My mind without stimulants, or: How I'm quitting caffeine

As per Wikipedia:

Stimulants (also known as central nervous system stimulants, or psychostimulants, or colloquially as uppers) are a class of drugs that increase alertness. They are used for various purposes, such as enhancing attention, motivation, cognition, mood, and physical performance.

I've always been a soda drinker. Although I don't know exactly when I made the transition from the colourful sugar water to the black cola drinks, I do know that by 15 I was downing at least a few glasses each day. Cola drinks, of course, contain a significant amount of caffeine¹.

Caffeine is the most commonly consumed psychoactive substance in the world. Apparently 80% of the world's population consume caffeine every single day.

Although I was already a heavy caffeine user by age 15, that didn't stop my consumption from escalating. In my early twenties I discovered coffee. More specifically, I abided the taste for its magical abilities to cure the worst morning after side-effects of a night out and about.

Fast forward a few years, and by my late twenties I had added at least a few cups of Joe to my daily routine.

Reflux

Six years back, I was diagnosed with something called GERD, which is short for gastroesophageal reflux disease. It's a reflux disorder where stomach acid comes creeps back up your oesophagus and causes all sorts of trouble.

I'd experienced some pretty heavy chest pains while out running. A few other signs pointed in the direction of reflux, and a (severely unpleasant) endoscopy confirmed it as the cause.

As a result, I need to take extra care with what I eat and drink. Although I've never received any official medical guidance on the matter, my own research indicates that I need to do my best to stay away from… well, everything except plain boiled rice and pasta. That's the impression I'm left with, either way, after trying to wade through the jungle of advice on how to adapt your lifestyle to minimise the effects of the diagnosis.

Some particularly bad triggers do stand out, though: Soda, coffee, chocolate and caffeine in general. Greasy food and sweets. Alcohol.

These appear to be the main offenders. Incidentally and unfortunately, there is a significant overlap between things that are particularly bad for me and things I particularly enjoy eating and drinking. Figure that.

All of this to say I have reason to be careful about what I eat and drink and in which quantities. Lately I have not. A couple of weeks back, the bill came due. The debilitating chest pains returned, for the first time in many years, and with a vengeance. More severe than ever before, this time the chest pain lingered for days after the initial onset.

I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep and I couldn't exercise without exacerbating the issue.

It was obvious I needed to make some real changes. In the days since, I've committed entirely to a bland diet. Eating small meals consisting mostly of home baked bread, lean and unseasoned chicken filet and low-fat cheese. And, as I will focus on the rest of this post, I haven't been drinking anything other than water — and stayed away from all caffeinated drinks

Weaning off

Despite having some previous experience with the unpleasant side-effects of caffeine withdrawals, I went out hard. "I'm going cold turkey," I told myself. "It's the quickest way to get through this."

Bad idea.

As I am what some might call predisposed to addiction, this isn't my first time kicking a bad habit. I struggled mightily overcoming a decade long habit of excessive nicotine use². But let me tell you, the first few days of nicotine withdrawal were a piece of cake for me compared to going cold turkey off of caffeine.

But let's sum up where I'm coming from. My daily base intake of caffeine is about two cups of coffee and three glasses of soda. Add a little chocolate here, an extra cup of coffee there and perhaps a bottle of coke to survive the drive home and call it 300 milligrams on average spread out over most of the day.

I cut it all.

Twelve hours later, I was curled up on the bathroom floor with paralysing headaches and excruciating nausea. "This isn't a good idea," I concluded.

After a cup of coffee brought me back to a functioning state, I devised a new plan. It was as follows:

1. Drop all soda immediately.
2. Move my second cup of coffee to early afternoon to spread the dosage out.
3. Reduce the second cup by a quarter cup per day before phasing it out on day four.
4. Same protocol for the first cup of coffee and phase it out completely on day eight.

It seemed like an ambitious, but doable plan. I ended up speeding it up a little, and had my last half cup on day five. Despite the violent withdrawals when attempting to go cold turkey, weaning off caffeine was surprisingly painless.

Throughout this period I noticed only faint headaches. None of the common withdrawal symptoms of caffeine like grogginess and brain fog, lethargy and so on were apparent. My brain and body appeared to function more or less as normal, save for some vague complaints about the diminished dosage.

That was about to change after my last half cup.

It's hard to say goodbye

I'm writing this on the seventh day after having my last sip of coffee. I won't lie, it's been rough.

During the afternoon of day two these new signs of withdrawals started to appear. Still no headache or nausea to speak of, but I began feeling dazed, almost disoriented at times. Focus was hard to come by. The experience was curious and out-of-body like. By evening I was so tired it was all I could do to stay awake until within an hour of my normal bedtime.

The good part was that I slept like a baby.

Unfortunately, things didn't really pick up the next few days. Only the novelty of these symptoms disappeared. I've also become more ill-tempered and less patient than normal. Which has undoubtedly made me a worse dad and husband these days. But hopefully I'll come around and start feeling more like myself again eventually.³

Already I've noticed some patterns and tricks for how I can alleviate these symptoms. I'll list them in no particular order.

Exercise is more important than ever

On day four I skipped my morning jog. The result was that the withdrawal symptoms came on earlier and stronger than they had the previous days. I felt positively awful. This alerted me to the fact that exercise has the power to counteract the negative effects of caffeine withdrawal.

Once mindful of this, I put in a quick twenty minute strength workout. It did wonders and bought me several hours of feeling much better.

In danger of sounding a bit too much "trust me bro!" I don't know exactly why exercise is such a potent treatment. I just know that it works. If I were to venture a guess, I would say that exercise triggers some of the same dopamine mechanisms as caffeine ingestion does.

Cold showers are good for a quick pick-me-up

Maybe it's just the shock to the body, or maybe the mechanics of it are the similar as with exercise. I don't know. But cold showers work as well.

If I'm at home, I'll prolong the post-jog shower for a few hours until I'm starting to feel down again. Then I'll jump in the shower and spend at least a minute or two with the water at the coldest possible setting. At this time of the year, that's pretty cold up here.

I've found that it isn't nearly as potent as exercise. The effect wears off much quicker. But it's another tool.

Sitting still for a prolonged period is disastrous

Corollary to the fact that exercise is good, is that sitting still is bad. And that's definitely been the case for me. A couple of hours in a chair, or, worse yet, in front of the screen, leaves me feeling almost drugged down.

On the contrary, staying busy and keeping the body active — even with activities that aren't particularly strenuous, like vacuuming or tidying or gardening or walking — keeps the worst of it at bay. Heeding this is fairly easy for me on days I'm off. Conversely, it's more difficult on days where I'm paid to sit in meetings or in front of a screen.

So far, all of my workdays have been at the home office. Here, I try to take frequent breaks and get out of the house for some quick walks if possible to stave off the brunt of the negative effects. I don't know how I'll manage in the office and all the long meetings I have to sit through many times per week.

Feeling follows action

No matter how much of the above I do, I still feel the negative effects. I think that's unavoidable as my brain and body adjusts to a new life without the highs (and lows) of stimulant drugs.

When you're feeling down it's easy to start feeling sorry for yourself. To think that you don't deserve to feel like this, and, now that you do, at least you deserve to just lay down (or, in the case that you're someone who suffers from acid reflux, sit down) and shut the world out until you're feeling better.

Surely nobody can expect you to do anything when you're already feeling so down and out?

When these thoughts overwhelm me, I have a mantra: Feeling follows action.

If you're feeling like shit, you shouldn't try to wait it. Sitting down and hoping for it to pass and think that then you'll do something is no good. Because how you feel is, more often than not, a result of what you do. So if you want to feel different, you need to do different.

So I try to take that walk. Or play with the kids. Or write this post. Whatever, as long as it's something other than just sitting there and passively consuming.

The way forward

At some point in the (hopefully) near future, my reflux condition will be assessed by a specialist. I don't know what's going to come from that. What kind of advice they will give me about how to balance my condition and, you know, just living life.

I do know one sacrifice I am willing to make to increase my quality of life. The caffeine drinks I've been diligently consuming for the better part of my life can go. That's to say I am ready to make a long term commitment to stay off the stimulants. I've already come this far, so why go back now? And, to be honest, I'm kind of excited about what I'll uncover once the fog clears.

Since early adolescence I've been hooked on one or more stimulants. What kind of person am I without those?

A calmer, centred and even-keeled person? Less neurotic, less troubled by a hyperactive inner life? Or perhaps I'm still the same old me.

I really do not know. But I'm kind of excited to find out.