I did it a couple months ago. I've been drinking 3 - 5 cups a day(sometimes more) for years. I just slowly went from drinking it throughout the whole day eliminating cups until I had 1 cup in the morning. This was over 2 weeks. Then I slowly reduced that 1 cup until nothing. Then I switched to a single cup of green tea in the morning just for the ritual.

The lack of caffeine hasn't really had any effect on my psoriasis or stress levels, so maybe it was all for nothing.

I had a very similar experience. 3+ cups per day minimum for over a decade, phased out over two weeks with no withdrawal at all. Didn't drink coffee for the better part of a year looking for a benefit.

Also noted no improvement with my psoriasis, no increased alertness, sleep felt the same, and actually gained weight over that time period.

I'm happily enjoying coffee daily again.

There is peer reviewed evidence that caffeine increases your metabolism, so it would make sense that you would gain weight after cessation. I’m in a weight loss phase and have upped my caffeine intake for that reason.

> The lack of caffeine

There is a not insignificant amount of caffeine in green tea, but still less than in coffee

There is considerable amount of caffiene in tea as well but it’s absorbed slower by the body than from coffee and most tea has L-Theanine, which is an amino acid which attenuates the caffiene high that is usually present from coffee.

I’ve heard there’s more caffeine in tea. Coffees do feel stronger than tea, I wonder if that’s due to oil in coffee working as a solvent

A cup of coffee has way more caffeine than tea.

Coffee has 163mg per cup, black tea 42mg and green tea 25mg.[0][1][2]

1kg of dry tea does have more caffeine than 1kg of coffee beans, according to Wikipedia[3]

> Tea contains more caffeine than coffee by dry weight. A typical serving, however, contains much less, since less of the product is used as compared to an equivalent serving of coffee. Also contributing to caffeine content are growing conditions, processing techniques, and other variables. Thus, teas contain varying amounts of caffeine

Also kinda interesting: I've often seen people opt for an espresso instead op a cup of coffee, because they say they need the caffeine. But an espresso has only 77mg of caffeine, way less caffeine than a cup of coffee. [4] (Unless you fill a coffee cup with espresso shots, but who does that?)

[0] https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/coffee-bre...

[1] https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/tea-brewed

[2] https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/green-tea

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Beverages

[4] https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/espresso

According to Mayo Clinic, typical caffeine levels are:

Brewed coffee (8 oz): 96 mg Brewed black tea (8 oz): 47 mg Brewed green tea (8 oz): 28 mg

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...

It's worth noting that tea also contains theanine, in addition to caffeine. Theanine binds to glutamate receptors and increases serotonin, dopamine, GABA, and glycine levels in various areas of the brain.

I've heard this too but need to see the numbers. I wonder if it's the caffeine per dry weight or per brewed serve. But don't get me started on what a serving of coffee is.

Every tea is different. Black teas have more caffeine than green, for example.

1-2 cups of coffee are medically fine. It won't likely have much of a significant effect on your health.

Maybe medically fine, but that doesn’t mean it is ideal. And how fine it is varies (drastically, I think) from person to person. I know caffeine is horrible for me, even 150 mg/day - it disrupts my sleep, clouds my thinking, and makes me more irritable (not helpful as a trial attorney). I started drinking it late in life (32 then, 38 now) and every time I quit I feel infinitely healthier. I am 5 days in to (hopefully) quitting caffeine forever. For me, it is a drug worse than alcohol. I have a feeling a lot of people are in this boat and just don’t realize it because they have been consuming caffeine beverages for so long.

I did it because when I was on an elimination diet, it was recommended to quit caffeine too. Hasn't seemed to have much effect. I sleep the same, still grind my teeth, still have psoriasis. I've cut everything from diet except salt, vegetables, fruit and fish.

Caffeine is an excellent hunger surpressent too, I swear by it for losing weight.

I don't need to lose weight though. Diet more for just other health reasons. 5' 11" 165lb. I could probably lose a little belly fat, but nothing crazy right now.

> 1-2 cups of coffee

Cups or mugs? Most of us, when we pour a mug of coffee, pour about 12 ounces, which is a cup (8 oz) and a half. So if you have two mugs of coffee, you're actually drinking about 3 cups.

A "cup" of coffee in US coffee language is 6oz.

well its a stimulant and stimulants increase blood pressure. So... guess it depends.

In hind sight this is how I should have done in. But I was morbidly curious to see how bad the cold turkey would be.

It was quite a while a go now, I might think about doing it again. But do it without the masochistic torture I put myself through last time.

'psoriasis or stress levels' - is there a link to psoriasis and coffee?

Drug sensitivity is always such a strange thing to me. It strikes me as having characteristics of qualia - to you, going cold turkey on caffeine was apparently monstrous, but I've had the exact opposite experiences. I drink a lot of coffee, 3 cups a day average, but if I stop for a day or three or a week I certainly don't feel any pain, just a different focus.

Try stopping for 4/5 days and see where you're at. I'd love to get a better sample size.

I stop for a full week every year. I drink 3-4 rather strong cups every day (no coffee after 4pm), but only 1 cup daily on weekends. Only symptom for me when I don't have caffeine is being a little harder to focus, but that's not a problem for me when I don't need to code.

Since we are giving anecdotal points:

I quit coffee after drinking 2-3 cups a day to cold turkey.

I had minor discomforts, a bit of a light headache but it was extremely easy.

Readers of HN: This is not some generic withdrawal that happens to everyone unless we have data that proves with randomized trail. My anecdote completely contrasts with the parent and both opinions need to be taken as a grain of salt.

> I didn't consider myself a heavy coffee drinker either. Perhaps 2-3 coffees a day, these were double shot espresso's.

That's a lot of caffeine - at or beyond the typically recommended daily maximum of 400mg.

This happened to me recently as well, on a smaller scale.

I typically consume 1 double-shot espresso, 1 green tea, 1 small cup of brew, and sometimes decaf in a day. It's mostly just a part of my work day routine. I used to go some weekend day without caffeine altogether.

Since working remotely at home I don't have a specific caffeine schedule and lost track of my consumption. After one long weekend I didn't consume much/any caffeine but I didn't realize this. On Monday my stomach was uneasy so I drank some water and avoided caffeine because on an empty stomach it can make me feel worse. The next thing that happened was inconceivable. I was curled up in bed clutching my stomach in agony for several hours. It wasn't extreme discomfort but just enough that I didn't want to do anything else. After it eased I had a coffee and everything magically felt perfectly normal. The next day I started to get that same feeling and immediately had a coffee. My day went fine.

I went cold turkey once. I had a horrible headache that kept me bedridden for a whole day. After that the headache went away but I couldn't keep my eyes open by around noon.

I decided to wean off of coffee and that worked better.

I quit caffeine all together before, and the way I did it was that I tapered for SIX MONTHS! That's probably overkill but by the time I was ready to quit completely, everything was fine.

Unfortunately, I picked up the habit again after my son was born, for reasons I shouldn't have to explain. Once he's sleeping more consistently I'd like to quit caffeine again, hopefully over a shorter period of time.

I was a heavy coffee drinker most of my life and had to stop cold turkey and did so for a month due to GI issues. Had a headache the first days, but was fine otherwise.

Now I just do half caf and have two cups a day and found a nice balance of not being too dependent on the caffeine.

More than the caffeine I love the taste of good coffee, so I can live with the reduced caffeine.

Not everyone has extreme withdrawal from stopping caffeine.

I decided to quit at the beginning of the quarantine.

The first couple days were annoying, but tolerable. Just a general tiredness. The for days 5 to 8, I probably clocked in 12 to 14 hours of sleep a day.

I was drinking 3 or so grande/venti coffees a day.

I tapered down from 2 cups down to zero a few years ago.

The secret was to switch to green tea during the transition and sip from it only when needed.

Eliminating the green tea was not an issue.

I like to ween myself off coffee by drinking lower caffeinated tea instead.