I decided to quit coffee about a month ago because even though it is not that harmful to my health I realised I only consumed it because of addiction rather than it making my life any better. Considering I abstain from all other social drugs anyway, and it was also the last big source of sugar in my life, that was also convenient.
The constant headache went by in a week or so, but these last two days have been the first time since that I haven’t had sudden urges to nap in the afternoon. I never expected quitting coffee to be so disruptive for such a mild drug, so I can’t even imagine how much worse it would be with alcohol, opioids or crack or doing it while particularly busy. It also helped me get my sleep in order, which I dumbly didn’t even think about beforehand. Heartly recommend trying it out (in your time off!).
Coffee cold turkey is devastating. It is recommended that you track your daily “average” starting consumption, and then over the course of several week/days, slowly lower your total caffeine intake. So for example 200mg > 180mg > 150mg > 100mg > 80mg > 50mg > 20mg > 0 mg, or whichever system will work best for you.
Replacing coffee with green and black teas is also a very good idea, though most importantly, KEEP DRINKING A LOT OF WATER. If you are not hydrated, you will get more/worse headaches, and you will feel more lethargic/ in a brain fog.
Yeah, I didn’t want to bloat the post, but I didn’t quit right away. I didn’t do it very methodically but I stopped brewing it everyday and instead spent 2 weeks brewing a single full jar and leaving it on the fridge, then drinking every day some 10% less than the day before until there was none left. I also always waited until every daily dose was room temperature and without sugar to make the drinking experience less pleasant. I only really felt the abstinence when I was finally out of coffee around a month ago, but I was too invested to prolong it any further.
If anybody does this while under significant external obligations, I’d recommend being more careful than me spending at least a full month on the reduction.
Me too, 4 months ago. First time with success. Substituted coffee with black/green tea. I feel great, no headache, etc…
To provide an anecdote of a different experience quitting coffee, I tried it before and went from 36-48 oz of black coffee per day to nothing and had no headaches or improvements sleeping or particular caffeine cravings. The only noticiable Difference for me was that it took me longer to wake up in the morning. Needless to say I went back to drinking coffee after a couple months as I like it quite a bit. I know for others the withdrawal can be quite bad, so YMMV
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I have no idea, but I think most of it is produced in China and our resident PRC nerds might be able to find out. I don’t think there’s much inherently exploitative in most forms of agriculture (except manually cutting sugar cane), just that it depends on the scale and rights of the workers. My issue with coffee is that it went from a small focus boost to being held hostage by the inconvenience of abstinence, and I thought “why not?”. The coffee craze did begin with slave labour but at least the plant is not some addictive grassblade bamboo from hell that cuts you and gives you tetanus.
