Many a brave soul has attempted to quit coffee for good, and failed, and failed again. What is it about this magic elixir that is so addictive? Speaking as a coffeeholic myself, I feel your pain if you have tried to quit coffee – in vain. I know. I’ve been there, and done that, and done it again. But the more I tried, the more it became easy to quit the habit. My morning cup of coffee calls out to me just like that delish devilish cup grinning at you at the top of this post.
I found myself jittery, stressed, and utterly sleepless. And the more sleepless I was, the more I needed coffee. I tried setting up reminders to not drink coffee in the second half of the day, tried to switch to green tea and other decaf beverages. To no avail. I tried chewing gum, the refuge of the nicotine addict. Didn’t help one bit. For the more I tried to stay away from coffee, the more I needed it to just get through the day. And the coffee deaddiction saga never seemed to end.
The thing with coffee is that caffeine is a stimulant. The trick is to find that delicate balance between getting all of its benefits, while not becoming addicted to it. It’s all about moderation. There is that sweet spot that you need to hit to figure out how much your body can tolerate caffeine, without experiencing any of its side effects like jitteriness, sleeplessness, migraines resulting from too little coffee, and adrenal fatigue. Overloading your system with coffeecan result in chronic adrenal fatigue, and this can become an endless cycle, with the cure and the poison being — you got it — more coffee.
Here are some tried and tested methods to figuring out your personal caffeine tolerance, and if you are committed to beating the coffee habit, then using these tools to get you there. You will have to ask yourself if you are ready to quit coffee – for good.
- Try tapering off in the afternoon: One of the tricks that worked for me was slowly depriving myself of caffeine after 2 pm in the afternoon. There was a point when I could drink 4*4 shots each day, and still not feel like I had enough coffee in me. The Starbucks Venti was my bugbear. My friend taught me this trick. Drink all your coffee by noon or latest by 2 pm to allow your body to metabolize the caffeine. Caffeine needs a 12-24 hour cycle to be completely metabolized, which is why if you are an addict, you find yourself wide awake at night. Try depriving yourself of that afternoon cup of pick-me-up. Switch to hot water or green tea instead. Since you are not entirely depriving yourself, your body can adjust to the new habit fairly quickly.
- Develop a new habit in the PM for when you find yourself needing a cup of joe. Make a challenge with yourself to quit coffee at 4 pm. Walk around the block. Pick up the phone and make a call to someone you can have a long conversation with. Eat a piece of fruit. Or nibble on some nuts. Do this for 21 days, and voila – you have a new 4 pm habit.
- Is coffee your go-to drink at a social gathering? If not in the evening, and not in a bar, try drinking something healthier. A glass of coconut water, perhaps, or a protein smoothie. Or a cup of fruit infusion tea.
- Coffee can be the ideal supplement to a carb-heavy meal. Cut down on carbs, and you won’t have to reach for the cup of coffee to wash it down with.
- Coffee can also be your beverage of choice at office meetings, just to keep up with the drone of voices. Worse if they are scheduled during the second half of the day. Try and keep your meeting schedule to a minimum in the latter half of the day. And if still pulled into one, drink water or lemon water.
- Never quit cold turkey. The symptoms can worsen, and your coffee deaddiction can lead to migraines that never seem to go away. Taper off to three quarters of your coffee dependency, then to a half, and finally to a quarter of your daily intake. You can stave off withdrawal symptoms to a staggeringly great degree this way. And once you have come down just a fourth of your daily habit, you will find it easy to quit coffee for good.
Full disclosure: I haven’t. I need my morning cuppa like I need my breath. But with the above steps, I was able to come down to just one cup a day from 6-8 cups a day. Good luck. You can quit coffee. It’s not that hard. All you need to do is want to quit coffee – and follow my six-step regimen.
