Ask HN: Quit caffeine? Before and after anecdotes

I completely agreed with you until I realized that caffeine was aggravating my anxiety. I went years not realizing this, so it's possible that for some people they're getting symptoms they haven't linked yet.

Now that said, when I was younger I didn't have that problem and caffeine was a powerful tool in my toolbox for maximizing performance. Definitely glad to have it when needed.

First week was tough.

After a month you feel more awake on mornings.

A couple of months after that you feel exactly the same as before.

I started drinking more tea (with and without caffeine depends on the taste) because I wanted a hot drink but not specifically caffeine.

I quit coffee for health reasons (stomach) so it was kinda forced on me. I still love coffee taste very much and can still consume it in cakes and such

I'd take a lot of anecdotes over studies any day. Studies gloss over the details (what kind of caffeine use, different physiologies, how they felt about the result) in ways that make them really difficult to use for personal decision-making.

I don’t quit, but I’m trying to avoid drinking only coffee everyday – so I don’t build up a tolerance and can rely on it when I need a boost. I vary between coffee and tea. I avoid coffee past lunch time.

I actually recently wrote a blog post[1] about the opposite experience of Building a caffeine tolerance vs quitting.

So to tackle this from the other way around, I can tell you that before I started drinking coffee, I had more creative energy, but it was much less focused and more spur of the moment. This was great for quickly following new things I want to learn, but also abandoning them the second I lost interest or got bored. I also had much less motivation in doing things around my apartment like dishes, laundry, and other uninteresting stuff, often resulting in a pretty gross pile up of chores. Problem solving wise, I was less able to focus this greater creative energy in solving the problem, but when I could, the outcome was better. Without caffeine I also had more anxiety, which sounds backwards considering how caffeine affects the body and brain, but for whatever reason rang true for me.

Now, with a caffeine tolerance that I never thought was possible, I find I am much more level-headed, and can focus on a problem, whether its coding, chores, or doing other hobbies I didn’t have the patience for like reading etc that might not be 100% interesting at first but become so. I am also a lot more even keeled in my energy, less enthusiastic, but it doesn’t seem to be a hindrance. It’s actually improved my relationships with others since I’m less reactive to things.

I am now able to sit down and work through harder problems coding without getting as distracted (although that certainly still happens), but I feel less “creativity” in my solutions to those coding problems that come up, so its a bit of a trade off.

Part of me wants to quit caffeine to compare just one more time, but I’m now stuck in a space where if I dont have coffee at least every other day, I get severe headaches and lethargy. This is a drug, and while its great to be able to drink coffee and participate more in cafe culture, it causes very real physical symptoms if you stop consuming it.

[1] https://medium.com/@TestingInProd/building-a-caffeine-tolera...