This article (and it's second part) couldn't have come at a more helpful time. I have such an unhealthy relationship with caffeine (and sugary drinks in general), that I would literally go days without drinking any water. If it didn't come from a 7-11 or a coffee machine, I wasn't going to drink it.
Just this week, I decided to quit cold turkey, and drink nothing but water, and it has been eye opening. I didn't realize how much I depended on the drinks to get me through the day. But going just-water is definitely the only way I could have done this. Something about knowing I have nothing to look forward to besides water helps me just drink water, instead of waiting until I can find some energy drinks, and getting dehydrated in the process.
Not everyone is going to have as unhealthy relationship with caffeine as me, but I'm hoping my kidneys and gut will thank me. I know 22 year olds seldom suffer from heart attacks, but I'm not going to be 22 forever, so might as well start now.
The author went old turkey. That is rough. For me going cold turkey caused massive headaches. I cut out caffeine a decade ago. It was a haphazard affair. I wanted to improve my sleep, so I started limiting my intake by stopping in the afternoon. At the same time I started having anxiety and panic attacks in the morning before my first dose. It was so bad I lost 10 pounds. That’s when I started to figure out “hey this might be a problem”. Over the course of a month I reduced my caffeine intake to zero. No headaches. Panic attacks went away. Ymmv.
Congrats on quitting, even for something considered "mild" like caffeine it's not easy. I had the same issue with headaches so I scaled down by mixing increasing ratios of decaf in my coffee grounds over a couple months, starting with just 25% decaf. The gradual reduction in potency was barely noticeable. Once you get to 75% decaf you're basically drinking full decaf already (decaf usually still has like 10% of the normal caffeine content) and I had no ill effects from quitting completely after that. If you subsequently decide to relapse with decaf or half-caf it's also much easier to quit again.
I drink 2-3 cups of coffee a day. Mostly espresso drinks.
There are/were times where I travel or go camping and stopped taking coffee. Other than maybe a very mild headache the first day there weren't any issues.
I enjoy the taste, the rituals, and the temporary boost. But I know I'm addicted ;) There are lots of articles about how it's a good thing but I'm pretty sure it has some impact (not always positive) on my mood.
I’ve gone off coffee for months at a time as a test, but to be honest it’s about the same for me on vs off after the adjustment period.
When I go off, after the headaches, I get good sleep without trying, but so do I on coffee if I have my last one no later than 1pm (where good == 7 hours).
And a proper flat white is so, so good. Therefore I accept my addiction and have two a day!
I also get pretty bad coffee withdrawal, (migraines, mainly) even starting from 2 daily cups.
I’m a nerd and always weigh my beans/water. Last time I quit, I cut my intake by 1g of beans per day until I was down to 8g, then stopped entirely. Took about a month, but no withdrawal whatsoever.
Tapering is definitely the way to go if you’re prone to side-effects.
Stopping greatly reduced issues with my stiff neck and I also noticed that my hands are not nearly as cold as before. I drink black tea time to time, but it is nowhere near as addictive as coffee so I have no trouble with moderation.
I drink 2-3 cups of coffee a day (or double espressos) and have done so for about 20 years. Usually the first thing I do when I wake up is drink coffee. When we had our first child over three years ago, my wife said she wanted me to stop drinking coffee for a few months so I could nap on demand. I quit cold turkey. It was fine. Several months later I went back to drinking coffee and it was still fine. There was definitely a noticeable difference but nothing like you're talking about.
Everyone's sensitivity to caffeine is different. For example, if I miss my one 8 oz. cup each morning, I have a massive headache by 1:15pm.
When work picks up, like a big project, I might increase my intake to a larger 12oz or 16 oz coffee per day, but then I'll end up sustaining that too long after the project ends.
After a while, I'll do a cold turkey reset to zero caffeine. It takes 4 days and about 800mg of Ibuprofen each day to make it through the headaches. Luckily no other withdrawal symptoms.
I have friends that only drink coffee on weekdays... I don't get how that can be done! For me, coffee is preventative medicine.
Think the author's case is extreme and so is his remedy.. For most that drink 3-4 cups a day or so there's no need to stop imho.
There's numerous benefits that keep appearing in medical lit, including protection vs atrial defibrillation, stomach cancer etc.
For me I stopped briefly during bad bout of gastritis with all the withdrawal symptoms listed but have resumed since. No known bad effects so far. Yes my tummy is not in ideal condition but that's due to other vices like alcohol.
I reduced my coffee intake gradually back in ‘21-‘22down to just green tea in the morning. I did not notice any real changes in my life aside from two points. I took longer to ramp up productivity and alertness in the mornings. I also now eased into my “go to bed” routine at night whereas on coffee it was a much more dramatic crash. We ended up having our first kid mid-‘22, and I got back on the java wagon. Of all potential vices, this one certainly feel lightweight. I just don’t drink it after Noon.
I actually intentionally stopped drinking caffeine when we had kids. Long nights of little to no sleep made me absolutely not want to mess with my sleep cycle any more. I started drinking tea once the kids got older and sleep was once again regular.
For me caffeine is something to enhance my well rested self. Not something to make my body ignore important signals regarding rest.
I got a headache when I had to show up fasted for a blood test. Didn’t like that at all so I got decaf for home morning coffee. I can drink whatever in the afternoon and now no headache when I fast for blood tests. Much happier about that outcome.
I am lucky enough to get regular palpitations. I read that caffeine can make them worse, so I stopped for a few months. They got worse. Talked to my Dr about it and he said yeah, sometimes it doesn't work like you'd think.
(Along the same lines, actually, I also made my palpitations much worse this year by dramatically improving my physical fitness. Turns out that slow heart rate for me means more palpitations. Heart rates above ~70 means almost no palpitations. Something about overdrive, but I am not an expert.)
So at least I don't have to give up my caffeine ;-)
> Question Does consumption of caffeinated coffee have a beneficial, detrimental, or neutral effect on the risk of recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) episodes?
> Findings In this multicenter randomized clinical trial including 200 patients with persistent AF undergoing cardioversion, the risk of recurrent AF was significantly lower in the group allocated to coffee consumption (47%) compared with the abstinence group (64%).
I stopped caffeine in large part because of the culture around it. So many people treat it like a competition: who needs more before they can get started in the morning. Like some kind of perverse contest over who’s more addicted, as if that’s something to be proud of. Even this article starts the same way—a brag over how many pots they needed.
I adopted the perspective of treating it like a drug, and to use it for its benefits when appropriate.
I know lots of people who joke about it -- "haha not human until I've had my cup" -- but I've never been anywhere where people treat it like a competition.
I've been off of all forms of caffeine for about 40 years. I was thoroughly addicted to it, and in my 20's, I was drinking about six cups of coffee per day. It took me three tries to kick the habit, and the final time I quit (all cold turkey), I felt like a heroin addict (I assume). I had cold sweats, shakes, headache, and vomiting. I missed two days of work while recovering.
I'll never forget how awful I felt, and it's a constant reminder for me to never go back to caffeine. I make coffee for my wife every morning, and the smell is enticing, but I can easily resist. My wife is a zombie when she wakes up, and she really needs the coffee. She doesn't seem to have an issue with it, and usually has only one cup per day. Now when I wake up, I'm alert and ready to go.
Caffeine is difficult to avoid, and it's such a commonly used drug that most people do not give it a second thought.
Another interesting side effect I noticed while doing coffee was the poor quality of the code I had written on the previous day. I was doing embedded assembly (6809) at the time, and each morning, I would pick up where I left off and notice a ton of mistakes. It looked like I was high while I wrote the code. Under "normal" circumstances, my code is often error free, and requires minimal debug.
But you never had to quit - studies don't indicate that moderate caffeine consumption had negative health effect, even had unproven heart benefits (as a runner, it certainly doesn't make me slower). And I don't think this is the result of "Big Coffee" skewing the scientific consensus.
I quit (each time) because I didn't like the withdrawal symptoms I was having on the weekends, when I didn't get enough. I went back to it (each time) because everyone else was doing it, and it seemed so easily justifiable.
To each his (or her) own. I'm not an anti-caffeine zealot. If I was, I wouldn't have been married to my wife for over 30 years. I like the way I feel when I'm not on drugs, but I don't disparage those who do them.
I cold turkeyed once and did not feel much except for the first few days, probably because I am not a heavy drinker.
However, I picked it up later because I always want to drink something with taste, and the mix of coffee, some milk and sometimes a bit of sugar does provide satisfaction without feeling the guity of gaining weight.
I have never drunk coffee. However, I do take a very very small dose of caffeine pills. The pills are 200mg but I break them into tiny pieces and micro dose around noon with last dose around 3pm. Some days I take 100mg total, other days I take 200mg total. Another thing I do is eat proper food at same time because otherwise I become jittery.
I also cycle off caffeine or taper the doses every few months when I am travelling.
My stomach is solid.
Does anyone know if the acidity is from coffee or caffeine itself?
It had become increasingly clear to me over the last few years that my anxiety disorder was being massively exacerbated by caffeine. It took so long to figure this out because it takes 6-7 hours _after_ a single coffee for it to hit, and if I'm drinking coffee the whole time, I'm always a bit anxious, rather than an obvious cause-and-effect.
In April I tapered down to one espresso a day, and then half an espresso, and then finally nothing. I'm still drinking a _lot_ of decaf, which is helpful (although check your decaf, some is still caffeinated enough to not be worth the name).
Immediate symptoms from going to half an espresso to zero espressos a day was massive dysphoria and melancholy. Around week 4 I started Wellbutrin, which made it very hard to figure out my moods reliably until it had settled down. Around week 12, I was off caffeine and feeling like myself again except minus the anxiety.
I miss it. I have had, since then, I think 4 real espressos. It gives me a reliable energy boost, and makes me happy, but then 6-7 hours later, the anxiety I lived with most of my life is back until I nap, take a benzodiazepine, or wait it out 12 hours or so.
All this to say: if you have GAD, and still drink coffee, try not drinking coffee for a month, and see where you end up. I would describe myself as no longer having GAD, although I am still titrating down the (fairly effective) SSRI I was on to manage it.
This article (and it's second part) couldn't have come at a more helpful time. I have such an unhealthy relationship with caffeine (and sugary drinks in general), that I would literally go days without drinking any water. If it didn't come from a 7-11 or a coffee machine, I wasn't going to drink it.
Just this week, I decided to quit cold turkey, and drink nothing but water, and it has been eye opening. I didn't realize how much I depended on the drinks to get me through the day. But going just-water is definitely the only way I could have done this. Something about knowing I have nothing to look forward to besides water helps me just drink water, instead of waiting until I can find some energy drinks, and getting dehydrated in the process.
Not everyone is going to have as unhealthy relationship with caffeine as me, but I'm hoping my kidneys and gut will thank me. I know 22 year olds seldom suffer from heart attacks, but I'm not going to be 22 forever, so might as well start now.
The author went old turkey. That is rough. For me going cold turkey caused massive headaches. I cut out caffeine a decade ago. It was a haphazard affair. I wanted to improve my sleep, so I started limiting my intake by stopping in the afternoon. At the same time I started having anxiety and panic attacks in the morning before my first dose. It was so bad I lost 10 pounds. That’s when I started to figure out “hey this might be a problem”. Over the course of a month I reduced my caffeine intake to zero. No headaches. Panic attacks went away. Ymmv.
Congrats on quitting, even for something considered "mild" like caffeine it's not easy. I had the same issue with headaches so I scaled down by mixing increasing ratios of decaf in my coffee grounds over a couple months, starting with just 25% decaf. The gradual reduction in potency was barely noticeable. Once you get to 75% decaf you're basically drinking full decaf already (decaf usually still has like 10% of the normal caffeine content) and I had no ill effects from quitting completely after that. If you subsequently decide to relapse with decaf or half-caf it's also much easier to quit again.
I drink 2-3 cups of coffee a day. Mostly espresso drinks.
There are/were times where I travel or go camping and stopped taking coffee. Other than maybe a very mild headache the first day there weren't any issues.
I enjoy the taste, the rituals, and the temporary boost. But I know I'm addicted ;) There are lots of articles about how it's a good thing but I'm pretty sure it has some impact (not always positive) on my mood.
I’ve gone off coffee for months at a time as a test, but to be honest it’s about the same for me on vs off after the adjustment period.
When I go off, after the headaches, I get good sleep without trying, but so do I on coffee if I have my last one no later than 1pm (where good == 7 hours).
And a proper flat white is so, so good. Therefore I accept my addiction and have two a day!
I also get pretty bad coffee withdrawal, (migraines, mainly) even starting from 2 daily cups.
I’m a nerd and always weigh my beans/water. Last time I quit, I cut my intake by 1g of beans per day until I was down to 8g, then stopped entirely. Took about a month, but no withdrawal whatsoever.
Tapering is definitely the way to go if you’re prone to side-effects.
Stopping greatly reduced issues with my stiff neck and I also noticed that my hands are not nearly as cold as before. I drink black tea time to time, but it is nowhere near as addictive as coffee so I have no trouble with moderation.
I'll never get back into daily morning caffeine. If anyone sees me doing this again regularly, you can just slap me. :)
I try to keep it to once or twice a week at most, and around lunch time, as I still like coffee. But this way you don't build a dependence.
This year I quit cold turkey and holy crap, night sweats, panic attacks, flu like symptoms for several days.
I drink 2-3 cups of coffee a day (or double espressos) and have done so for about 20 years. Usually the first thing I do when I wake up is drink coffee. When we had our first child over three years ago, my wife said she wanted me to stop drinking coffee for a few months so I could nap on demand. I quit cold turkey. It was fine. Several months later I went back to drinking coffee and it was still fine. There was definitely a noticeable difference but nothing like you're talking about.
Everyone's sensitivity to caffeine is different. For example, if I miss my one 8 oz. cup each morning, I have a massive headache by 1:15pm.
When work picks up, like a big project, I might increase my intake to a larger 12oz or 16 oz coffee per day, but then I'll end up sustaining that too long after the project ends.
After a while, I'll do a cold turkey reset to zero caffeine. It takes 4 days and about 800mg of Ibuprofen each day to make it through the headaches. Luckily no other withdrawal symptoms.
I have friends that only drink coffee on weekdays... I don't get how that can be done! For me, coffee is preventative medicine.
Think the author's case is extreme and so is his remedy.. For most that drink 3-4 cups a day or so there's no need to stop imho.
There's numerous benefits that keep appearing in medical lit, including protection vs atrial defibrillation, stomach cancer etc.
For me I stopped briefly during bad bout of gastritis with all the withdrawal symptoms listed but have resumed since. No known bad effects so far. Yes my tummy is not in ideal condition but that's due to other vices like alcohol.
Ymmv
I reduced my coffee intake gradually back in ‘21-‘22down to just green tea in the morning. I did not notice any real changes in my life aside from two points. I took longer to ramp up productivity and alertness in the mornings. I also now eased into my “go to bed” routine at night whereas on coffee it was a much more dramatic crash. We ended up having our first kid mid-‘22, and I got back on the java wagon. Of all potential vices, this one certainly feel lightweight. I just don’t drink it after Noon.
I actually intentionally stopped drinking caffeine when we had kids. Long nights of little to no sleep made me absolutely not want to mess with my sleep cycle any more. I started drinking tea once the kids got older and sleep was once again regular.
For me caffeine is something to enhance my well rested self. Not something to make my body ignore important signals regarding rest.
I got a headache when I had to show up fasted for a blood test. Didn’t like that at all so I got decaf for home morning coffee. I can drink whatever in the afternoon and now no headache when I fast for blood tests. Much happier about that outcome.
(2013) At the time (76 points, 82 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5008593
Part 2 (231 points, 124 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5017486
There's also a two-year follow-up: <https://bryanalexander.org/personal/two-years-without-caffei...>
(Posted to HN, but only two comments: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8791462>.)
I am lucky enough to get regular palpitations. I read that caffeine can make them worse, so I stopped for a few months. They got worse. Talked to my Dr about it and he said yeah, sometimes it doesn't work like you'd think.
(Along the same lines, actually, I also made my palpitations much worse this year by dramatically improving my physical fitness. Turns out that slow heart rate for me means more palpitations. Heart rates above ~70 means almost no palpitations. Something about overdrive, but I am not an expert.)
So at least I don't have to give up my caffeine ;-)
This study was doing the rounds last week.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/28412...
> Question Does consumption of caffeinated coffee have a beneficial, detrimental, or neutral effect on the risk of recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) episodes?
> Findings In this multicenter randomized clinical trial including 200 patients with persistent AF undergoing cardioversion, the risk of recurrent AF was significantly lower in the group allocated to coffee consumption (47%) compared with the abstinence group (64%).
I stopped caffeine in large part because of the culture around it. So many people treat it like a competition: who needs more before they can get started in the morning. Like some kind of perverse contest over who’s more addicted, as if that’s something to be proud of. Even this article starts the same way—a brag over how many pots they needed.
I adopted the perspective of treating it like a drug, and to use it for its benefits when appropriate.
where did you work where this was a thing?
I know lots of people who joke about it -- "haha not human until I've had my cup" -- but I've never been anywhere where people treat it like a competition.
A great timeless article.
I've been off of all forms of caffeine for about 40 years. I was thoroughly addicted to it, and in my 20's, I was drinking about six cups of coffee per day. It took me three tries to kick the habit, and the final time I quit (all cold turkey), I felt like a heroin addict (I assume). I had cold sweats, shakes, headache, and vomiting. I missed two days of work while recovering.
I'll never forget how awful I felt, and it's a constant reminder for me to never go back to caffeine. I make coffee for my wife every morning, and the smell is enticing, but I can easily resist. My wife is a zombie when she wakes up, and she really needs the coffee. She doesn't seem to have an issue with it, and usually has only one cup per day. Now when I wake up, I'm alert and ready to go.
Caffeine is difficult to avoid, and it's such a commonly used drug that most people do not give it a second thought.
Another interesting side effect I noticed while doing coffee was the poor quality of the code I had written on the previous day. I was doing embedded assembly (6809) at the time, and each morning, I would pick up where I left off and notice a ton of mistakes. It looked like I was high while I wrote the code. Under "normal" circumstances, my code is often error free, and requires minimal debug.
But you never had to quit - studies don't indicate that moderate caffeine consumption had negative health effect, even had unproven heart benefits (as a runner, it certainly doesn't make me slower). And I don't think this is the result of "Big Coffee" skewing the scientific consensus.
I quit (each time) because I didn't like the withdrawal symptoms I was having on the weekends, when I didn't get enough. I went back to it (each time) because everyone else was doing it, and it seemed so easily justifiable.
Well that's an easy fix, just brew them on weekends too. Life is not just work and also deserve to be caffeinated.
To each his (or her) own. I'm not an anti-caffeine zealot. If I was, I wouldn't have been married to my wife for over 30 years. I like the way I feel when I'm not on drugs, but I don't disparage those who do them.
I cold turkeyed once and did not feel much except for the first few days, probably because I am not a heavy drinker.
However, I picked it up later because I always want to drink something with taste, and the mix of coffee, some milk and sometimes a bit of sugar does provide satisfaction without feeling the guity of gaining weight.
I have never drunk coffee. However, I do take a very very small dose of caffeine pills. The pills are 200mg but I break them into tiny pieces and micro dose around noon with last dose around 3pm. Some days I take 100mg total, other days I take 200mg total. Another thing I do is eat proper food at same time because otherwise I become jittery.
I also cycle off caffeine or taper the doses every few months when I am travelling.
My stomach is solid.
Does anyone know if the acidity is from coffee or caffeine itself?
Caffeine is a weak base, the acidity in coffee is from other compounds in the bean. (Tasty, tasty compounds)
A couple of decades ago, I read that "le café est un emmerdeur biologique".
I still don't know how coffee tastes.
It had become increasingly clear to me over the last few years that my anxiety disorder was being massively exacerbated by caffeine. It took so long to figure this out because it takes 6-7 hours _after_ a single coffee for it to hit, and if I'm drinking coffee the whole time, I'm always a bit anxious, rather than an obvious cause-and-effect.
In April I tapered down to one espresso a day, and then half an espresso, and then finally nothing. I'm still drinking a _lot_ of decaf, which is helpful (although check your decaf, some is still caffeinated enough to not be worth the name).
Immediate symptoms from going to half an espresso to zero espressos a day was massive dysphoria and melancholy. Around week 4 I started Wellbutrin, which made it very hard to figure out my moods reliably until it had settled down. Around week 12, I was off caffeine and feeling like myself again except minus the anxiety.
I miss it. I have had, since then, I think 4 real espressos. It gives me a reliable energy boost, and makes me happy, but then 6-7 hours later, the anxiety I lived with most of my life is back until I nap, take a benzodiazepine, or wait it out 12 hours or so.
All this to say: if you have GAD, and still drink coffee, try not drinking coffee for a month, and see where you end up. I would describe myself as no longer having GAD, although I am still titrating down the (fairly effective) SSRI I was on to manage it.