Quitting Coffee Could Be the First Step to Mindful Living

Liking something isn’t the same thing as being dependent on it and dependence isn’t the same thing as addiction.

Our reasons to choose to do something and quitting them aren’t necessarily that different. In each case, there is a choice involved of leaving something and picking up a replacement and I was no different.

I decided to quit coffee and embrace peace.

Quitting Coffee Made Me Less Jittery

Might seem like an overstatement but the first thing that happened when I stopped drinking coffee was that I felt less jittery, less anxious. Usually, every morning, by midday, I felt more “awake” but I didn’t admit that to myself.

At the time of writing this article, I hadn’t had coffee in twenty-six days.

I should correct myself here: it’s caffeine, not coffee. I refused to substitute my coffee consumption with a green tea or decaf. I switched to herbal teas—tulsi-rose is my favorite and here’s my very own recipe for the summer, mixed with ice, ofcourse.

Now thinking about it, I didn’t know why I picked to go cold turkey instead of slowing tapering off. I think it was because once I had decided, I didn’t want to wait.

Or maybe, I didn’t know the exact rules of tapering off. What did that mean? Was I supposed to skip my afternoon coffee? Was I supposed to switch to black tea or green tea? How different were they from the caffeine in tea and in coffee.

I knew I could have found answers to all these questions on google. But I also knew that the answer lay after pages and pages of searches, which I honestly did not want to do.

Wasn’t it supposed to be simple? Do what you like, don’t do what you don’t like, eat what you want, don’t drink what you don’t want.

I decided to stick with the simple approach and the following happened.

 DAY ONE

This day was exciting because I was going to make an important change in my regimen. I wasn’t afraid of not drinking my big cup of Nescafe instant coffee with whole milk.

I didn’t even feel the need to replace that with something else. I just had a few glasses of water and then at about noon my usual brunch.

I was still pretty pumped about the change I made to my regimen, which was why I wasn’t sleepy, perhaps.

I was keen to feel the changes in me that quitting coffee brought with it. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t looking around what my future would look like on the web.

That moment finally came when around two o’clock, I was struck with a mild headache. I was sleepy and just knew that my symptoms had kicked in.

The headache lasted all day. Because it was pretty mild, I didn’t care to take any medicine.

But what I thought would be a short nap lasted till 5 pm. It was unprecedented given that I have dinner at six thirty.

I was pretty awake until ten in the night and after that, I could barely keep my eyes open.

 DAY TWO

I wasn’t too enthusiastic on this day. I imagined the smell of coffee and but knew couldn’t drink it. I was determined to carry on not drinking coffee.

It was also a day for grocery store and I noticed that while I was walking in the aisle of the grocery superstore, I noticed some muscle pain.

It was mainly in my legs, but I could feel a little bit of it through my whole body and I usually don’t get muscle pain and I knew there was only one thing I had done differently.

I also felt at peace throughout the day. It wasn’t lethargy but a kind of a state where you aren’t thinking about anything intensely. A mellow feeling.

If you had to understand it mathematically, think of it as a graph that goes parallel to the ground.

Now, I am also indoctrinated into the words “brain fog” and “clarity”. I was questioning myself repeatedly whether I had been mistaking clarity for anxiety until I quit.

Clearly, the days I had coffee and “felt better” with the side effects of palpitations and a sort of upped heart rate. Only to have another cup in the evening and then wakeful nights.

I did a lot of thinking on that, and retired to bed early.

DAY THREE

On the third day there was no muscle pain and I didn’t have to try very hard to not have coffee. I wasn’t even imagining the smell of coffee any more.

But I was drowsy and took a midday nap that extended to five in the evening and I went to bed at nine that day.

I definitely had more clarity without the coffee. It felt like my brain was getting used to not being on coffee and guess what? Writing was going well, the quality was as good.

Working on a novel is as deep you can get when it comes to concentration and I was doing pretty fine.

DAY FOUR

I didn’t struggle to wake up like previous days. I was “coming to my senses” early in the morning without the coffee.

What I understood was that it’s a matter of making your body getting used to a certain kind of wakeful state.

You could be anxious at the same time

Just waking up, staying awake was something that happened on this day. I didn’t sleep as much. I didn’t go back to sleep at midday and went to bed at my usual time.

I had no palpitations and my energy levels and mood stayed the same for the rest of the day.

COFFEE IS NOT GOOD FOR WOMEN

Quitting coffee also made me do plenty of research and I found out that drinking coffee wasn’t as good for women as made out to be. I talk about it more in this article.

Right now I am on day twenty-six of the coffee quitting and I wouldn’t deny that there are times when I believe having coffee would make me more “awake.”

But I have become more vary of that kind of wakefulness. It comes at a price that I didn’t think was worth going through.