Well I’m now on about the 3rd week without any coffee, an experiment I decided to try to see what effect it had on my health and concentration.
The result, well to start with, I did not suffer the reported withdrawal symptoms that I’ve heard of from many people, and I used to drink reasonable amount of coffee, usually 2 for breakfast (instant, 2 spoons of coffee) and at work I have a 4 cup coffee plunger, that was usually gone within the 1st hour, then top ups for the rest of the day. Just before starting on my no coffee experiment I was tending not to drink it from mid afternoon, so that may have contributed to no withdrawal symptoms, as I was already sending my body into shock by drinking large amounts for ½ the waking day and then stopping.
Probably the most noticeable effects noticed were
no more dehydration effects:
where I might get tension around the head that may lead to a headache if I did not drink more coffee or start drinking some water, and this has had a positive effect on my exercising routines as I no longer need to worry about making sure I hydrate myself before starting an exercise routine, by drinking a large amount of water, which of course created issues of carrying that water in the body while trying to exercise and then needing to get rid of that excess water ½ way through the routine.
and
no more over stimulation:
When I had drank way too much coffee in a short period, often causing a slight unwell feeling and difficulty focussing on more complex tasks, although it was good for just getting mindless things done like paperwork, etc…
I’ve had no trouble with waking up and getting going, in fact I’m waking up earlier and getting out and doing things before I need to start getting ready for work, but this was also a conscious choice unrelated to the removal of coffee.
One thing I have noticed about drinking coffee as a ‘pick-me-up”, I now look back at when I was run down and tired and would have a coffee to ‘perk me up’ and I now realise that this was not helping, the stimulating effects of coffee for me seems to work best when I was already moderately active and alert, and seemed to enhance that state of being, whereas drinking a strong coffee when run down, just gave a short term boost which went nowhere and left me feeling worse than before, this maybe due to that fact my body had adapted to drinking coffee that it no longer had a strong enough effect on me any more to lift me up when feeling tired and run down, it will be interesting to see what happens when I start drinking coffee again, although at this stage I’m not sure when that will be as I’ve become quite attached to drinking green tea at the moment, and trying different varieties of green tea and other herbal teas (I must admit I really have never liked the traditional herbal teas - camomile, etc but the with a better selection available at my local supermarkets I’m starting to enjoy the variety of teas I can try.
An interesting article on coffee by Yvonne Volante can be found here http://www.articlecity.com/articles/food_and_drink/article_1467.shtml
