Coffee addiction
 

So I been drinking for years now I want to quit.

The story was I been getting stomach issue and one of my friends who is a nurse suggest me to stop drinking coffee and see if it helps. So I did for a weekend it did help (no longer having stomach pain and no more washroom issue).

However, I am very very tired throughout the day and look very tired. I also crave for it lol. Like when I smell coffee I have just want to have some :okay:

Have anyone tire to quit coffee before? How did u. Overcome the urge to drink some?

I'll keep my life story about this so-called "coffee addiction" short.

I used to drink a lot of drip coffee. 4 to 6 cups a day (actual 236ml cups.) I would track when/what time I drank the coffee and the most obvious pointer that was that it became a routine. Naturally, I would have a cup of coffee at the same time every day at the office simply because it became a habit and a routine. And if it makes any difference, I really like coffee. I am a coffee fanatic and take it very seriously.

I got tired throughout the day like yourself. But it came down to whether or not if I ate a healthy breakfast, ate a healthy lunch, dinner, and snacks in between or throughout the day and got enough sleep. It came down to whether or not I went out to go roller blading, joggiing, working out at the gym, or riding my bicycle. I am no doctor or scientist but you need to train your body slowly to learn how to metabolize the foods you consume. As the saying goes - you are what you eat.

At the end of the day, I went cold turkey and it never became a problem. It was a slow process but I went from 6 cups a day to 4. 4 to 2. 2 to 1. Then absolutely none. I can now go for days without coffee and it isn't ever a problem.

The part about your friend suggesting you not to drink it is correct. Coffee by nature is acidic and all that coffee probably burnt a hole through your stomach. :p (Just kidding.) But instead of coffee, try having a latte or a cappuccino. The caffeine content in espresso based drinks is much less than compared to drip coffee. Give it a shot. I barely, if ever, drink drip coffee now.

try replacing it with tea?

Coffees are awesome, I would never quit. But then again, I don't drink more than 3 cups per day...

If your really having issues with it, I would replace it with green tea since it has some caffeine to give you some energy.

I love coffee. In the morning I'll have my cup for a kick start and sometimes after work I'll have another simply because I enjoy the taste.

Your energy level could also have to do with diet or exercise.

Dr on global says drinking 4-6 cups of black coffee a day is actually beneficial to your health :)

Yes, coffee and caffeine are actually good for you. You can take too much though - if you are over 600-800mg of caffeine a day (4 cups of coffee) you will want to take it down a bit. No reason to flat out quit, except for short periods of time (which will make it even more effective when you start again, and you won't need as much)

If you ever do quit, it's best to take an adaptogen to help your body deal with the stress. Rhodiola is a great supplement, and certain ginsengs can work too

Thanks. I guess is time to sleep early and eat healthy........

I usually just skip breakfast and drink coffee in the morning (or McDonald's breakfast).
Going to try to get a more healthy breakfast from now on.

This. It's a slightly lower caffeine level than coffee, which will help you depend less upon it through the day, and is a lot less likely to cause the stomach issues you've been having.

What's wrong with quitting cold turkey?

Quitting cold turkey can be done, but you will go through withdrawal. It only lasts a few days, but it can be pretty miserable. That's why an adaptogen can help

^ For me personally, a withdrawl of caffeine after having a lot of tea/coffee over the past few months was tough, granted I just completely stopped. I'd suffer pretty bad headaches almost every day and I was actually more irritable.

Everyone will experience different symptoms, and to different degrees though.

It would be interesting to see if someone changed OP's coffee with decaf and OP doesn't notice any difference. Tell him the results later and he quits cold turkey.

He would notice. He may not know why, but he would feel like absolute shit.

Definitely.

I remember during College exams, I was driving easily 6 cups, heck maybe large.
While waiting for the bus home, I remember my hand was uncontrollably shaking.

:fullofwin:

feel like shit now lol.
I already went to sleep extra early (like at 11pm), eat a dount and apple juice for breakfast but still feel so tired and sleepy..........

I would taper instead of stopping all at once. Make yourself a "latte" with half the amount of coffee you'd usually have, and double the milk, stuff like that

Quitting cold turkey is actually not good for you, and there is really no reason unless your stomach problems are acutely caused by drinking any coffee

make a strong tea, i used to drink 6 cups a day then i started to get headaches and now i only have two on the weekends, maybe you can try decaf

don't quit cold turkey, but slowly, and u need to eat balanced meals.

You realize that breakfast is straight sugar right?

I can't live without coffee. It's just too good.

Also "a donut and some apple juice" is just about the worst breakfast you can have.

During finals there's more than a few days when I'll go 1.5-2 days without sleeping. On the average study day I'll have 4 extra large timmies coffees, I lose count of exactly how many. I started having the washroom problem with coffee so I switched over to caffeine pills. Much cheaper and zero calorie ... they tend to effect your bowels less and still give you a good boost of energy.

I remember once I actually got a very high heart beat + a near panic attack because of too much caffeine :fuckthatshit:


Anyways, as long as you drink lots of water with your coffee, and don't mind having to go washroom every few hours it shouldn't be a big deal.

This is the worst type of breakfast.

Instead, pick up a box of cereal like Vector, some 1 or 2% milk. Eat 1/3 cup of that with whole grain toast, jam and/or peanut butter, maybe 2 eggs and a banana. Or if you feel like a bauss, a cup of oatmeal, cooked, some yogurt and a banana.

You're set.

I was addicted to caffeine for a long time. It wasn't coffee I was having a problem with (I only had a single cup every morning), it was drinking Coke/Pepsi. I seriously downed four or five cans of that stuff a day, at least. Just like with smoking, I quit cold turkey. Funny thing is that quitting smoking was actually far easier on my body than not drinking caffeine. For a solid week after I decided not to drink coffee/cola, I had massive headaches and my body felt like shit. It was a terrible idea to do it that way, but the way I work is that I can't just ease myself out of doing something. It has to be 100% or not at all. Anything else is just a compromise that I can eventually talk myself out of doing and simply go straight back into old habits.

On the plus side, I can drink a medium coffee in the morning now and be completely wired for the next four hours, whereas in the past I had to resort to drinking a couple of giant Rockstar energy drinks in order to get any sort of boost. Four years later, I still wont touch any form of Cola and I restrict my caffeine intake to one cup every morning with my breakfast. Personally I feel its' better this way.