Why I’m Saying Goodbye to Caffeine
By: Benya Clark
Tags: Addiction, Mental Health, Anxiety, Health, Lifestyle

Why I’m Saying Goodbye to Caffeine

I’ve quit alcohol and tobacco, but can I kick caffeine too?

Photo by Sebastián León Prado on Unsplash

This year I’m aiming for a goal that I never expected to set: Going completely caffeine free.

How Did I Get to This Point?

I’ve been a proud caffeine drinker for most of my life. It started with soda in high school, but in recent years coffee has joined the mix too.

My caffeine consumption really took off three years ago when I quit drinking alcohol. Before getting sober, I spent my evenings with beer bottles practically attached to my palms. After quitting, it helped to have non-alcoholic drinks on hand to replace the habit. Unfortunately, most of those drinks were caffeinated.

Although caffeine is nowhere near as bad as alcohol (and not even in the same ballpark), I certainly can’t deny that I had started drinking unhealthy amounts of it. As of last year, I was up to about 4 cups of coffee and 4 sodas per day. That’s around 500 mg of caffeine — not an insane amount, but 100 mg more than the Mayo Clinic’s recommended maximum.

I could also tell that I had at least a minor addiction to caffeine, because I felt like I needed it to start my mornings, and would get headaches in the afternoon when I skipped it.

Despite that, this time last year, I still hadn’t even considered quitting. I thought that caffeine was just such minor problem compared to alcohol that it was ridiculous for me to think twice about it. I also had a third, more serious addiction to contend with: cigarettes.

Last year, instead of worrying at all about caffeine, I was entirely focused on quitting cigarettes. I went on and off of nicotine patches for months, and finally quit all forms of nicotine last September.

In the end, it was quitting smoking that actually led me to this year’s goal of quitting caffeine.

After quitting smoking, my sleep habits became a total mess. I was staying up late, sleeping only a few hours some nights and 10 hours or more others. I started waking up multiple times a night, a problem that I haven’t had since my drinking days.

At first I wrote all this off as nicotine withdrawal symptoms, but after it lasted for a couple of months, I looked into it more seriously. I learned that caffeine was the most likely culprit.

Nicotine causes the body to process caffeine more quickly, so smokers end up feeling less of the effects of caffeine than non-smokers.

When I had quit smoking, I had actually started drinking a little more coffee than usual. To add to that, my body was no longer processing caffeine at an accelerated rate, so each coffee was having a stronger effect than I was used to. That’s certainly enough to throw off my sleep.

I immediately decided to cut down on my caffeine, and I started seeing improvements in my sleep from the very first day.

From Cutting Down to Quitting

I cut down on caffeine to address the sleep problems I experienced after quitting smoking, and — sure enough — it fixed them. So why didn’t I stop there? Why did I decide to quit completely?

I had always thought of caffeine as a benign addiction, but while reading up on how it was affecting my sleep, I discovered that it actually has much more harmful side effects than I ever realized.

My starting place for learning about caffeine was simply reading anecdotes of people who had quit caffeine on Reddit. Although anecdotes aren’t necessarily scientifically reliable, my experiences with quitting drinking and smoking have taught me that reading about others’ addictions can be an important learning tool.

To my surprise, one of the most commonly reported symptoms of caffeine use is high levels of anxiety. Anxiety is something that I’d struggled with for most of my life, and it never once occurred to me that caffeine could in any way be related. Over years of going to therapy, I don’t remember a therapist ever asking me how much caffeine I drank.

Reddit users described experiencing anxiety for years, than having it disappear (or at least decrease) after they quit caffeine. Some said the changes took a few months to take effect, others reported noticing a difference in just days.

Reading through these stories, I was hopeful, but also a bit skeptical. A forum for people quitting caffeine was bound to be a biased source, and I wondered if the placebo effect was playing a role as well.

I looked for actual research studies to back up the claims I was reading on Reddit. In short, the studies agree: caffeine causes anxiety.

Does that mean quitting caffeine will eliminate all anxiety? Of course not, but it could potentially help.

After reading anecdotes about the improved anxiety levels, and finding a few research studies to back it up, I decided I owed it to myself to at least try a life without caffeine.

Although I don’t expect my anxiety to disappear entirely, even a small reduction would make this experiment worth it.

Quitting and Withdrawal

I’m now on day four without any caffeine. Almost everything I read recommended weaning off caffeine instead of quitting cold-turkey, so that’s exactly what I did.

I had already been down to about three cups of coffee a day (and no soda). I noticed that the new year was right around the corner, so I timed my reduction so that I’d hit my first zero-cup day on January 1st. For two days I drank two cups of coffee a day, then for two days I drank one cup a day.

Even by the time I was down to one cup of coffee a day, I was already feeling a bit of confusion. My mind was so used to operating on constant caffeine, that having just one cup in the morning was really throwing me off.

On January 1st, my first day without caffeine, the confusion got much worse, and I had a very bad headache as well. These both got even worse in the second day, but mostly cleared up in day three.

Today, day four, the withdrawal feelings are essentially gone. Now that it’s over, I can say it wasn’t a fun experience, but it wasn’t too hard at all compared to quitting alcohol or nicotine.

From what I’ve read, if I had done a more gradual weaning schedule, I could have avoided withdrawal side effects entirely. I think I just got a little too carried away with the idea of quitting right on New Year’s Day.

As far as cravings, I’ve been feeling mild ones all day. Again though, it’s really nothing at all compared to quitting alcohol and nicotine. Those experiences definitely left me over-prepared for this one.

My goal is to last at least this entire year without caffeine, but ideally I’d like to just stay off of it for good. I think my most likely cause of failure will be just not taking it seriously enough.

Caffeine isn’t nearly as detrimental as my other vices had been, and so I don’t feel as strongly about quitting. It feels like the stakes just aren’t high as far as caffeine is concerned.

But, with that said, I really do think that the benefit to my anxiety could be huge, and I’m trying to keep that in mind. Even if caffeine isn’t the worst habit I’ve ever had, it was certainly not doing me any good.

The Benefits

So, after four days without caffeine, have I noticed any reduction in anxiety?

Maybe this is just the placebo talking, but yeah, I really have. I actually feel great today, in a way that I haven’t in months. I know it’s too soon to tell for sure whether this is the lack of caffeine or just a coincidence, but things are off to a great start.