Quitting Coffee Ruined my Life

Around a month ago, I decided to quit coffee. I outline my reasons in this post. But I failed miserably. In this post, I want to reflect on the experience and take lessons for the future. After all, I still want to quit caffeine (at least my dependence on it). I will outline the benefits and drawbacks and how I came to fail after only three weeks.

Benefits

The main (and only) benefit I experienced was that I had 0 anxiety, and I felt very peaceful and relaxed during the whole period. That’s a pretty good benefit, to be honest. 

One of the reasons I wanted to quit caffeine was to avoid this subtle feeling of agitation I felt when on caffeine. Most of the time, it’s quite subtle, and you only notice it after you quit it. But in days of high stress, the effects compound. 

My body and mind were very relaxed, and my life generally slowed. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on where you are in life right now. Most of us cannot afford to become “too slow” for a significant period of time.

Drawbacks

Let me first mention the typical symptoms you feel the first days after quitting caffeine. During the first 3 days, I experienced mild headaches in the afternoons, but they weren’t that terrible. I was sleepy and tired throughout the day, but since I was aware of those effects, I tried to rest more and take it easy.

After day 3, the headaches disappeared, and my body wasn’t exhausted. However, I felt empty and unmotivated. Those feelings didn’t go out for the whole duration of the experiment. Actually, they worsened over time.

My sleep didn’t improve –indeed, it got worse. I woke up several times during the night in most of the nights.

I could barely get any work done. I had trouble focusing, and I didn’t want to do anything.

In general, I would say I lost my drive for living. And this scared me. After all, I was only drinking one cup a day most of the time. How can this be so disruptive to my life? In general, I’m a driven and motivated person. Without caffeine, I felt lost inside this caffeinated world.

So, after three weeks and feeling worse every day, I decided to stop the experiment. I needed to fix my strategy. 

After 21 days without caffeine, I got a double expresso around noon. A couple of minutes later, I was back in town. I was the old, driven, and motivated person as usual. I slept like a baby without waking up at night and woke up the next day full of energy and motivation.  

I felt great but also scared. After all, that’s exactly how people with an addiction feel after going through a withdrawal phase.

This experiment showed me how dependent I am on caffeine. Most of us won’t notice this because we are constantly taking it. Sure, skipping a couple of days is not a big deal. But few people try to stop their consumption for prolonged periods of time. 

This failed experience shocked me since I don’t have trouble sticking to good habits (or removing bad ones). But this time was different. It was not about sheer willpower, but my brain chemistry got utterly fucked up.

Lessons learned

Quitting cold turkey was a bad idea. As I mentioned, I’ve successfully stopped cold turkey stuff in the past without issues. But caffeine rewired my mind in ways I couldn’t grasp, even after reading and becoming aware of the matter. Sometimes, failing is the only way to determine the best course of action.

Instead, I’m having a coffee in the morning every second day. In this way, I reduce my consumption significantly. At the same time, it keeps my brain chemistry more or less stable. I hope to reduce it to 1-2 times a week over time. From there, I could try quitting again and only having it here and there (I still love coffee).

Also, my timing was off. I’m living in Germany, and the cold and dark weather has been pretty rough this year, which has lowered my mood quite a bit. Quitting coffee compounded this effect. 

Since last week, I have spent time in the southern hemisphere, where the temperatures are warm. Being here boosted my mood overnight. This may make it easier to stay away from caffeine. 

This experience also humbled me. It made me feel more compassionate towards folks struggling with addiction and bad habits. It can be very easy to dismiss them as people without willpower, but it can be more complicated than that. Sure, willpower is important. But also, there are environmental, biological, and psychological factors that may make the process easier for some people than others. 

I talk in more detail about this topic in the video below. If you liked this article, subscribe to my newsletter to get access to free self-improvement principles every week.