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I weaned myself off of caffeine entirely seven months ago. Being free of caffeine has greatly improved the quality of my sleep and made my mood more even throug

I weaned myself off of caffeine entirely seven months ago. Being free of caffeine has greatly improved the quality of my sleep and made my mood more even throughout the day. I really appreciate being able to jump straight out of bed in the morning without depending on that coffee to get my brain working.

bryanlarsen 11y ago
Benefits of quitting caffeine for me : - fewer head aches - much better sleep - reduced mid afternoon blahs - easier wake ups - ability to use small amounts of caffeine for medicinal purposes. (by itself or to enhance the effects of other drugs)
- prodmerc 11y ago
  Huh, I get fewer headaches and wake up easier with coffee.
  - bryanlarsen 11y ago
    That's because you're addicted. You're dependent on it to wake up, and when you don't use it, you get withdrawal headaches. You may need to go about a month caffeine free to see the benefits
    - aroch 11y ago
      Or GP may be prone to migraines and potentially doesn't know it... I am and find caffeine pretty good at dulling their effects over multi-day migraines (Which I get fairly regularly). The frequency of migraines for me is independent of caffeine consumption; I've gones months with no caffeine and suffered though migraines, just as I've gone through months of heavy coffee/tea drinking and suffered (a little less) through them
      - prodmerc 11y ago
        You're right, I am prone to migraines, or at least I think that's what they are. I can go without coffee for weeks, have gone 2 months last year. Everything seems fine, but some days, I wake up in the morning with a terrible, terrible headache that fortunately goes away after a rather high dose of paracetamol+aspirin. Sometimes it occurs in the evening when I come home, seemingly fine, but then bam, hammer to the head. If I drink coffee regularly, I pretty much never get them...
    - randallsquared 11y ago
      If it takes longer than a week to be completely free of withdrawal symptoms, there's something else wrong, I'd think. Two or three days is a more normal recovery time.
      - bryanlarsen 11y ago
        Yes, the worst withdrawal symptoms were over in a week. It took about a month to see the benefits of a caffeine free life.
      - thrownaway2424 11y ago
        That wasn't my experience. I had body pains, headaches, chills, and a profound feeling of fatigue for two weeks when I kicked caffeine (at first by accident, and then I ran with it).
    - WalterSear 11y ago
      I went almost two months without caffeine at the end of last year, I muscled through at first, but about week six I realized I was just as tired as day one. I felt cheated :)
  - PKop 11y ago
    You have to give it up for about a month to really compare the difference. I speak from experience. Long term after quitting there's no comparison: much easier to wake up and much easier to fall asleep (for me). If you're comparing how you feel drinking coffee, to how you feel a few days after quitting, then of course the coffee will feel better. If this doesn't describe your situation, then disregard.
hrnnnnnn 11y ago
At what time of day did you typically have your last coffee?
- mcculley 11y ago
  For the last few years before I quit entirely, I was careful not to have caffeine after lunch or early afternoon. Nonetheless, quitting morning coffee has improved my sleep. I'm 44. I think I became more sensitive to the effect on my sleep as I got older, as I hear is common.
rubidium 11y ago
I believe that's a fairly common experience (it was mine too when I quit for a year). Caffeine leads to highs and lows. W/o caffeine and having good sleeping patterns leads to higher average energy level and less highs and lows. Personally though, I love the taste and enjoy the experience of "waking up" with a cup of coffee over the course of the first 20 minutes of the day.
- ibmthrowaway218 11y ago
  > Personally though, I love the taste and enjoy the experience of "waking up" with a cup of coffee over the course of the first 20 minutes of the day. Yep, which is why I switched to decaf. Still the same taste (there are ok decaf coffees out there) but none of the bad effects of excessive caffeine. (Most decaf still has ~10% of the caffeine of regular coffee, but even with 4 or 5 cups of decaf a day it's not enough for dependency; I get no withdrawal symptoms if I stop for any length of time). I still drink the odd normal coffee (if someone/somewhere doesn't have decaf) but a maximum of one a day otherwise it will affect my sleep that night; it also gives me a proper coffee buzz for the short period after drinking it.
  - mcculley 11y ago
    I had read that the process of decaffeinating coffee involves solvents that are bad for you, so I've avoided that. Maybe I should look into that closer because I certainly do enjoy the taste of good coffee.
    - maxerickson 11y ago
      It's frequently done with liquid CO2. It doesn't leave any residue (and it anyway is not toxic). So you could source beans that use that process. The roasting process is probably introducing some nice awful compounds into the mix anyway.
- mcculley 11y ago
  I do miss the taste of coffee. When I quit, I thought that I would allow myself the occasional coffee or espresso, but I've been reticent to allow myself the risk of becoming dependent again. I've not tried decaffeinated coffee because of the solvents used in producing it in general.
speeder 11y ago
I tried a couple times to get off caffeine, never worked properly... I don't feel obvious caffeine effects, but I need it to not be a wreck. Later I discovered I was self-medicating my ADHD... Now I am taking proper ADHD meds, and this allowed me to greatly reduce my caffeine use (that was wandering into dangerous and expensive territory, with me needing to drink litres of red-bull clones to work), still need it sometimes though, my ADHD meds dosage is still too low it seems (my medic is adjusting my meds still). Without caffeine + meds I can't do anything properly, I lose random objects (including a cup of coffee! I made myself a coffee yesterday, moved it somewhere in the house, and could not remember where, I spent 5 minutes wandering around looking for where I put my coffee), forget to do stuff, including important stuff, forget to eat/drink water/sleep, and all other sorts of not good behaviour.
- swah 11y ago
  Do you still live in Brazil? I've read criticisms here on HN, of doctors too eager to diagnose ADHD (specially in children) - did you felt that your doctor was aware of those issues? I ask because I'm not sure if I have ADHD or just regular anxiety/lack of focus that could be fixed by exercising/meditation/finding another job. And I don't want to go to the doctor to get hooked on drugs I don't need...
  - speeder 11y ago
    I am still in Brazil... And I've been hearing about the ADHD overdiagnosis problem for a while, and I've been staunch that I didn't had ADHD until my life was the shithole that it is now (I am 28, unemployed, don't own any property, have negative net worth, no friends, no romantic partners...) Then what I found was the opposite, as an adult, seeking for ADHD diagnosis (or diagnosis of whatever I had), led to most doctors spin around in circles trying to find everything that I could have that is NOT ADHD, because they assumed I was just some kind of junkie or someone wanting to cheat tests in university, because here in Brazil all ADHD meds are of highly controlled nature (ie: they are classed the same as Morphine for example). Eventually I found my current medic... that still is going VEEEERY slow in the dosage, the highest dosage she ever gave me was 1/5 of the maximum, and about 1/3 of what people get on average. Still, even this low dosage helped, before I had the meds, I reached a point where I was spending more on caffeine than food every day (and this is in a country that exports coffee and erva mate, thus caffeine in general here is really cheap)

bryanlarsen 11y ago

Benefits of quitting caffeine for me : - fewer head aches - much better sleep - reduced mid afternoon blahs - easier wake ups - ability to use small amounts of caffeine for medicinal purposes. (by itself or to enhance the effects of other drugs)

prodmerc 11y ago
Huh, I get fewer headaches and wake up easier with coffee.
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  That's because you're addicted. You're dependent on it to wake up, and when you don't use it, you get withdrawal headaches. You may need to go about a month caffeine free to see the benefits
  - aroch 11y ago
    Or GP may be prone to migraines and potentially doesn't know it... I am and find caffeine pretty good at dulling their effects over multi-day migraines (Which I get fairly regularly). The frequency of migraines for me is independent of caffeine consumption; I've gones months with no caffeine and suffered though migraines, just as I've gone through months of heavy coffee/tea drinking and suffered (a little less) through them
    - prodmerc 11y ago
      You're right, I am prone to migraines, or at least I think that's what they are. I can go without coffee for weeks, have gone 2 months last year. Everything seems fine, but some days, I wake up in the morning with a terrible, terrible headache that fortunately goes away after a rather high dose of paracetamol+aspirin. Sometimes it occurs in the evening when I come home, seemingly fine, but then bam, hammer to the head. If I drink coffee regularly, I pretty much never get them...
  - randallsquared 11y ago
    If it takes longer than a week to be completely free of withdrawal symptoms, there's something else wrong, I'd think. Two or three days is a more normal recovery time.
    - bryanlarsen 11y ago
      Yes, the worst withdrawal symptoms were over in a week. It took about a month to see the benefits of a caffeine free life.
    - thrownaway2424 11y ago
      That wasn't my experience. I had body pains, headaches, chills, and a profound feeling of fatigue for two weeks when I kicked caffeine (at first by accident, and then I ran with it).
  - WalterSear 11y ago
    I went almost two months without caffeine at the end of last year, I muscled through at first, but about week six I realized I was just as tired as day one. I felt cheated :)
- PKop 11y ago
  You have to give it up for about a month to really compare the difference. I speak from experience. Long term after quitting there's no comparison: much easier to wake up and much easier to fall asleep (for me). If you're comparing how you feel drinking coffee, to how you feel a few days after quitting, then of course the coffee will feel better. If this doesn't describe your situation, then disregard.

hrnnnnnn 11y ago

At what time of day did you typically have your last coffee?

mcculley 11y ago
For the last few years before I quit entirely, I was careful not to have caffeine after lunch or early afternoon. Nonetheless, quitting morning coffee has improved my sleep. I'm 44. I think I became more sensitive to the effect on my sleep as I got older, as I hear is common.

rubidium 11y ago

I believe that's a fairly common experience (it was mine too when I quit for a year). Caffeine leads to highs and lows. W/o caffeine and having good sleeping patterns leads to higher average energy level and less highs and lows. Personally though, I love the taste and enjoy the experience of "waking up" with a cup of coffee over the course of the first 20 minutes of the day.

ibmthrowaway218 11y ago
> Personally though, I love the taste and enjoy the experience of "waking up" with a cup of coffee over the course of the first 20 minutes of the day. Yep, which is why I switched to decaf. Still the same taste (there are ok decaf coffees out there) but none of the bad effects of excessive caffeine. (Most decaf still has ~10% of the caffeine of regular coffee, but even with 4 or 5 cups of decaf a day it's not enough for dependency; I get no withdrawal symptoms if I stop for any length of time). I still drink the odd normal coffee (if someone/somewhere doesn't have decaf) but a maximum of one a day otherwise it will affect my sleep that night; it also gives me a proper coffee buzz for the short period after drinking it.
- mcculley 11y ago
  I had read that the process of decaffeinating coffee involves solvents that are bad for you, so I've avoided that. Maybe I should look into that closer because I certainly do enjoy the taste of good coffee.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    It's frequently done with liquid CO2. It doesn't leave any residue (and it anyway is not toxic). So you could source beans that use that process. The roasting process is probably introducing some nice awful compounds into the mix anyway.
mcculley 11y ago
I do miss the taste of coffee. When I quit, I thought that I would allow myself the occasional coffee or espresso, but I've been reticent to allow myself the risk of becoming dependent again. I've not tried decaffeinated coffee because of the solvents used in producing it in general.

speeder 11y ago

I tried a couple times to get off caffeine, never worked properly... I don't feel obvious caffeine effects, but I need it to not be a wreck. Later I discovered I was self-medicating my ADHD... Now I am taking proper ADHD meds, and this allowed me to greatly reduce my caffeine use (that was wandering into dangerous and expensive territory, with me needing to drink litres of red-bull clones to work), still need it sometimes though, my ADHD meds dosage is still too low it seems (my medic is adjusting my meds still). Without caffeine + meds I can't do anything properly, I lose random objects (including a cup of coffee! I made myself a coffee yesterday, moved it somewhere in the house, and could not remember where, I spent 5 minutes wandering around looking for where I put my coffee), forget to do stuff, including important stuff, forget to eat/drink water/sleep, and all other sorts of not good behaviour.

swah 11y ago
Do you still live in Brazil? I've read criticisms here on HN, of doctors too eager to diagnose ADHD (specially in children) - did you felt that your doctor was aware of those issues? I ask because I'm not sure if I have ADHD or just regular anxiety/lack of focus that could be fixed by exercising/meditation/finding another job. And I don't want to go to the doctor to get hooked on drugs I don't need...
- speeder 11y ago
  I am still in Brazil... And I've been hearing about the ADHD overdiagnosis problem for a while, and I've been staunch that I didn't had ADHD until my life was the shithole that it is now (I am 28, unemployed, don't own any property, have negative net worth, no friends, no romantic partners...) Then what I found was the opposite, as an adult, seeking for ADHD diagnosis (or diagnosis of whatever I had), led to most doctors spin around in circles trying to find everything that I could have that is NOT ADHD, because they assumed I was just some kind of junkie or someone wanting to cheat tests in university, because here in Brazil all ADHD meds are of highly controlled nature (ie: they are classed the same as Morphine for example). Eventually I found my current medic... that still is going VEEEERY slow in the dosage, the highest dosage she ever gave me was 1/5 of the maximum, and about 1/3 of what people get on average. Still, even this low dosage helped, before I had the meds, I reached a point where I was spending more on caffeine than food every day (and this is in a country that exports coffee and erva mate, thus caffeine in general here is really cheap)