Inspired by Tantek Çelik, I’ve given up caffeine. Now, because I don’t drink coffee, this primarily involves the absence of sugar-free cola-flavoured beverages. On a typical day I’ll go through about two or more litres of the stuff (yes, really), but I haven’t had any since Thursday. Friday was filled with the expected caffeine-deprivation headache, but today was okay. It’s too early to comment on specific physical effects, but I’m going to keep this up until at least the end of the week and see what happens. If any of the effects Tantek described manifest themselves, it might be worth staying off it.
6 Replies to “Caffeineless”
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I’ve just had a look at the source for this madness. Life without coffee, tea bananas, lemsip and all my other caffeine friend sources, can it be possible? Given the effects described, I’m tempted to give this a try too. At the moment, I think I drink between 10-20 cups of tea and coffee a day, this isn’t going to be easy.
Giving it up hasn’t been as difficult as I suspected it might be. I seem to have substituted Ribena for diet cola, and am rediscovering how much I like the stuff. (Cue Abi to jump in with her commentary on how weird blackcurrent flavouring is.)
I feel it’s still too early to comment consclusively on effects, but my preliminary findings suggest that mornings are getting a bit easier. Getting out of bed is still as difficult as it always is, but once I’m out, reaching a state of full functionality seems easier. I’m noticing a definite reduction in that weary, dragged out, early morning feeling.
Blackcurrant, hack, spit. >-P
OK, can I go back to what I was doing before now?
I don’t drink coffee but I have been desperately trying to quit drinking Diet Coke, which might be as bad as coffee when you drink 4 or more cans a day. So now we’re buying Diet Coke w/out caffeine. Now if they could make another cola without aspartame and without the calories, it’d be grand. Liquid crack as a friend of mine said, it’s purely that. Be aware, it’s addictive too and quitting is another battle which doesn’t go without headaches.
Yeah, I’ve been wondering about the whole aspartame and other sweeteners thing. It’s low-cal fruit squashes I’m drinking right now, so I’m still getting my full dose of daily additives. I think I’ve got enough on my hands right now, just coping with life without caffeine….
mmmm, water. Thank god our tap-water is nice.
I limit myself to one large cup from freshly ground coffee from a cafetiere in the morning and that seems to do fine. I don’t get too much grogginess when without. An espresso doppio if having lunch out is my exception, Valvona’s is yummy.
The worst thing for building up a caffeine addiction I find is chocolate covered coffee beans – there is a large tin of Williams and Sonoma ones through the way, must…look…away
My sister used to drink large amounts of ribena as a child, one day mum rushed her to the doctor when she was peeing red as she thought something had gone badly wrong with her bladder – I leave the real cause as an exercise for the reader.