Today, I again find myself hesitating to write, but contrary to previous days, it’s not because I’m waiting for a good idea, but for an appropriate frame of mind.

I know I wrote about this recently and said that the "frame of mind manifests itself if one makes the space for it," but still, there’s the question of whether this is how it actually works. And so I wait for the best moment to sit down and write.

Though, really, the reason I’m hesitating is that I’m currently going through some stuff that I don’t want to put out there. On one hand, it’s just plain personal stuff, and on the other, I’m again thinking about the fact that someone I know might read it.

Well, maybe the best thing to do now is to focus on something else?

...

I think I’ve mentioned in one of my previous posts that I was trying to quit caffeine, and it has been going quite well! In the last two days, I haven’t had any coffee or tea and didn’t really feel the need for it. Though yesterday afternoon I was exhausted, and some caffeine might’ve done wonders.

Today I did have a cup of chai tea, which has black tea in it (of course). This time around, I’m deciding not to be too obsessive about caffeine avoidance and to allow myself to have some whenever I feel like it, while also imposing some sane limits.

Last time I tried leaving caffeine, I was adamant about not having any, which turned out to be incredibly difficult! I don’t think you really notice how pervasive caffeine is until you try to make do without it. It’s crazy. It’s in everything from sweets to soft drinks. Even chocolate has an analog of caffeine called theobromine, which basically does the same thing1.

I don’t know how it is for others, but for me, caffeine makes me feel really good for like half an hour, and then I start feeling like I’m "going down," which is usually accompanied by mild irritability. After around two hours, I start feeling anxious.

The strength of the symptoms depends, of course, on the amount I drink. I observe little to no negative effects when I drink small amounts (e.g., a single cup of green tea), but it also feels less good (yeah, I’m a junkie). Drinking too much makes me feel terrible, as if I’d been poisoned2.

Caffeine is clearly not good for me, which is why I’ve decided to greatly decrease my consumption. It took me a surprisingly long time to finally reach that conclusion. I usually thought that all those negative feelings (the worst of which is the generalized anxiety) were worth it for that brief respite I get at the beginning—that brief removal of that morning feeling of misery.

I’ve read others refer to "the morning craving" as the "caffeine monster," and it’s a really appropriate term. Some mornings, I did indeed feel like a monster, being mean to everyone, including (and most importantly) being mean to myself (and then feeling guilty about it). This was especially so when there were other stressors around, like my older son demanding I play with him (which happened almost every day).

Yet a single cup of coffee could silence those voices (or at least quiet them down a bit) and make me see the beauty in the sunrise.

Now that I’ve spent some days (~a week) drinking little to no caffeine, I have to admit that the "morning drama" is definitely less. The voices are still there but much less pronounced. Most days, they’re actually quite manageable without any external aid. Today was not such a day, though, but that’s okay. I still see that as a huge win.

...

I know there’s quite a bit of research proclaiming the benefits of coffee and caffeine in general3, but I always wonder:

1. Who wrote those studies? Are they themselves coffee drinkers? If so, maybe we’re in a situation where an addict is trying to rationalize their addiction?

• These studies might be scientifically rigorous, but there might be bias in the form of what questions the researchers look to explore, as well as how they set up the experiment.

1. Do these findings also transfer to other people like me, for whom caffeine has both positive and negative effects? Are people like me also included in those studies or not? Or are we considered statistical outliers and, as such, ignored?

Then there’s also the separation between the scientific research and all the hundreds of websites parroting that research and drawing their own conclusions. Usually, this sort of website is the medium through which the research gets into the cultural stream, so my idea that "caffeine should be good" is likely adulterated by the bias of these sites that really just care about increasing their readership.

...

Another thing I often wonder about is what our society would be like if we didn’t have caffeine. Would we be as workaholic as we are? Maybe everyone would chill a bit more and value the "slow life"? Though that’s probably a topic for another "vomit" :)

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Footnotes

To be honest, I have never experienced taking appreciable doses of dark chocolate to see how I respond to it. I’ve read online that for some people chocolate produces a similar effect but with much less anxiety. On the other hand, there are others who report a more stimulating effect from chocolate. Hard to tell without trying. ↩ 1.

In some sense, I’m poisoning myself, no? After all, caffeine, like nicotine, is a poison that some plants produce to keep away pests. ↩ 1.

Though I have to admit I’m not that familiar with exactly what that research says or whether there’s any counterevidence in other studies. I’ll look it up after I’m done writing this. ↩