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I quit caffeine about 8 weeks ago for mental health reasons. It has been TREMENDOUS so far. I'm still hesitant on writing about it because it's such a new exper

I quit caffeine about 8 weeks ago for mental health reasons. It has been TREMENDOUS so far. I'm still hesitant on writing about it because it's such a new experiment. When I was on caffeine I was on a lot of it. Probably around 400-600mg a day combining my pre workout with my daily coffees. It is one of my favorite drugs and I loved taking it. This was the last 15 years of my life. I became quite irritable over the past couple years with the inability for my mind to sit still which spiraled me into manic depression. I slowly weened myself off for a few months and finally quit altogether 8 weeks ago. I've noticed I am much calmer, my mind is quieter, and my bipolar 2 is no where to be seen. Life definitely seems "duller" which sucks. But the lack of excitement everywhere feels much healthier. Working out is definitely harder, as is being productive at work, but I'm slowly figuring out ways to combat that. If you haven't taken a break I highly recommend it. Even to just reduce you tolerance so you can feel just how powerful a drug this stuff is.

rhino369 5y ago
I quit and I just felt worse. I'm not a morning person and only caffeine lets me function. My trade off was no caffeine on the weekends. It lowered my tolerance a lot since I had over 48 hours off it. I don't have any mental health issues, so I can't speak to that trade off. But in the past, when I've had some anxiety, caffeine makes it worse.
qwertox 5y ago
I've quit drinking coffee and any caffeine-containing product for a couple of months, but I ultimately ended up with drinking one cup in the morning, a single teaspoon of instant coffee. I can sip from it for an hour, it's ok if it has become cold. Before quitting I was drinking around 5 or 6 cups of coffee a day with around 2 teaspoons each. Any decrease in caffeine intake would give me a migraine, which lowered my desire to drink coffee, leading to migraines of 3 days in duration. A detox. And I was always on the edge, felt super restless without actually being able to eliminate this feeling. Removing refined sugar from my diet is now priority #1, including chocolate and whatever contains it to enhance taste. Afterwards I may try fully quitting drinking coffee again, which shouldn't be that hard. It's just that it's a nice thing to be doing, like playing with a cigarette between the fingers and smoking it. You loose something if you remove this from the life, and what you gain isn't always that obvious. Well, the benefits of quitting smoking are easy to recognize, but it's harder with coffee.
- specto 5y ago
  Exactly. Coffee is fine in moderation, 1 maybe 2 cups a day. Most people who talk about quitting are drinking 3-6 cups.
spacemadness 5y ago
Everything being duller is what I recall the last time I tried quitting. My theory is that it takes quite a while until you achieve a new baseline. I was much calmer which is a good tradeoff I think. I cut my caffeine down to one cup of coffee in the morning and think I get the best of both worlds but maybe I should try quitting again and see if that holds.
kzrdude 5y ago
Do you sleep better now, is that the explanation? I quit coffee for a few years, to fix my sleep, and it really did (now I'm back on caffeine and managing ok-ish). I would suggest to anyone curious to try. And if you quit coffee make it two weeks or so to really see the difference.
- carlgreene 5y ago
  I dream more, but I didn't ever really have a problem sleeping.
  - kzrdude 5y ago
    Maybe you sleep better without sleeping longer. I'm no expert, but I've read that caffeine and alcohol can affect sleep quality in that way. Either way, great that it has a good effect.
- Fnoord 5y ago
  I quit drinking coffee in the evening, and that helped with sleep. But sleep is also a matter of habit. If its broken, you need to fix it by breaking the current habit of sleeping schedule.
derbOac 5y ago
When I've read about people quitting caffeine, it seems like half of people see no difference and half of them feel like their lives have improved. I'm kind of thinking of stopping, only because it bothers me if I go on a trip or something and have to get caffeine to avoid headaches. Also, part of me wonders how caffeine is influencing me overall, if it's doing things I'm not aware of. To be honest, the reason why I'm reluctant to try it is because I tea and coffee occupy this place that I can't quite find a replacement for, which is something interesting, low-calorie, and not a depressant. By "interesting" I might mean "artisanal" or "varietal", but I'm not even sure I mean anything that specific: I just mean, there's interesting variety, differences in products to try. Coffee and/or tea also are pretty low calorie if taken black (like I do), and unlike things like wine or beer, which are also artisanal in nature, don't act as depressants per se. If there was something like coffee or tea, with lots of variety and skill involved, that kept me from consuming calories from other sources, and didn't have any kind of psychopharmacological effects, I could go to that. But I am not aware of anything like that. Maybe I just need to rethink my perspective on it and what I could do to address those issues in other ways, but there are a lot of benefits to caffeinated beverages aside from the caffeine.
- morsch 5y ago
  Herbal teas? I'm sure there's a subculture of artisinal herbal teas. You can even grow your own.
  - barbazoo 5y ago
    Even black teas have far less caffeine than coffee and quite a bit of variety. If I were to quit coffee I'd start there.
- meristohm 5y ago
  Since the water’s hot for my partner’s coffee, when I’m practicing going without caffeine I add a little lemon juice and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) powder to a cup of hot water, per Gandhi advice from a book he wrote in his 20s (?). It’s too hot and acidic to quaff, and while I still miss coffee with whole milk, this is a workable substitute that allows me to have wonderfully engaging dreams as part of a full-night’s sleep.
lmarcos 5y ago
After reading you, I wish I drink coffee so I can quit and experience the same feeling you experienced.
qqqwerty 5y ago
I quit over a year ago. Mostly for sleep reasons. I have cheated on my "caffeine fast" quite a bit though. I agree about the duller part, but that should go away eventually. One thing that helped, I used chicory root as a coffee substitute and I found replacing the routine helped fill the void a bit. Also, I was originally hoping I could go back to 1 or 2 cups per week, on an "as needed" basis (i.e. when I needed a productivity boost) without developing a tolerance. The first cup of coffee after a few months off was absolutely magical. But I found that even at 1-2 per week, my tolerance would quickly shoot up. Like you, I used to drink a ton of coffee so I suspect I would need to take a full year or more off with no cheating to really reset the system. A final note, I found that decaf and chocolate both have enough caffeine in them to "muddy" the waters so to speak. To get to a good "baseline" I had to cut both of those out as well.

rhino369 5y ago

I quit and I just felt worse. I'm not a morning person and only caffeine lets me function. My trade off was no caffeine on the weekends. It lowered my tolerance a lot since I had over 48 hours off it. I don't have any mental health issues, so I can't speak to that trade off. But in the past, when I've had some anxiety, caffeine makes it worse.

qwertox 5y ago

I've quit drinking coffee and any caffeine-containing product for a couple of months, but I ultimately ended up with drinking one cup in the morning, a single teaspoon of instant coffee. I can sip from it for an hour, it's ok if it has become cold. Before quitting I was drinking around 5 or 6 cups of coffee a day with around 2 teaspoons each. Any decrease in caffeine intake would give me a migraine, which lowered my desire to drink coffee, leading to migraines of 3 days in duration. A detox. And I was always on the edge, felt super restless without actually being able to eliminate this feeling. Removing refined sugar from my diet is now priority #1, including chocolate and whatever contains it to enhance taste. Afterwards I may try fully quitting drinking coffee again, which shouldn't be that hard. It's just that it's a nice thing to be doing, like playing with a cigarette between the fingers and smoking it. You loose something if you remove this from the life, and what you gain isn't always that obvious. Well, the benefits of quitting smoking are easy to recognize, but it's harder with coffee.

specto 5y ago
Exactly. Coffee is fine in moderation, 1 maybe 2 cups a day. Most people who talk about quitting are drinking 3-6 cups.

spacemadness 5y ago

Everything being duller is what I recall the last time I tried quitting. My theory is that it takes quite a while until you achieve a new baseline. I was much calmer which is a good tradeoff I think. I cut my caffeine down to one cup of coffee in the morning and think I get the best of both worlds but maybe I should try quitting again and see if that holds.

kzrdude 5y ago

Do you sleep better now, is that the explanation? I quit coffee for a few years, to fix my sleep, and it really did (now I'm back on caffeine and managing ok-ish). I would suggest to anyone curious to try. And if you quit coffee make it two weeks or so to really see the difference.

carlgreene 5y ago
I dream more, but I didn't ever really have a problem sleeping.
- kzrdude 5y ago
  Maybe you sleep better without sleeping longer. I'm no expert, but I've read that caffeine and alcohol can affect sleep quality in that way. Either way, great that it has a good effect.
Fnoord 5y ago
I quit drinking coffee in the evening, and that helped with sleep. But sleep is also a matter of habit. If its broken, you need to fix it by breaking the current habit of sleeping schedule.

derbOac 5y ago

When I've read about people quitting caffeine, it seems like half of people see no difference and half of them feel like their lives have improved. I'm kind of thinking of stopping, only because it bothers me if I go on a trip or something and have to get caffeine to avoid headaches. Also, part of me wonders how caffeine is influencing me overall, if it's doing things I'm not aware of. To be honest, the reason why I'm reluctant to try it is because I tea and coffee occupy this place that I can't quite find a replacement for, which is something interesting, low-calorie, and not a depressant. By "interesting" I might mean "artisanal" or "varietal", but I'm not even sure I mean anything that specific: I just mean, there's interesting variety, differences in products to try. Coffee and/or tea also are pretty low calorie if taken black (like I do), and unlike things like wine or beer, which are also artisanal in nature, don't act as depressants per se. If there was something like coffee or tea, with lots of variety and skill involved, that kept me from consuming calories from other sources, and didn't have any kind of psychopharmacological effects, I could go to that. But I am not aware of anything like that. Maybe I just need to rethink my perspective on it and what I could do to address those issues in other ways, but there are a lot of benefits to caffeinated beverages aside from the caffeine.

morsch 5y ago
Herbal teas? I'm sure there's a subculture of artisinal herbal teas. You can even grow your own.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  Even black teas have far less caffeine than coffee and quite a bit of variety. If I were to quit coffee I'd start there.
meristohm 5y ago
Since the water’s hot for my partner’s coffee, when I’m practicing going without caffeine I add a little lemon juice and ascorbic acid (vitamin C) powder to a cup of hot water, per Gandhi advice from a book he wrote in his 20s (?). It’s too hot and acidic to quaff, and while I still miss coffee with whole milk, this is a workable substitute that allows me to have wonderfully engaging dreams as part of a full-night’s sleep.

lmarcos 5y ago

After reading you, I wish I drink coffee so I can quit and experience the same feeling you experienced.

qqqwerty 5y ago

I quit over a year ago. Mostly for sleep reasons. I have cheated on my "caffeine fast" quite a bit though. I agree about the duller part, but that should go away eventually. One thing that helped, I used chicory root as a coffee substitute and I found replacing the routine helped fill the void a bit. Also, I was originally hoping I could go back to 1 or 2 cups per week, on an "as needed" basis (i.e. when I needed a productivity boost) without developing a tolerance. The first cup of coffee after a few months off was absolutely magical. But I found that even at 1-2 per week, my tolerance would quickly shoot up. Like you, I used to drink a ton of coffee so I suspect I would need to take a full year or more off with no cheating to really reset the system. A final note, I found that decaf and chocolate both have enough caffeine in them to "muddy" the waters so to speak. To get to a good "baseline" I had to cut both of those out as well.