When I’m not drinking coffee, I’m less forgetful and think more clearly. I’m less anxious and better in tune with my body. I also feel more myself.

But I love coffee and am usually consuming it. Thank you for sharing your experience. I’ll need to try taking a break soon.

Coffee is life.

I've stopped drinking coffee a fews times. Once while working at a coffee company and there was a full espresso bar across the hall from my desk. Not easy.

The trick for me is maintaining the ritual. Tea fulfills that need in me. First to black & green and then to herbal.

Happily, I've learned so much about tea, I love it nearly as much as coffee.

You're welcome!

The taste of coffee is pretty tough to resist, I'll admit!

They do make decaffeinated coffee, although I've never tried it myself.

I have switched to decaf espresso (for pretty much the same reasons as outlined above). It does not taste as good, but it is close enough - so it is a satisfactory substitute for regular espresso.

I’ve had some success by mixing in a minute amount of baking soda into the coffee immediately before brewing. Probably works best for French press. Literally the smallest amount I could get between my thumb and finger. Ie 1 mg might be more.

Apparently, decaf still contains about 25% of the normal level of caffeine. I read this in the "Why we sleep" book by Matthew Walker, but haven't double checked.

Basically, that would mean that drinking decaf is not really the same as not drinking coffee.

i also love coffee, so i do periods of decaf-only to re-balance my caffeine tolerance. decaf doesn't taste good by itself, but milk and sugar (which is how i usually drink coffee, whether espresso or not) tolerably dampens the inferior taste.

Caffeine addiction can hit you hard, but withdrawal should be done after just a few days. So give yourself two weeks!

The problem with these type of comments is that they never mention how much coffee, and what type of coffee, was consumed before the life-changing decision.

It is pretty much anecdotal evidence.

Agreed, it is anecdotal.

But for the record, I drank about 500ml of coffee per day. About a full single french press container.

I certainly drank a lot less than most people who swear that they felt fine drinking 5x as much as that per day... with some even claiming that drinking it just before bed helped them sleep.

I've found what was really bad, at least in my case, was drinking it every day. I was just insidiously sliding towards a state of perma-depletion.

Drinking it occasionally seems fine. As long as I think of it as a treat, it's not too bad, and may indeed help actually.

How do you define perma-depletion?

Tired all the time.

Was quitting coffee the only change you've made in your lifestyle? Or did you e.g. started working out, be more strict about your daily regime, be more careful with what you eat?

It was the largest single change, yes.

I have always eaten healthy food, I go for walks and hikes and bike rides regularly but I wouldn't say that I "work out".

I just developed a massive headache one afternoon, realized it was because I hadn't had my morning cup of joe, felt disgusted with myself as a result, and decided to quit drinking it altogether.

I figure that anything as addictive as that has no place being consumed daily.

I grew out of my nicotine habits and other addictive drug habits years ago for the exact same reasons.

But was it worth all the broken DNA!!

Well, I quit drinking coffee 3 years ago and I can confirm all this. Before quitting I drank approximately 3 mugs of coffee per day.

Withdrawal symptoms for me were a really bad migraine for one whole week and that actually made my final decision to never start drinking coffee casually again.

However, as I try to avoid all kinds of absolutism, I enjoyed a small cup of campfire coffee last autumn.

For some reason drinking tea doesn't make me anxious or tense.

I like to believe the calmness from tea comes from L-theanine, commonly present in tea leaves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theanine

However, experimenting with putting theanine in coffee and consuming energy drinks with caffeine+theanine aren't as relaxing, perhaps because of the higher caffeine content, or other relaxing compounds in tea.

I drank about 40oz of coffee a day, and had the same symptoms if I stopped. I started replacing coffee with tea and the symptoms were a lot less severe. I'm now down to about 1c a day of coffee I grind and brew myself, as if it's a hobby enjoying the flavors and characteristics of different beans/grinds/brewing methods, not because I need caffeine to be a functional adult.

> Sleeplessness is down.

Curious when you got your last cup of coffee usually time-wise. E.g. I stopped drinking coffee after noon, my sleeplessness went down and consequently all other symptoms you described. And maybe I reduced some DNA damage by continuing drinking at the morning :-6