Giving up coffee

[Lacey]

Please, please, PLEASE don't ever try any harder drugs.

Hahahahaha

I love caffeine.

The end.

 

[Udog]

Have some decaf when you start jonesing. It's surprising how good it tastes compared to no coffee at all.

Agreed.

There are other things about the coffee you might be missing, and you may not realize it. The warmth of it going into your stomach. The feeling of relaxation that can come with sipping that first cup in the morning. It's not all about the caffeine.

 

[garbage]

There are other things about the coffee you might be missing, and you may not realize it. The warmth of it going into your stomach. The feeling of relaxation that can come with sipping that first cup in the morning. It's not all about the caffeine.

This is actually a very, very good point. It's also probably why lots of smokers turn to chewing gum while in the process of quitting.

 

[PeaceBaby]

Interestingly I have chosen to have my breakfast at a different Bakery, indeed a more upmarket Bakery in Manuka.

But it is still clinging to me - it is as though I am mourning the boost it would give me every morning.

I have a sense of loss.

I miss my morning coffee.

It was the one pleasure I could count on every day.

There's clearly more that you get out of your morning coffee routine than the caffeine. Wisely, you have chosen to avoid your regular breakfast place in order to help break the habit. And you are so close to being free, try not to relent now.

I am curious why you want to stop drinking coffee. Is it not possible to restrict yourself to only one? Once you start, do you slowly crave more and more cups each day over time? (Of course, you don't have to justify your decision to stop; I am simply interested to know why.)

Personally, I have a tea in the morning instead - would that make an acceptable surrogate? Doesn't seem to give me the same side-effects as coffee, and I enjoy the ambiance of it. (Coffee gives me a shaky jittery feeling, even after just one.)

You are doing great - keep it up, you know you have the inner resources to achieve this goal.

 

[Mole]

There's clearly more that you get out of your morning coffee routine than the caffeine. Wisely, you have chosen to avoid your regular breakfast place in order to help break the habit. And you are so close to being free, try not to relent now.

I am curious why you want to stop drinking coffee. Is it not possible to restrict yourself to only one? Once you start, do you slowly crave more and more cups each day over time? (Of course, you don't have to justify your decision to stop; I am simply interested to know why.)

Personally, I have a tea in the morning instead - would that make an acceptable surrogate? Doesn't seem to give me the same side-effects as coffee, and I enjoy the ambiance of it. (Coffee gives me a shaky jittery feeling, even after just one.)

You are doing great - keep it up, you know you have the inner resources to achieve this goal.

Ooo! Ooo! I am having a serotonin rebound.

My low has entirely lifted. I am very much alive. I am talking and flushed. I am ready to go. I am going.

Of course it is a rebound - a serotonin rebound. I am having a serotonin high - Weee!

Of course it won't last and I will settle down to normal serotonin levels but sans caffeine.

I feel really good. My skin is tingly. I am interacting strongly with others and they seem to be enjoying it.

I should put some time alone just for myself and dance. And I think dance to rock 'n' roll.

And modulate my dancing with meditation - I dance for five minutes then I sit and meditate for five minutes. And I do this five times. I takes about 50 minutes. It's called l'alternance.

But what a perfect way to soak up my excess serotonin.

I am no longer behind the eight ball - the eight ball of coffee. The only danger at the moment is that I might become over-confident. But this euphoric moment will pass and I will settle down. And in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy it.

 

[Synapse]

Nothing wrong with resisting the urges of coffee or tea drinking. I'm drink water moslty, haha, with a touch of goat or soy milk on the side. And I'm sugar free too and loving it, notice the over emphasis of loving it. All it took was a half a year of cheese cravings and a constant supply of apples, now its just apple love.

But really why drink coffee when you got tea, well I think I don't drink tea either because while green and black tea are full of anti-oxidants and polyphenols they also contain very high amounts of fluoride, which is highly toxic to the body. Like I don't get enough from toothpaste and tap water, drawls.

Haha its so much easier finding something awful on tea than coffee. grumbles something about not getting enough coffee. Ah those were the days, popping a bit of coffee over caffeinated soft drinks and watching the fizz go. I drinks coffee from time to time but I'm not fond of it as much as I used to be, as social politeness.

 

[Mole]

But oh, oh, my serotonin high has worn off and i am feeling exhausted.

But I know what my immediate future is - again I will move up onto the serotonin high, but not as high as before.

Then I will move onto exhaustion but not as exhausted as before.

So I will oscillate between the high and the exhaustion. And each oscillation becomes smaller than the last, until the oscillation damps out completely, and I am back to normal.

What a trip coffee is giving me - it is throwing me round like a bag a chaff.

I think it is getting desperate.

 

[Totenkindly]

If you're worried about all that caffeine going to waste if you don't drink it, don't be.
(I'll take care of that part for you. Consider it my sacrifice on your behalf.)

You go, guy!

 

[Mole]

If you're worried about all that caffeine going to waste if you don't drink it, don't be.
(I'll take care of that part for you. Consider it my sacrifice on your behalf.)

You go, guy!

Wired, Jennifer, wired!

 

[Kasper]

Damnit! Everytime I see this thread I want a coffee

 

[alcea rosea]

Victor - why would you need to give up coffee?

 

[Kasper]

Bah! Now I want another one

This thread is not helping my desire to limit my coffee intake!

 

[Mole]

Victor - why would you need to give up coffee?

It's a good question.

I could answer simply by saying, I don't like to be addicted to anything, even coffee.

Or I could say, I feel better physically without coffee.

And I will even be saving a little bit of money.

And I could go on to say, that nature abhors a vacuum, and something will be sucked into the vacuum left by coffee. And today, something was.

Instead of coffee, I had a large freshly squeezed fruit juice of apple, pineapple, watermelon and ginger.

It was delicious and I felt good afterwards. And most important it reduced the acidity in my body and replaced it with alkalinity.

But at a deeper level, I don't like being controlled by anyone or anything, even coffee.

So I have given up coffee to be a little more free. And to be free to choose a fresher diet of fruit, vegetables, juice, nuts and fish.

But really, I really like being free of coffee.

Today I am moving back towards equilibrium, although I am feeling just a little low.

And for some indefinable reason, I think I should lie low for a few days, to give my body time to adjust.

But after a quiet time, a time perhaps to feel the loss and say goodbye, I shall dance and guzzle fresh fruit juices.

 

[Tigerlily]

I once gave up coffee because it seemed like a thing to do. I had never noticed the stimulating effects of coffee to any great extent, and I never noticed the lack of them upon giving it up. The only thing I noticed was that I really like coffee and I wasn't drinking coffee anymore. So I went back.

yup. same here.

 

[Mole]

I once gave up coffee because it seemed like a thing to do. I had never noticed the stimulating effects of coffee to any great extent, and I never noticed the lack of them upon giving it up. The only thing I noticed was that I really like coffee and I wasn't drinking coffee anymore. So I went back.

Yes, I am called Over-Excitable (OE).

Being OE means I have a high response to stimulae.

And I have a high response to any and all stimulae.

And so I have a high physical and psychological response to coffee.

So when I drink it, I notice the difference. And when I don't drink it, I also notice the difference.

And as we perceive by making distinctions, I can see and feel coffee by noticing the distinction between drinking and not drinking coffee.

I look at one side of the distinction (drinking coffee), and then at the other side of the distinction (not drinking coffee), and so I can perceive coffee.

If drinking coffee makes no appreciable difference to you, then you are blind to coffee.

This principle applies to almost everything -

If we perceive by making distinctions, then if we are unable to appreciate a distinction, then to that degree, we are blind.

But on the other hand, the more distinctions, the more we see.

For instance, a word is a distinction - so the more words we appreciate, the more we understand.

TV, for instance, is sub-literate - that is why it is so good at dumbing us down.

In fact TV is so good at dumbing us down, it has now become cool to be sub-literate.

And the literate are now the butt of humour.

And so we can expect those who don't understand words, not to understand coffee.

Of do you think that is a bridge too far?

 

[matmos]

This principal applies to almost everything -

Victor. I think that's the best thing I've read this year.

All the best, buddy.

 

[Mole]

Victor. I think that's the best thing I've read this year.

All the best, buddy.

Thanks mate, and yes it is very interesting principle as it underlies all of mathematics.

All of mathematics begins with an injunction -

"Make a distinction".

And all else flows from this one injunction.

And so we derive the corollaries -

"We perceive by making distinctions", and

"The more distinctions, the more we perceive".

And how fascinating that mathematics can be applied to coffee.

 

[substitute]

I recently gave up caffeine accidentally - well, not gave up entirely, but as good as. Lemme tell ya a yarn...

Being of French extraction, I have always drunk my coffee black. But I've lived in England most of my life, where people drink shitty coffee and almost always put milk in it, and in tea as well. I got used to tea with milk, and giving the coffee a miss unless I was at home with my decent shit. Then I spent an extended period on the mainland, where the tea is awful but the coffee's great, so being unable to obtain a decent cup of tea for a good few weeks, I stuck to the coffee.

When I came back to the island, I found that drinking tea wasn't the same any more. It was the milk - but yet, I don't really find tea (the India tea usually drunk in England) at all palatable without milk either. So what to do?

Then I watched a TV show called the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, where a woman in Botswana drinks red bush tea all the time, and it reminded me of a time years ago when I bought redbush by accident at a shop once, and, being the open kinda guy I am, gave it a try and found I liked it without milk, used up the box and then didn't buy another one for reasons I can't recall.

So, next day I went out and got some redbush (or rooibos), which is naturally caffeine free, and that became my staple drink during the day. The caffeine free-ness was just incidental, I had no prior plans of giving up caffeine, specially since when I've tried to before it's been painful!

When I woke up in the morning, I felt like I still needed a caffeine hit, so for about a week I was having coffee first thing, then redbush all day and evening. Then I found the coffee was too high in caffeine as my tolerance to it lowered, and just drinking one cup of it makes me go all shaky and sweaty and horrible, so I switched to half-decaff for first thing. Another week later, I can even take or leave that, and am as often as not just having the redbush all the time now, and only drinking the half-decaff or decaff to be sociable or convenient when guests are around. And the really awesome thing is that I have not suffered any caffeine withdrawal symptoms

Though, amusingly, this has had no impact whatsoever on my lifelong insomnia issues!!

 

[substitute]

... mind you I don't see the point in giving it up totally, which is why I didn't. Just switch to half decaff, then after two weeks have decaff most of the day and half decaff first thing in the morning. After that you'll find your dependency has disappeared and you can enjoy a cup now and again without longterm dependency. Also if you say you're quitting altogether, you make a rod for your back cos there will be times when you just fancy a single cup, and you know you won't get addicted again, but if you have one you'll feel like you've failed and disappointed yourself, you'll feel guilty, which is absurd. It's just coffee.

 

[alcea rosea]

So I have given up coffee to be a little more free. And to be free to choose a fresher diet of fruit, vegetables, juice, nuts and fish.

But really, I really like being free of coffee.

Hmmm... interesting points.
I kind of understand what you mean.

I'm myself the kind of coffee drinker who drinks a lot sometimes and sometimes don't drink coffee at all. Currently I'm drinking pretty much coffee and I think about a year from now I won't dring any. Hehe, I'm not very consistent in my ways. That is why I don't see it's important in my own life to be free of coffee...