Recovering alcoholics and addicts have a long history of drinking large amounts of coffee, tea and cola soft drinks.
Coffee, tea, cola drinks, chocolate and many foods contain caffeine. A new range of drinks on the market is a variety of high content caffeine drinks such as Red Bull.
Caffeine, a stimulant, is the most widely consumed drug. Caffeine has occasionally been considered a drug of abuse and has the potential for people to become addicted.
Signs of caffeine addiction are;
Coffee simply stimulates the central nervous system, increases stress hormones in the blood streams, thus making a person feel unnaturally alert. Consequently increased alert state tends to subdue your body’s natural instincts and prevent it from relaxing. This causes undue stress and leads to various kinds of disorders.
Daily caffeine intake induces a 24 hour cyclic disturbance in your body. While the morning cup of coffee or tea perks up your mood most people can’t stop at that. Almost every office goer develops a craving for the next cup and subsequently, a heavy fatigue sets in by late afternoon. Even if endless cups revives you at this time of the day, a total collapse is inevitable by evening.
Irritability, fatigue and gloom along with an uncomfortable sensation are the usual symptom. what is worse is that finally when you try to sleep away your blues at night, you just can’t. That’s no the end. The next morning you get up tired, thirsting for a steaming cuppa to settle your mood.
Thus begins a coffeeholic’s journey. At the end of which, apart from developing dark circles under the eyes, you also acquire acidity problems, irregular palpitations and more.
The Withdrawal Symptoms of Caffeine
Once you have lowered your caffeine dependence status and realized that caffeine is the trouble factor in your diet, don’t take the hasty decisions of cutting down on all such intake. For in case of sudden elimination of all caffeine products from your diet, the withdrawal symptoms maybe too tough to handle. consequently, you may suffer from some of the following withdrawal symptoms:
- Headaches,
- Irritability
- Intensification of premenstrual symptoms
- Fatigue
- Generalized muscular tension
- Nausea
- Lack of appetite
- Constipation
- Lack of concentration
- Disorientation
- Forgetfulness
Quitting Coffee Gradually
So make sure you reduce your caffeine intake gradually. Initially reduce your intake by half. Avoid the other half by replacing it with a cup of mild organic green tea or herbal tea. For example if you are used to four cups of coffee in a day, start drinking two cups of coffee and two cups of mild green tea. Gradually replace the mild tea with with soup or plain hot water mixed with honey and lime. Then replace the remaining two cups of coffee with mild tea and follow the same pattern.
- 4 cups of coffee
- 2 cups of coffee+2 cups of tea
- 2 cups of coffee+2 servings of soup/hot water with honey and lime
- 2 cups of coffee+2 cups of soup/hot water with honey and lime
- 4 cups of soup/water with honey and lime
- Freedom from caffeine dependence.
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2 Comments
What a wonderful story Olly. You make me feel downright decadent.
I just completely stopped caffeine three weeks ago after being a regular drinker of tea and coffee. I endured a crazy headache for a day coupled with a weird eye tiredness that felt pretty odd. Then a mild headache that faded over the next four or five days. the following week I stopped smoking, and drinking alcohol, I was a mild to moderate user of both of these. I noticed that the withdrawal from nicotine was purely psychological and lasted for one day only, and was much less dramatic than with caffeine. It has been three weeks since now, I have noticed that I have a tired spell in the afternoon most days, and I take a nap for about 45 minutes or so, I attribute this to the caffeine. As far as the nicotine goes, I feel relieved to not have to constantly top up, as it’s such an inconvenience, I occasionally find myself thinking about smoking but I know that it’s because my system isn’t used to existing without a daily ritual of highs and lows, and that it will soon pass. I would like to say that I found caffeine slightly easier despite the discomfort, as my brain was so fed up with not getting a smoke on that first day! However the fact that I had gone through more discomfort with caffeine made the nicotine head games seem quite interesting. I just promised myself not to take any of my thoughts seriously for three days. By the fourth day I was starting to discover the benefits of not being compelled to smoke. I have since read up on the science behind nicotine addiction, and would encourage anyone to do the same, as knowledge on the matter helps overcome the addiction massively.