u/LonelyPop1554

It’s been 11 days since I quit drinking coffee after having two anxiety attacks.

I’ve had my ups and downs; some days felt really full and good, and I had energy to do everything I wanted, some other days felt really low, with headaches and a lot of tiredness.

I kind of like this tiredness, because I feel it more like softness. I catch myself thinking I can just chill and stare at the clouds, or just walk, exercise, or just lay on my couch and read my book, and actually enjoy the calmness.

I’m experiencing new feelings, first time ever for as long as I remember myself I felt safe enough to nearly fall asleep in a park while chilling. I have zero anxiety even though nothing else in my life has changed and I still have the same things to deal with in the next months.

I don’t work currently, so I speak from a privileged space of not having too many responsibilities right now, but I do feel like I’m coming back to a state of myself when I was kid and I was not yet exposed to the brutal reality of the way our society works.

These thoughts come up to me and for sure I’m not the first to question this, what if coffee is a drug that is legal and acceptable because it works for this capitalistic society that wants you to stay pumped up, hyperactive, to overwork, be always on schedule, be hyper-productive etc.. It reminded me of how in certain offices they choose to use white lights to keep people alerted, and how my first boss bought us coffee for free and I ended up drinking 3-4 cups per day.

I mean, why didn’t we drink coffee as kids? There was no need for us to be productive in this way. And you already have so much energy. Until you reach 18, and now society considers you an adult so it’s more acceptable to drink coffee, and if you don’t, you will perhaps receive comments like “oh how come you don’t drink coffee? Wow, and you don’t feel sleepy?” etc

I still remember the first time I ever drank coffee, it was in high school when I had to give my exams for the university. I was not the only one starting the habit, most of my generation started drinking coffee at that time – in a way the exams were so demanding and it was necessary to stay up many hours and study, and of course we were introduced to it by other adults or in between us. I’m wondering about the limits of our human nature, and how our community and society need you to overcome them.

Maybe if we were still living in small communities as my grandparents did for example we wouldn’t need the coffee. They were just fine not having it and dealing with jobs like taking care of the household or working in the fields. Life made them active but they were never asked to sit in front of a computer all day and produce a ton of work in 8 hours.
When you work with your hands and use your body you know there is a limit to this and a cup of coffee won’t help you overcome your natural strength and capacity.
They worked in the fields but never stopped to drink coffee while working. Coffee was introduced to them as a way to socialise, so they could share a cup with their neighbours and catch up on their news.

But somehow when you do brain work, coffee tricks your brain to this and you feel like it’s actually working. In reality you just pump yourself up only to feel more drained later and need one more cup..
I’m curious about how life will be after staying coffee-free for months. Will I be able to work in front of a desk for many hours without stepping away from the screen? Even now, that it’s been 11 days I can only do some computer work in the afternoon for a few hours. Never in the morning when I prefer to move my body and walk or do something with my hands.
If I need to have coffee to be able to endure computer work and an office environment, I now know that I don’t want this to be my future.

I can’t help but only wonder how many other things, habits, beliefs were introduced to us from our community and society that are not aligned with our human nature and our instincts.

And I can’t put it exactly into words, but what if we stopped constantly pumping ourselves, chasing bits of energy boosters here and there, only to be productive for people who are probably living like this too, and staying on this level of awareness only benefits those who at the first place introduced coffee as harmless and perhaps necessary.

I mean, introducing other drugs wouldn’t benefit the society, if they had to deal with high bosses, employees etc but coffee does give you just the right amount of hype that works for the society. In the end, what’s the difference? Yes, it’s not harmful for your health as some other drugs, but what it does to your brain is of a great importance.

I’ve been rumbling a lot, just throwing my raw thoughts here, but what I have to say is that I would love to have a cup now and finish some things I have in mind, but writing down all these things helps me see the issue in a broader way and continue this experiment of coming back to myself, even if this means I’ll still finish my work but in a different rhythm. I already feel my days to be more stretched as my brain has cleared from all the fuzziness, and I know that my body is doing the right thing, my anxiety has stopped and I can live with being a bit less productive if that means I can focus on my well being.

Would love to hear your thoughts about all these.

Hey guys, I’d like to share my progress, it’s been four days since I last had coffee and I already feel great. I had two anxiety attacks in the last two weeks, and last time I had it I did not drink any coffee cause it happened in the morning. I tried to rest for the day and the next morning I noticed ah I didn’t drink any coffee yesterday so let’s skip it for today too and see how it goes. I never really decided I want to quit coffee but a year ago that I was diagnosed with a thyroid disease I had already minimised the amount of caffeine I took from 2-3 coffees per day to one or very rarely two. So there I was second day coffee-free and I had all the headaches and stuff, but it was day two and I noticed that I my eyes were wide open and I could look at my computer with no fatigue.
Here I am four days in the row and I have no headaches at all. I still feel a little tired but my anxiety levels are very low so I prefer this than being in a constant stress. It seems to me that even a cup of coffee per day made my anxiety worse.
I’d like to stick with this out of curiosity and see how it goes. But I wanted to ask, I had one cup of decaf and I noticed I was a little bit more nervous after that. Should I quit decaf, matcha, black or green tea too? I mean, if I have one cup or two every now and then would it ruin my coffee-free strike?

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