palegray.net writes "CNN is running an article on the notorious effects of caffeine withdrawal, a problem that seems to be affecting an increasing number of people. Citing numerous reasons why people might need to cut back on their caffeine intake (pregnancy, pre-surgery requirements, etc), the story notes a significant number of people who are simply unable to quit. I drink around eight cups of coffee a day, along with a soda or two, and I definitely suffer from nasty withdrawal symptoms without my fix."
I drink around eight cups of coffee a day, along with a soda or two, and I definitely suffer from nasty withdrawal symptoms without my fix.
You, sir, are a member of the Caffeine Underacheivers Club of the World. Until you can regularly consume an average of three or four pots of coffee in day (30 to 40 cups) without experiencing caffeine intoxication [wikipedia.org], you have no idea what how "nasty" withdrawal can get.
I'm at that point, I admit it. Withdrawal, for me, starts after about eight hours without caffeine. I get a serious headache, quickly followed by nausea and a general flu-like feeling. Left unattended, it's damn-near incapacitating. Fortunately, a single cup of coffee vanquishes all symptoms within 30 minutes.
Anyway, is this caffeine withdrawal stuff really news to anyone? Anyone?
Compared to both of you I am a complete lightweight
I may be the lightest lightweight I know. I average 24 oz. of coffee and two cans of soda a day. If I have more than that I get pretty dysfunctional--irritable, nervous, sleepless. If I quit, I have one day of headaches and nausea followed by many days of sluggishness and cravings. I can't say how many days, since I always fall off the wagon.
I find that I really can't write code without caffeine anymore. Maybe I never could. It makes me sad to think that I need a stimulant to do my job, but there it is...
I used to be addicted to the high, but I couldn't stand the lows - migraine-like headache for hours (sensitivity to light, sound, etc.). I tried taking more caffeine to keep the lows away, but that ended the same - once I crashed, I got a migraine-like headache that wouldn't go away until I got a good-nights sleep. The worst part was, I would crash DURING THE WORKDAY, so my work performance was actually suffering.
Once I understood that the migraines were from withdrawal, I decided to quit cold-turkey - nothing but aspirin and lots of water. I took a long weekend over July 4th: the first day was pure anguish and pain, and the second day was worse. But the third day, I could function, and I was feeling pretty good by the fourth day when I went back to work.
After a week, I felt better than I had for years, and I was surprised to find I didn't have the cravings anymore. I also had more get-up-and-go in the mornings than I ever did on caffeine. And YES, I could code just as well without the boost.
If you've got even an ounce of willpower, you can quit too, but I would recommend taking a long weekend away from the world.
If you replace the word "caffeine" in your entire post with "sugar" or "sweets" that would accurately describe me. Unfortunately I have fallen off the wagon and am seriously addicted to it again. Time to go cold turkey as the weight is starting to creep back up.
Oh, gee, I drink 8 cups of strong coffee per day and 2 huge servings of soft drinks. Unbelievably, after several years of doing this, I have problems!
Uhh, yea, dumb-dumb. At what point in your life did you think it was a good idea to drink that fourth cup of coffee in the same day, much less four more? I think this condition is known as: epic brainpower fail.
I like the english idea of small amounts of weak tea during the day for cafeine vs. the megablast followed by dehydration and a crash. I switched from DARK coffee to 2-3 cups of green tea a day, the L-theanine in the green tea is good to keep the jitters away.
The Spice extends life. The Spice expands consciousness. The Spice is vital to space travel. The Spacing Guild and its navigators, who the Spice has mutated over 4000 years, use the orange Spice gas, which gives them the ability to fold space.
Somebody really was drinking too much coffee when they wrote that shit.
It is caffeine alone that sets my mind in motion. It is through beans of java that thoughts acquire speed, that hands acquire shakes, that shakes become a warning... I am...IN CONTROL...OF MY ADDICTION!
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday April 07 2009, @11:15AM (#27490823)
We need prohibition! War on caffeine, Columbian coffee beans clearly constitute an Axis of Withdrawal Symptoms!
We need to construct a massive wall, in the sea, between us and Mexico to stop these evil coffee lords and their satanic beans from getting in to the US!
There is the concept of "maintenance dose" in addiction. I find that just one soda, small cup of coffee / Nescafe, or one No-Doz are enough to forestall the headaches. One or two days of this "maintenence dose" and I can go cold turkey.
Really, cut down on the sodas. The coffee is fine, but as soon as I started working at a place without free sodas, I lost ten pounds and my blood sugar went down 20 points.
I had to give up caffeine. Long story short, I fell while working on a roof and hit my chest hard on a pile of bricks. Most likely damaged my pericardium. [wikipedia.org]
While it healed up, anything that made my heart beat harder made the pain worse. So that meant caffeine - all of it - had to go.
Week long headache. A whopper too, right in the temples. Miserable. But once it's gone, it's gone for good. You can beat it if you have to.
Some advice if you're willing to try. Avoid Excederin. It's a caffeine pill mostly - that's why it cures headaches. It gives you another fix and postpones the withdraw another 8-12 hours. Then you need another one. Avoid chocolate. Read labels. And avoid yerba mate - it has caffeine. If you're going to do it, the only way to do it is cold turkey, 100%. Even the slightest sprinkle of caffeine will halt ALL your progress and you'll have to start from scratch again. And that means another week's worth of headaches.
Anyways, after I healed up I never went back. I am a decaffeinated programmer. Rarest of the rare. It feels great, too. No nervousness, no sweats, my nails look great. And I sleep better than I ever have. That's one of the reasons computer types stay up late - they have to come down off the caffeine before they can sleep.
Once it's out of your life and you have that reference to make a comparison from, you realize just how big of a drug caffeine actually is. It's messing with you more than you probably think it is.
You, sir, are a member of the Caffeine Underacheivers Club of the World. Until you can regularly consume an average of three or four pots of coffee in day (30 to 40 cups) without experiencing caffeine intoxication, you have no idea what how "nasty" withdrawal can get.
So you're not experiencing caffeine intoxication... good for you. Have you had to expel kidney stones yet? How about the other side effects from caffeine poisoning? Have you had your renal function tested? How's the chronic diarrhea going?
I'm a caffeine addict too, but I've cut down to 1d4 + 3 cups per day. I've had kidney stones and luckily ultrasound treatment broke them up so I didn't have to pass them whole. You're damaging your body, please cut down.
Seriously. Mod parent up. I went to see a neurologist a few years ago and she was visibly horrified when I told her I drank about 6 cups of coffee a day.
I tried quitting altogether, but in the end I just cut back to 2-3 cups of black tea per day. It seems to have a more gradual, "extended release" effect that I prefer anyway. I'll also have half a cup of diet cola on the days that I go running.
Multiple pots of coffee a day? Especially on a regular basis? That's pretty much committing suicide in slow motion.
If you have trouble with low energy, try getting some cardiovascular exercise on a regular basis. Your body will work better as a result too, instead of crashing when the caffeine wears off. For me, getting my (giant) tonsils removed helped as well, because it meant I slept much better at night.
Seriously. Mod parent up. I went to see a neurologist a few years ago and she was visibly horrified when I told her I drank about 6 cups of coffee a day.
That's funny, I live in Finland, which is proud of being one of the greatest coffee consumers in the world (something like an average of 6-8 cups a day per capita), and yet I've never heard public health warnings about drinking too much coffee. And I'm sure I would hear something if it were really that dangerous, as this is a welfare state that tries to limit unhealthy habits in order to save on healthcare expenses (the gov hopes to completely wipe out smoking soon).
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] suggests why: A 2006 study by Dr Ahmed El-Sohemy at the University of Toronto discovered a link between a gene effecting caffeine metabolism and the effects of coffee on health. [96] [97] Some people have a gene to metabolize caffeine more slowly, and for them drinking large quantities of coffee was found to increase the risk of myocardial infarction. [a.k.a. heart attack] For rapid metabolizers, however, coffee seemed to have a preventative effect. Slow and fast metabolizers are comparably common in the general population, and this has been blamed for the wide variation in studies of the health effects of caffeine.
Everything in moderation. I am a different case for instance, i suffer from mild ADD and the caffine intake is a natural way to control my focus. When I drink caffine I get much calmer and my thoughts are less scattered. But it also means I have to be a little more deliberate in drinking...a cup every couple hours does great things. Now if it is a crazy day and lots of things are going on I might be ok, but a good cup allows me to do all that nasty paperwork...
I had to cut back for surgery awhile back and I found that simply mixing a little bit of regular coffee in with decaf worked like a charm. It didn't even need to be half and half, even just one part caffeinated in four was sufficient to stave off the headaches and malaise.
Seriously dude, slow down. My wife used to drink about four Starbucks espresso drinks a day, and she noticed she was visibly trembling. Her doctors told her her heartbeat was erratic and racing, so she cut down to one or two coffee drinks a day. She's much more normal now.
The "geek chic" lifestyle, massive amounts of caffiene and Red Bulls, pulling all nighters to punch out code, scarfing down whole pizzas and gaming until all hours, it's not really good for you. Moderate. Get some exercise. Take multivitamins and get a good nights sleep. You can actually be as productive with healthy living and one cup of coffee as you are in stimulant and sugar overload, and you won't be burning the candle at both ends.
Plus, you really won't have to worry about withdrawal when you're stuck on an island with no WiFi, no coffee, but plenty of hot native girls.
I stopped using caffeine because of the shakes, mood swings, and other nasty side effects of massive amounts of caffeine but I still don't sleep. I think that is a geek trait more than a geek lifestyle choice. Who can sleep when you have visions of code running through your head. It was all I could do to keep myself in bed for three hours last night and even then I wake up about every half hour.
What's worse is if I've been doing math. That gives me really horrible dreams of numbers trying to combine and interact in different ways. I always dream as if I can find some new better way they should work but of course I never can get a better result. Ick. At least with the code my brain actually can find better patterns while I sleep.
What's weird is when you code without fully waking up. You can accomplish some amazing things but trying to understand the code you've written is all but impossible sometimes. When I was working more with AI I'd come up with some pretty good mental leaps and have no memory of having woke in the night much less having coded anything and trying to untangle the code to see how it worked was a total no-go because it just didn't seem like it should work at all.
I once visited a friend for a week and they didn't have any coffee. I wasn't too bothered at first as there was plenty of booze but I woke up after two days with a slight hangover (not that much booze the night before) and a pounding migraine. I had no energy and double vision, the migraine got so bad I was sick.
I thought a coffee would help me feel a little better so I dragged myself to the store round the corner and bought some. As soon as I'd drunk a small cup of coffee my migraine started to disappear and I could see straight again.
I was on around ten triple strength cups a day which would be about three grammes of caffeine. I've since cut down to three cups a day!
I used to consume a couple liters of caffeinated beverages daily. 4 or 5 years ago my wife and I decided to switch completely to bottled water. There weren't really any health reasons to our decision - we just wanted to try it. I remember having headaches for a few days, and feeling lethargic, but the withdrawal wasn't too bad.
We still primarily drink bottled water, but when eating out I'll drink a tea or soft drink. The nice thing is that if I have extra work to do, or am driving on a long trip, I can drink a bottle of pop and it actually is a stimulant for me, as opposed to something my body relies on just to maintain the status quo.
Now that you have switched to bottled water and gotten used to it, it is time to consider non-bottled water... either out of a Brita filter or straight out of the tap. Do you live in a place where this is possible? For long drives that you mention I just use a refillable, insulated bicycling water bottle or one of those glass lined aluminum thingies. I drink straight out of the tap most of the time, or out of the water dispenser on the fridge the rest of the time. But I don't live in Malawi or any other backwoods place with unsafe water.
You're seriously consuming a couple liters of bottled water daily? What's wrong with tap water? Hell with that kind of money, you could buy yourself a really nice filter that would pay for itself after a few months. $2 a day adds up, and bottled water is just about the dumbest thing you could spend it on.
I stopped drinking caffeine in high school when the perma-shakes set in. I was having somewhere near the equivalent of 30-40 cups over the course of a 19-20 hour day and getting about 4 hours of sleep in order to keep full time school, full time job, and a very active social life all going.
The shakes quit after about 3 days. The headache after about 2 weeks. And somewhere about 2 years later I no longer felt permanently exhausted.
The nice thing now is that I find I can stay awake as long as I need to as long as I don't have high-sugar foods or have any alcohol. I just catch up the next day with little or no problem. I can't imagine going back to caffeine. As a computer-geek, I think it would be hard to do it just in moderation. Everyone else around me has the perpetual can of Coke next to their mouse.
While I was in college I became addicted to caffeine. I would wake up tired, and have a cup of coffee, later in the day I would feel worn down and drink a "soda." In the evening I would have another cup of coffee so I could study without falling asleep. This put me in a downward spiral that just kept getting worse and worse.
I discovered that, even though I slept at night, I wouldn't get any rest. I would wake up just as tired as when I went to bed. There was a simple reason for this, that evening cup of coffee. If you want to cut back on your caffeine intake, I have one piece of advice:
Don't drink any caffeine for at least four hours before bedtime
Yes I have 2 citations. This is an informal setting so I didn't go looking for them just now. One is the Berkeley Wellness Letter (a monthly publication associated with the Berkeley School of Public Health). There have been numerous references to keeping blood sugar from spiking and on the types of sugar that are worse for you, e.g., fructose. The other was from a Science podcast (or was it Nature?) on research on the "minimum" amount of exercise needed for health. In it they remarked that the longer sugar remains in your bloodstream the more cumulative damage it does to your arteries.
The minimum amount of exercise was, interestingly enough, 4 one minute sprints on an exercise bicycle, all out, as hard as you can go with no holding back. You can take a break after each sprint for a short while to catch your breath. Do this twice a week.
The test subject and controls were from time to time given a glass of glucose water, and the experimenters measured how long it took to clear the sugar from the blood.
The theory was this. The muscles have a ready reserve of energy and resist taking more from the blood unless you deplete some of it. Experiments indicate that the benefits of this "minimum" exercise program last for weeks after ceasing it.
This is not my field and I could not tell you why sugar in the blood is bad for you, or why certain sugars are worse. However, I understand that the Berkley Wellness Letter and Science/Nature are evidence based publications.
Anyone not credulous can spend about an afternoon looking these things up, though a library is probably better than the internet because many relevant publications are not free.
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday April 07 2009, @11:04AM (#27490609)
I too have experienced caffeine withdrawal many times. My internist recommended that when I choose not to ingest caffeine anymore, I should start taking 2000 mg of vitamin c daily for about seven days. I have subsequently done this everytime I decide to take a hiatus from caffeine and it has worked wonders - no headaches and no nausea!
I must be one of the few that just doesn't touch the stuff. I don't even generally like the smell. Never drank it -- coffee that is. And I only drink soda for lack of better fruit juice.
I believe half of/. needs to check themselves into a clinic.
During most of the year I have 18-24oz of coffee every morning, and sometimes another 6-8oz or a caffeinated soda/energy drink after lunch. So about 3-6 "cups" a day.
But during Lent I go cold turkey. Just stop on Ash Wednesday. (I give up alcohol at the same time, FWIW.)
The only side effect I ever experience is becoming a zombie from 1p-3p every day for the second week I'm off the stuff. The first week I'm fine. The second week I'm a zombie and completely unproductive for two hours in the afternoon. Weeks three to six I'm fine, though I start earnestly looking forward to resuming my morning ritual by week six. My sleep patterns don't change. My personality doesn't change. I don't experience physical pain.
I really recommend everyone try this. Give up something you love for six weeks. Detach. When you get back together your relationship will be healthier. You will have a new appreciation for what you gave up.
Of course, this requires sacrifice and introspection. Good luck with that, seriously.
I am an anesthesiologist. I regularly see people who drink 6 cups a day and have to go without food or water before surgery. Intravenous caffeine is available as a drug and I will give it to patients in a dose of 250-500 mg. to prevent bad withdrawl headaches. If a heavy coffee drinker has his last coffee at 8pm and goes without until he wakes from surgery 18 hours later he will probably have a withdrawl headache.
Interestingly, IV caffeine is also used to lower the seizure threshold in electroconvulsive therapy for depression. It promotes a longer seizure.
Seriously why would anyone choose to quit? I periodically quit just to feel the pain of it but that is just self flagellation.
I had to.
A hand tremor as a surgeon is _not_ what your patients want to see. As an aside, to break the ice with some patients I do a variation of the Gene Wilder's deputy on "Blazing Saddles"....
Pt: So how steady are your hands?
[I hold up a steady left hand]
Pt: Good, steady as a rock!
[While bringing up a flapping right hand and with a southern draw]
Me: Yeah, but this here is ma' operatin' hand.
Usually get a good chuckle from my patients, but every once in a while I get a wild-eyed-jaw-dropping-looking-for-the-nearest-fire-exit look that totally makes the joke worth it.
well, to make caffeine useful again, for example. i dring two cups of tea a day at most (no coffee at all because i don't like the taste) and when i really need a push, a cup of coffee or gyokuro is absolutely sufficient to awake me.
Exactly. I used to consume 6-10 cups of coffee worth of caffeine a day, and that was just to get me to normal. Now I have 0 caffeine on a typical day and I can very, very easily pull an all nighter on 1-2 cups. Also, I feel better when I wake up and go to sleep than I used to.
another double shot at the end of the day to keep me awake on the road
Maybe you tried to quit because you are chronically sleep deprived due to your caffeine intake? I think I remember reading that caffeine can only fight off four hours of sleep deprivation, after that a different neurochemical kicks in that caffeine doesn't effect. So if you are able to sleep with this much caffeine in your system, you are at least four hours behind on sleep, every single day; even if you got eight hours last night, it doesn't make up for the four hour debt you have built up.
Caffeine is really only useful if you only take it when you need it. Drinking so much everyday that you use up the four hours it gives you just puts you right back in the same boat as everyone else. When you quit that sleep debt hits you like a freight train, combined with the effects of withdrawal (headache and nausea) it is truly miserable. But if you wean yourself off of it slowly and catch up on your missed sleep the dull sleepy feeling will go away, and you could save the $7 a day you spend at Starbucks for something more useful.
I can't imagine why Excedrin [wikipedia.org] helped:
Excedrin is an over-the-counter headache pain reliever, typically in the form of tablets or caplets. It contains acetaminophen, acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), and caffeine.
Turns out that taking the drug you're jonesing for helps ease withdrawal symptoms.
Bah (Score:5, Informative)
You, sir, are a member of the Caffeine Underacheivers Club of the World. Until you can regularly consume an average of three or four pots of coffee in day (30 to 40 cups) without experiencing caffeine intoxication [wikipedia.org], you have no idea what how "nasty" withdrawal can get.
I'm at that point, I admit it. Withdrawal, for me, starts after about eight hours without caffeine. I get a serious headache, quickly followed by nausea and a general flu-like feeling. Left unattended, it's damn-near incapacitating. Fortunately, a single cup of coffee vanquishes all symptoms within 30 minutes.
Anyway, is this caffeine withdrawal stuff really news to anyone? Anyone?
Re:Bah (Score:5, Insightful)
Compared to both of you I am a complete lightweight, but I still experience headaches, depression, etc, when I go without.
I'm definitely going with "Not news." Caffeine is a drug, we're addicted.
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Interesting)
Compared to both of you I am a complete lightweight
I may be the lightest lightweight I know. I average 24 oz. of coffee and two cans of soda a day. If I have more than that I get pretty dysfunctional--irritable, nervous, sleepless. If I quit, I have one day of headaches and nausea followed by many days of sluggishness and cravings. I can't say how many days, since I always fall off the wagon.
I find that I really can't write code without caffeine anymore. Maybe I never could. It makes me sad to think that I need a stimulant to do my job, but there it is...
Parent
I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to be addicted to the high, but I couldn't stand the lows - migraine-like headache for hours (sensitivity to light, sound, etc.). I tried taking more caffeine to keep the lows away, but that ended the same - once I crashed, I got a migraine-like headache that wouldn't go away until I got a good-nights sleep. The worst part was, I would crash DURING THE WORKDAY, so my work performance was actually suffering.
Once I understood that the migraines were from withdrawal, I decided to quit cold-turkey - nothing but aspirin and lots of water. I took a long weekend over July 4th: the first day was pure anguish and pain, and the second day was worse. But the third day, I could function, and I was feeling pretty good by the fourth day when I went back to work.
After a week, I felt better than I had for years, and I was surprised to find I didn't have the cravings anymore. I also had more get-up-and-go in the mornings than I ever did on caffeine. And YES, I could code just as well without the boost.
If you've got even an ounce of willpower, you can quit too, but I would recommend taking a long weekend away from the world.
Parent
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Insightful)
If you replace the word "caffeine" in your entire post with "sugar" or "sweets" that would accurately describe me. Unfortunately I have fallen off the wagon and am seriously addicted to it again. Time to go cold turkey as the weight is starting to creep back up.
Parent
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, gee, I drink 8 cups of strong coffee per day and 2 huge servings of soft drinks. Unbelievably, after several years of doing this, I have problems!
Uhh, yea, dumb-dumb. At what point in your life did you think it was a good idea to drink that fourth cup of coffee in the same day, much less four more? I think this condition is known as: epic brainpower fail.
Parent
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Funny)
If you've got even an ounce of willpower, you can quit too.
I was once addicted to willpower. Then I went cold turkey and caved in to every craving, and now I feel much better.
Parent
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Funny)
I was once addicted to willpower.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance.
Parent
Re:I used to intake around 500 mg/day (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
The Spice extends life. The Spice expands consciousness. The Spice is vital to space travel. The Spacing Guild and its navigators, who the Spice has mutated over 4000 years, use the orange Spice gas, which gives them the ability to fold space.
Somebody really was drinking too much coffee when they wrote that shit.
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think it was COFFEE he was ingesting.
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Informative)
From the Minicon Graffiti Wall, 1989
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
We need prohibition! War on caffeine, Columbian coffee beans clearly constitute an Axis of Withdrawal Symptoms!
We need to construct a massive wall, in the sea, between us and Mexico to stop these evil coffee lords and their satanic beans from getting in to the US!
God Bless America!
Parent
Maintenance Dose (Score:5, Insightful)
There is the concept of "maintenance dose" in addiction. I find that just one soda, small cup of coffee / Nescafe, or one No-Doz are enough to forestall the headaches. One or two days of this "maintenence dose" and I can go cold turkey.
Really, cut down on the sodas. The coffee is fine, but as soon as I started working at a place without free sodas, I lost ten pounds and my blood sugar went down 20 points.
Parent
There is a light at the end of the tunnel (Score:5, Interesting)
I had to give up caffeine. Long story short, I fell while working on a roof and hit my chest hard on a pile of bricks. Most likely damaged my pericardium. [wikipedia.org]
While it healed up, anything that made my heart beat harder made the pain worse. So that meant caffeine - all of it - had to go.
Week long headache. A whopper too, right in the temples. Miserable. But once it's gone, it's gone for good. You can beat it if you have to.
Some advice if you're willing to try. Avoid Excederin. It's a caffeine pill mostly - that's why it cures headaches. It gives you another fix and postpones the withdraw another 8-12 hours. Then you need another one. Avoid chocolate. Read labels. And avoid yerba mate - it has caffeine. If you're going to do it, the only way to do it is cold turkey, 100%. Even the slightest sprinkle of caffeine will halt ALL your progress and you'll have to start from scratch again. And that means another week's worth of headaches.
Anyways, after I healed up I never went back. I am a decaffeinated programmer. Rarest of the rare. It feels great, too. No nervousness, no sweats, my nails look great. And I sleep better than I ever have. That's one of the reasons computer types stay up late - they have to come down off the caffeine before they can sleep.
Once it's out of your life and you have that reference to make a comparison from, you realize just how big of a drug caffeine actually is. It's messing with you more than you probably think it is.
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Informative)
So you're not experiencing caffeine intoxication... good for you. Have you had to expel kidney stones yet? How about the other side effects from caffeine poisoning? Have you had your renal function tested? How's the chronic diarrhea going?
I'm a caffeine addict too, but I've cut down to 1d4 + 3 cups per day. I've had kidney stones and luckily ultrasound treatment broke them up so I didn't have to pass them whole. You're damaging your body, please cut down.
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. Mod parent up. I went to see a neurologist a few years ago and she was visibly horrified when I told her I drank about 6 cups of coffee a day.
I tried quitting altogether, but in the end I just cut back to 2-3 cups of black tea per day. It seems to have a more gradual, "extended release" effect that I prefer anyway. I'll also have half a cup of diet cola on the days that I go running.
Multiple pots of coffee a day? Especially on a regular basis? That's pretty much committing suicide in slow motion.
If you have trouble with low energy, try getting some cardiovascular exercise on a regular basis. Your body will work better as a result too, instead of crashing when the caffeine wears off. For me, getting my (giant) tonsils removed helped as well, because it meant I slept much better at night.
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Informative)
That's funny, I live in Finland, which is proud of being one of the greatest coffee consumers in the world (something like an average of 6-8 cups a day per capita), and yet I've never heard public health warnings about drinking too much coffee. And I'm sure I would hear something if it were really that dangerous, as this is a welfare state that tries to limit unhealthy habits in order to save on healthcare expenses (the gov hopes to completely wipe out smoking soon).
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
When they came for the smokers,
I sat drinking my coffee and watched.
When they came for my coffee,
yada yada yada.
---
Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit cocaine.
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] suggests why:
A 2006 study by Dr Ahmed El-Sohemy at the University of Toronto discovered a link between a gene effecting caffeine metabolism and the effects of coffee on health. [96] [97] Some people have a gene to metabolize caffeine more slowly, and for them drinking large quantities of coffee was found to increase the risk of myocardial infarction. [a.k.a. heart attack] For rapid metabolizers, however, coffee seemed to have a preventative effect. Slow and fast metabolizers are comparably common in the general population, and this has been blamed for the wide variation in studies of the health effects of caffeine.
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a caffeine addict too, but I've cut down to 1d4 + 3 cups per day.
Let's go ahead and talk about that *other* addiction...
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe he just made a typo and really meant 1e4 + 3 cups per day. That'd be a lot :-)
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Bah (Score:5, Funny)
I had to cut back for surgery awhile back and I found that simply mixing a little bit of regular coffee in with decaf worked like a charm. It didn't even need to be half and half, even just one part caffeinated in four was sufficient to stave off the headaches and malaise.
I just went and switched to scotch.
Parent
Re:Caffeine is a drug that should be regulated. (Score:5, Insightful)
By that logic, why do we have laws against cocaine and heroin?
Good question.
Parent
Ahhhhhhh (Score:5, Funny)
Eight Cups?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously dude, slow down. My wife used to drink about four Starbucks espresso drinks a day, and she noticed she was visibly trembling. Her doctors told her her heartbeat was erratic and racing, so she cut down to one or two coffee drinks a day. She's much more normal now.
The "geek chic" lifestyle, massive amounts of caffiene and Red Bulls, pulling all nighters to punch out code, scarfing down whole pizzas and gaming until all hours, it's not really good for you. Moderate. Get some exercise. Take multivitamins and get a good nights sleep. You can actually be as productive with healthy living and one cup of coffee as you are in stimulant and sugar overload, and you won't be burning the candle at both ends.
Plus, you really won't have to worry about withdrawal when you're stuck on an island with no WiFi, no coffee, but plenty of hot native girls.
Re:Eight Cups?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Plus, you really won't have to worry about withdrawal when you're stuck on an island with no WiFi, no coffee, but plenty of hot native girls.
Actually, in that case I'd say that you DO need to worry about withdrawal, unless you want to knock up the hot native girls or brought birth control ;)
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Re:Eight Cups?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I stopped using caffeine because of the shakes, mood swings, and other nasty side effects of massive amounts of caffeine but I still don't sleep. I think that is a geek trait more than a geek lifestyle choice. Who can sleep when you have visions of code running through your head. It was all I could do to keep myself in bed for three hours last night and even then I wake up about every half hour.
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Addicted to code. (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't work. I'm addicted to code.
What's worse is if I've been doing math. That gives me really horrible dreams of numbers trying to combine and interact in different ways. I always dream as if I can find some new better way they should work but of course I never can get a better result. Ick. At least with the code my brain actually can find better patterns while I sleep.
What's weird is when you code without fully waking up. You can accomplish some amazing things but trying to understand the code you've written is all but impossible sometimes. When I was working more with AI I'd come up with some pretty good mental leaps and have no memory of having woke in the night much less having coded anything and trying to untangle the code to see how it worked was a total no-go because it just didn't seem like it should work at all.
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My worst caffeine withdrawl (Score:5, Interesting)
I once visited a friend for a week and they didn't have any coffee. I wasn't too bothered at first as there was plenty of booze but I woke up after two days with a slight hangover (not that much booze the night before) and a pounding migraine. I had no energy and double vision, the migraine got so bad I was sick.
I thought a coffee would help me feel a little better so I dragged myself to the store round the corner and bought some. As soon as I'd drunk a small cup of coffee my migraine started to disappear and I could see straight again.
I was on around ten triple strength cups a day which would be about three grammes of caffeine. I've since cut down to three cups a day!
Been there (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to consume a couple liters of caffeinated beverages daily. 4 or 5 years ago my wife and I decided to switch completely to bottled water. There weren't really any health reasons to our decision - we just wanted to try it. I remember having headaches for a few days, and feeling lethargic, but the withdrawal wasn't too bad.
We still primarily drink bottled water, but when eating out I'll drink a tea or soft drink. The nice thing is that if I have extra work to do, or am driving on a long trip, I can drink a bottle of pop and it actually is a stimulant for me, as opposed to something my body relies on just to maintain the status quo.
Re:Been there (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that you have switched to bottled water and gotten used to it, it is time to consider non-bottled water... either out of a Brita filter or straight out of the tap. Do you live in a place where this is possible? For long drives that you mention I just use a refillable, insulated bicycling water bottle or one of those glass lined aluminum thingies. I drink straight out of the tap most of the time, or out of the water dispenser on the fridge the rest of the time. But I don't live in Malawi or any other backwoods place with unsafe water.
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Re:Been there (Score:5, Informative)
You're seriously consuming a couple liters of bottled water daily? What's wrong with tap water? Hell with that kind of money, you could buy yourself a really nice filter that would pay for itself after a few months. $2 a day adds up, and bottled water is just about the dumbest thing you could spend it on.
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I am NOT addicted! (Score:5, Funny)
I can quit whenever I want!!!!
Re:I am NOT addicted! (Score:5, Funny)
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Serious Withdrawal (Score:5, Insightful)
I stopped drinking caffeine in high school when the perma-shakes set in. I was having somewhere near the equivalent of 30-40 cups over the course of a 19-20 hour day and getting about 4 hours of sleep in order to keep full time school, full time job, and a very active social life all going.
The shakes quit after about 3 days. The headache after about 2 weeks. And somewhere about 2 years later I no longer felt permanently exhausted.
The nice thing now is that I find I can stay awake as long as I need to as long as I don't have high-sugar foods or have any alcohol. I just catch up the next day with little or no problem. I can't imagine going back to caffeine. As a computer-geek, I think it would be hard to do it just in moderation. Everyone else around me has the perpetual can of Coke next to their mouse.
Whatdoyoumeancaffineisaddictive? (Score:5, Funny)
If caffine is a drug, my office is the largest opium den this side of the mississippi...
Re:Whatdoyoumeancaffineisaddictive? (Score:5, Funny)
Caffeine addiction is the only justification for drinking office coffee.
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How you get hooked (Score:5, Informative)
I discovered that, even though I slept at night, I wouldn't get any rest. I would wake up just as tired as when I went to bed. There was a simple reason for this, that evening cup of coffee. If you want to cut back on your caffeine intake, I have one piece of advice:
Don't drink any caffeine for at least four hours before bedtime
Re:How you get hooked (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:How you get hooked (Score:5, Interesting)
The minimum amount of exercise was, interestingly enough, 4 one minute sprints on an exercise bicycle, all out, as hard as you can go with no holding back. You can take a break after each sprint for a short while to catch your breath. Do this twice a week.
The test subject and controls were from time to time given a glass of glucose water, and the experimenters measured how long it took to clear the sugar from the blood.
The theory was this. The muscles have a ready reserve of energy and resist taking more from the blood unless you deplete some of it. Experiments indicate that the benefits of this "minimum" exercise program last for weeks after ceasing it.
This is not my field and I could not tell you why sugar in the blood is bad for you, or why certain sugars are worse. However, I understand that the Berkley Wellness Letter and Science/Nature are evidence based publications. Anyone not credulous can spend about an afternoon looking these things up, though a library is probably better than the internet because many relevant publications are not free.
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Ah caffeine withdrawal... (Score:5, Interesting)
I too have experienced caffeine withdrawal many times. My internist recommended that when I choose not to ingest caffeine anymore, I should start taking 2000 mg of vitamin c daily for about seven days. I have subsequently done this everytime I decide to take a hiatus from caffeine and it has worked wonders - no headaches and no nausea!
I guess I'm one of the few (Score:5, Insightful)
I must be one of the few that just doesn't touch the stuff. I don't even generally like the smell. Never drank it -- coffee that is. And I only drink soda for lack of better fruit juice.
I believe half of /. needs to check themselves into a clinic.
Drugs are bad, m-kay?
No withdrawal for me! (Score:5, Insightful)
During most of the year I have 18-24oz of coffee every morning, and sometimes another 6-8oz or a caffeinated soda/energy drink after lunch. So about 3-6 "cups" a day.
But during Lent I go cold turkey. Just stop on Ash Wednesday. (I give up alcohol at the same time, FWIW.)
The only side effect I ever experience is becoming a zombie from 1p-3p every day for the second week I'm off the stuff. The first week I'm fine. The second week I'm a zombie and completely unproductive for two hours in the afternoon. Weeks three to six I'm fine, though I start earnestly looking forward to resuming my morning ritual by week six. My sleep patterns don't change. My personality doesn't change. I don't experience physical pain.
I really recommend everyone try this. Give up something you love for six weeks. Detach. When you get back together your relationship will be healthier. You will have a new appreciation for what you gave up.
Of course, this requires sacrifice and introspection. Good luck with that, seriously.
Anesthesiologist uses it IV (Score:5, Interesting)
I am an anesthesiologist. I regularly see people who drink 6 cups a day and have to go without food or water before surgery.
Intravenous caffeine is available as a drug and I will give it to patients in a dose of 250-500 mg. to prevent bad withdrawl headaches.
If a heavy coffee drinker has his last coffee at 8pm and goes without until he wakes from surgery 18 hours later he will probably have a withdrawl headache.
Interestingly, IV caffeine is also used to lower the seizure threshold in electroconvulsive therapy for depression. It promotes a longer seizure.
Re:Why would anyone quit? (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously why would anyone choose to quit? I periodically quit just to feel the pain of it but that is just self flagellation.
I had to.
A hand tremor as a surgeon is _not_ what your patients want to see. As an aside, to break the ice with some patients I do a variation of the Gene Wilder's deputy on "Blazing Saddles"....
Pt: So how steady are your hands?
[I hold up a steady left hand]
Pt: Good, steady as a rock!
[While bringing up a flapping right hand and with a southern draw]
Me: Yeah, but this here is ma' operatin' hand.
Usually get a good chuckle from my patients, but every once in a while I get a wild-eyed-jaw-dropping-looking-for-the-nearest-fire-exit look that totally makes the joke worth it.
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Re:Why would anyone quit? (Score:5, Informative)
well, to make caffeine useful again, for example.
i dring two cups of tea a day at most (no coffee at all because i don't like the taste) and when i really need a push, a cup of coffee or gyokuro is absolutely sufficient to awake me.
Exactly. I used to consume 6-10 cups of coffee worth of caffeine a day, and that was just to get me to normal. Now I have 0 caffeine on a typical day and I can very, very easily pull an all nighter on 1-2 cups. Also, I feel better when I wake up and go to sleep than I used to.
There's no benefit at all to caffeine addiction.
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Re:I'm an addict, and I like it. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not exactly sure why I tried to quit
another double shot at the end of the day to keep me awake on the road
Maybe you tried to quit because you are chronically sleep deprived due to your caffeine intake? I think I remember reading that caffeine can only fight off four hours of sleep deprivation, after that a different neurochemical kicks in that caffeine doesn't effect. So if you are able to sleep with this much caffeine in your system, you are at least four hours behind on sleep, every single day; even if you got eight hours last night, it doesn't make up for the four hour debt you have built up.
Caffeine is really only useful if you only take it when you need it. Drinking so much everyday that you use up the four hours it gives you just puts you right back in the same boat as everyone else. When you quit that sleep debt hits you like a freight train, combined with the effects of withdrawal (headache and nausea) it is truly miserable. But if you wean yourself off of it slowly and catch up on your missed sleep the dull sleepy feeling will go away, and you could save the $7 a day you spend at Starbucks for something more useful.
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Re:I Just Quit Caffeine (Score:5, Funny)
I can't imagine why Excedrin [wikipedia.org] helped:
Turns out that taking the drug you're jonesing for helps ease withdrawal symptoms.
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