiety and strange, unfamiliar feelings of self-doubt, the day ended rather normally.
I never had trouble sleeping caffeine-free but this night was different. I laid awake for 2–3 hours before finally drifting off to sleep.
Usually, I’m out within 15–20 minutes.
That first night I had incredibly vivid dreams. As if I was stepping into a physical room next to the bedroom.
The funny thing about dreams is they are extremely fleeting. No matter how intense and real they seem, you only remember them for the first minute or two after waking up. Interesting how that works.
I realize this all might sound like a lot from just drinking 2 cups of coffee. However, I made sure to write down everything that felt different compared to being off caffeine. That’s what I’m sharing here.
On day 2 I decided to keep going with the coffee drinking and brewed another fresh pot of the black gold.
This day I felt agitated the entire day. Annoyed. I caught myself staring with my eyes fixed on random spots without being able to look away. As is I was sucked in. I also noticed my right shoulder pain was back during heavy lifting.
I don’t know if this has anything to do with caffeine intake but this was the same story as the sweaty armpits. The pain had been there for a long time but had disappeared when I stopped drinking coffee. It was only now that I actually remembered that I used to have this pain. It had been almost a year since I last felt it.
Overall, I felt agitated and less calm the entire day. My focus was all over the place. It wasn’t helping my productivity the way I expected it to. I could be working and get distracted by the smallest interruption such as my cat walking past me to get to her food bowl.
I knew this wasn’t like me. I knew I didn’t like it. I already started to miss how I felt and who I was caffeine-free.
When I was drinking 4–5 cups of coffee a day my energy levels and focus felt like a rollercoaster. It was either 100% on or 100% off with no in-between.
When I’m off caffeine, my energy levels and focus is more of a smooth curve throughout the day. It starts slower in the morning but I don’t feel like a literal zombie before my first cup. I wake up energized and rested. I don’t experience any “after lunch coma” that I used to for so many years.
My life is better without coffee. If you’re a heavy coffee drinker, I would encourage you to find out who you are without it.
You never know who you might become unless you give it a shot.
You can watch my video where I share my experience quitting coffee down below.
