Reduce your caffeine intake
How to potentially change a lifelong habit today.
I am not a one-cup of coffee kind of guy. I am more of a ten-cups of coffee kind of guy. And I knew it wasn’t doing good things to my body. But as with other lifelong habits, and certainly, those that directly affect the body, it is tough to change.
I have kicked coffee in the past. But not without horrible disabling headaches associated with going cold turkey off of coffee. The withdrawal effects, at least for me, are horrendous. And it only takes a small slipup, one coffee at the office coffee machine, one coffee in the morning, to s(l)ip back into old habits. And in my case, a pattern that was there since I was a young teenager.
Caffeine is a drug. And like with some drugs (recreational or otherwise), moderate doses are generally safe (disclaimers abound). Caffeine is highly addictive, and it is very, very easy to get dependent on caffeine. Be it coffee or any other caffeine-infused drink, like energy drinks.
The DSM-5 (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) recognizes caffeine use disorder as a condition to further study. Not being able to kick that habit successfully is not because you are weak but because it’s genuinely hard.
Coffee or caffeine is not all bad, but at least for me, the amount I drank couldn’t be good either. So a couple of months ago, I set out to try again and get my caffeine intake in check. This time I realized it doesn't make much sense to go completely off of caffeine. I would be giving up too much—my lovely morning’s first cup for one.
The fix to get my habit in check was surprisingly easy. Substitute for your loaded for unloaded rounds; substitute caffeinated for decaffeinated coffee.
Now, I know, and I can hear you from the other sides of the screens, yelling that decaf is horrible and by no means can be considered proper coffee. Well, kind of true. It took me a while to get the right decaf brand that was at least reasonably palpable. I drink my coffee instant. So, no machine, press, or percolator. Hot water, stir in the powder, and off I go. (Milk and sugar, please). The decaffeinated variety also comes in instant form.
So now I drink my morning coffee fully loaded, and everything else will be of the decaffeinated variety. Except for the cup I have around 3. That will be as loaded as my first. At some point, I’ll drop the 3 o’clock one too. But for now, this is what works for me.
The Result? No jitters. No anxiety. I have no cravings for coffee when I’m not around a machine or when I would be forced to drink office coffee otherwise.
It is that simple. Try to find a decaffeinated variety you like, and stick with that. Since it’s Instant Coffee powder, I tried to mix loaded and unloaded coffee, but it doesn’t taste as nice. And I missed my morning cup of caffeinated coffee. When all the others are decaffeinated, you can start to appreciate it again.
I know decaf is not entirely void of caffeine, and that’s okay. You can count on about 97 percent of caffeine to be removed.
If you are worried about the process of decaffeinating coffee being toxic, rest assured that all three methods of removing caffeine are perfectly safe even though one of those processes (the most common one) uses solvents to remove the caffeine from the beans. These solvents evaporated off completely during processing.
But if you are concerned about solvents being used and end up in your coffee, there is the Liquid Carbon Dioxide method and the Swiss Water Process. This is a high-end process and produced the most expensive product but doesn’t use any chemicals.
https://kauaicoffee.com/blog/how-swiss-water-decaf-is-made
If you drink a reasonable amount of coffee, then this is not for you. Stick with the nicest caffeinated coffee you can find. But if you are like me, and exceed 5–10+cups a day easily, then give it a try. It turned out to be much easier than I thought.
Disclaimer: Please don’t mistake this to be anything close to medical advice. If you have kidney problems, massive anxiety issues, high blood pressure, or heart problems, then even decaf maybe not for you, and it’s best to get off of caffeine entirely, but your doctor can advise you 100% better than I can.
