Similar experience. Went cold turkey once and had quite strong headaches for 2-3 days. No trouble for the remainder of the fortnight. But I only stopped because of vacation and the resort only had terrible coffee. (Headaches were marginally preferable.)

That said, my consumption levels have been sane for a few years now. I understand the negatives of over consumption but I don't fully understand the case for elimination?

Caffeine is a vasoconstrictor. The headaches are from your brain trying to adjust to the blood vessel change. Quitting even a mild habit can shave some points off your blood pressure.

If you drink soda or add cream/sugar to your coffee or tea, you may also find yourself losing some weight from stripping out the empty calories.

> Perhaps work just isn't as interesting without caffeine?

Since I quit caffeine (or stopped habitually drinking it every day)I noticed I am so much productive when I actually do drink a cup of coffee or strong tea. I'll be focused and fast. A little worrying to me to have an addiction so I can be more productive at work. It helps with my art hobby too.

Part of me wonders if I have undiagnosed adhd or something since the caffeine is so effective and making me focus and work better?

That's just caffeine "working", surely?

I've quit cold turkey a number of times (sometimes after being sick). It sharpens the pain to about a weeks worth of headaches and just being FLAT, but then I seem to be fine.

However, I find when I quit over longish periods (months), i start to lose my focus at work, and become quite scatterbrained and not really productive. I probably would have been some form of ADHD when I was a kid, and in the real world, it seems caffeine keeps me on track and productive (and probably most importantly, motivated) when sitting in a chair and staring at a monitor all day... without the coffee, I'm just scatterbrained and not getting work done.... If my day job were different, I don't think I'd need all the caffeine... I dont usually have sleep problems if I cut myself off by 2 or 3 pm... and I don't usually have more than 2 cups/day.

It probably doesn't help that I love the taste of coffee...

Sounds like you like the MAOIs in coffee more than the caffeine.

I’ve managed a few times, and gotten over the hump too, but the problem is I’ll “just have one” a few months later and it feels amazing and now I drink coffee again

The only thing easier than quitting is relapse.

I suspect that's part of the problem with the slow weaning process, compared to cold turkey. Similar to when people who quit smoking by cutting down

When I quit caffeine cold turkey, the side effects were immediate, but getting over the side effects only took days. Then feeling the benefit only took days after that.

So each hit was sudden and very noticeable, where as I suspect trying to slowly wean yourself off over months misses that sudden hit one day of "wow, I just feel so awake"

I felt mostly the same on nights where I got a decent night sleep. But I'd fall asleep at like 9-10pm on coach.

And on nights I got less than 8 hours, wow, I couldn't do it without caffeine.

When you keep it to 1 cup/day, and do something like not consuming on weekends to lower the tolerance, it actually feels like a drug again. A drug you can be productive on.