I decided to quit coffee around 3 weeks ago. I have consumed coffee regularly about 15 years and the last 12 years have been like clockwork, 3-4 times a day. There were few reasons why I decided to quit drinking coffee. I had slept badly like a month or so. During the day it felt like I was relying and pushing through with the power of coffee. And maybe the biggest reason was that coffee just didn't taste so good anymore and it felt like a burden.
Now, in the past there had been short periods where I had changed coffee to tea without any problems. So naturally my decision was to replace coffee with tea, I didn't do research or plan this any further. Crucial mistake was when I didn't take into account that back then I wasn't yet a chronic coffee drinker.
I would never have imagined the symptoms I was about to experience. My past experience made me completely oblivious.
I'll start with the amounts of caffeine I consumed which I researched today. These values should be fairly accurate since I managed to find the caffeine levels by manufacturer and blend, both for tea and coffee. For tea, the brewing time is also accounted.
Coffee 648mg/day
Tea 127mg/day
My caffeine drink consumption was reduced to a fifth in an instant.
First 2-3 days were easy, there wasn't any real physical symptoms, it was more like I was just craving the taste of coffee which I was fed up just few days ago. Around day 4-5 I started to feel this mild headache and dizzyness. At this point the caffeine deficit was becoming real and my body started to react. Through day 7 these symptoms kept worsening and became essentially 24/7. It was horrible and because of my prior experience, I never even thought these symptoms were caused by coffee detox.
From day 7 through day 14 the headache just ate me slowly and other symptoms came into picture too. I felt generally tired, unmotivated, aggressive, muscle and skull (teeth&jaw) pain, cold, anxiety, nausea...you name it. Especially the headache and continuos dizzyness/lightheadedness was really worrying. I thought every day whether I should go to doctor but somehow I just didn't. It's worth mentioning I never took any medication or painkillers, for me the bar is really high since I consider those as last resort. However, I considered taking.
Day 15 and onwards the symptoms started to slowly disappear. Currently I feel almost normal, there is still this faint lightheadedness lingering. There's also positive changes. I feel generally a lot more relax and my sleep has been good the past week or so. It definitely feels like coffee is not subduing me anymore, this is something that is very difficult to put into words.
This all opened to me when I did my research today. These symptoms could last as long as 8 weeks. I was shocked when I read other people's experiences and found out that they had really hard time too. The range and volume of symptoms are simply surprising to many. As a smoker who has quit smoking few times for 2-3 years, I can say quitting smoking is a lot easier than quitting coffee. For those who have consireded quitting coffee, my advice is to do it gradually, very gradually. Most of all, do not become a chronic coffee addict in the first place.
Now has anyone else similar experiences? What level is the caffeine addiction on these forums?
I cannot imagine toilet-free life.
Kebabs have a unique attribute compared to other consumables. To unlock this effect you need to wolf down a big ass kebab really fast, like under 10 minutes or so and wait for the effect to kick in. If done correctly your movements should feel unbelievably heavy to the point where you literally cannot move at all.
-Downtown Alanya Kebab magazine issue no.198