Quitting 30 years of daily caffeine was easy, I did it in a day by switching to amphetamines. I'm very happy with the change.
Quitting Caffeine
351–360 of 363 posts
Re: Quitting Caffeine
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have tried not drinking any, but the inability to focus and headaches mean that trying to cutback seriously puts my job at risk. Hey, I've been there. How do you consume your caffeine? Black coffee or something else? If you're drinking coffees with a bunch of cream and sugar, or energy drinks, you're addicted to both caffeine and sugar. Try quitting one at a time. Slowly switch to unsweetened tea/coffee so that you…
My drink of choice is sugar free monsters, so I got the sugar thing in check. Definitely a valid point, though.
I'm going to take a guess here.
I'm guessing you drink the zero-cal Monsters because you don't like the taste of coffee or tea? Don't worry, you're not alone. =)
I'm going to make a suggestion. If you want to break the Monster addiction you might think about exploring cold brew coffee. It's not the same as brewing a pot of coffee and throwing it in the fridge. With cold brew coffee, you just soak the coffee grounds in water over night. What you get is extremely concentrated coffee, with like 4x the caffeine of regular coffee, but with a ridiculously smooth taste, lacking the acridity/acidity/whatever of regular coffee... a lot of people who don't like coffee enjoy cold brew coffee.
Just remember that it's very concentrated stuff, 1/4 cup of cold brew coffee has the caffeine of an entire cup of coffee.
It's also a lot cheaper than Monster; you just use regular old coffee from the supermarket, you're gonna save like $50 a week.
But anyway, that's one possible way to tackle the addictions separately. Monster --> cold brew coffee --> single addiction that you should be able to beat just by tapering the dosage over time.
Re: Quitting Caffeine
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
In epidemiological studies we refer to these variables as confoundimg variables. There's another term as well that I can't seem to remember. When you try and correlate one specific variable, like coffee, to trends like mortality, you must control for every other variable. Socioeconomic factors like income generally cause confounding of your results. For example, there was a recent paper that showed that women with gu…
> epidemiological studies Tough field... How do you survive with the overwhelming stigma of doubt connected to it?
I'm not involved in any epidemiological studies, simply a medical student :).
But that being said, I think a lot of the stigma comes from researchers using biased data, or acting unethically with their data. Good epidemiological studies exist that have improved the health of the general public.
As a guide for new readers of public health research, here are my suggestions:
1. Read the abstract. Think about the claims that are being made. For example, if someone tells me that drinking 2 cups of coffee a day leads to a lower risk of cancer, my first thought is: what kinds of things do people drinking 2 cups of coffee a day do that would lower their risk of cancer? Could they have a different diet? Do they make more money, leading to them being able to afford preventative health? Do coffee drinkers just have more awareness about their health? Do their regular schedules and sleep cycles give them a health advantage? Keep these questions in mind when reading the rest of the paper. See if the researchers tried to control for these easy alternative explanations.
2. Get a fundamental understanding of some of the statistical terms and calculations used, and make sure you are not misinterpreting them. Thinks like odds ratio, attributable risk, relative risk, etc. Each of them means something specific, and should not be used for extrapolation. Google is your friend!
3. Read the paper as completely as you can!
4. Especially look at the discussion section for maybe reasons that their data isn't great, or also discussing alternative explanations. Also look at their appendix for their exclusion criteria. This can be a clue towards whether or not a researcher is being genuine about their dataset or data collection. In the ACP article about coffee drinkers, there were quite a few exclusions made, and the population they pulled data from seemed biased (women who went to mammogram screenings might care a bit more about their health than the average person)
That's all I have for now. I'd welcome any actual researcher to provide feedback and suggestions!
Re: Quitting Caffeine
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you love coffee, the best alternative to coffee is decaf. If you buy directly from a great roaster, you'll hardly be able to tell the difference. I'm not sure I'd be able to in a blind taste test (decaf if anything takes a little less bitter in latte form). If you have a grinder, you could buy beans from any number of places online, like Blue Bottle. I'm lucky enough to live near a ton of roaster coffee shops that…
I'm curious as to why you have the roasters grind the beans for you. Quality of ground coffee deteriorates much faster than whole beans. It depends on the grind size, but I'm pretty sure it's hours compared to weeks. A manual grinder like the Hario Skerton only costs $40 which is about the cost of a month of coffee beans for people who drink a cup or 2 every day.
I'm fairly lazy so rather than make one or two cups of coffee a day, I prefer to make a one-week batch of cold brew at a time. (It's also a pain to manually grind that much coffee at once.) Cold brew is a lot more forgiving about "grind freshness."
I'm considering buying a grinder, but it'll probably be $100-200, and I'm not sure if that's worth the price when the coffee shop will do it for me.
Re: Quitting Caffeine
#355What the author didn't mention, and I haven't seen mentioned in these comments, are the extremely beneficial health effects of coffee (not caffeine, decaf has shown the same benefits). Most significantly, studies have shown that coffee reduces overall mortality rates significantly, with the reduced chance of dying from any cause increasing with coffee consumption (up to a point). >Compared with nonconsumers, particip…
Not so fast, if you're under 55 years old and drink more than 4 cups a day then this study found that it is pretty bad for you.
>A study of more than 40,000 individuals found a statistically significant 21% increased mortality in those drinking more than 28 cups of coffee a week and death from all causes, with a greater than 50% increased mortality risk in both men and women younger than 55 years of age.
https://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-much-coffee-is-healthy-...
Re: Quitting Caffeine
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's possible to do this with just your home oven, green beans, a tray and a timer.
You'd need some serious ventilation. I also recommend starting with a popcorn popper outside.
> You'd need some serious ventilation.
I think this part hasn't been written of enough. How much smoke does coffee roasting create? Is it almost like a barbecue?
Re: Quitting Caffeine
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pro tip: Club soda with a lime looks just like a vodka soda. Works great when you're trying to keep a clear head at a party full of heavy drinkers too. Just make sure to take slow sips so that people don't catch you with an empty glass.
Something similar has helped me in not drinking pop/soda. I just get soda water and add lemons/limes. It has the flavor and fizziness of Sprite, just not the sweetness. And it's pretty widely available.
Best thing I did to quit soda the first time sround was get the True Lemon powder (it is crystallized lemon) and just drink that at water. I always found I would never use actual lemon before it became rotten, but that stuff is super useful.
Re: Quitting Caffeine
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
I order water with my meals, because I want to taste the food. About the only food that is good with a soda (or beer) is pizza.
I can't imagine what kind of food you like to eat then. The food-wine (or beer) pairing is an integral part of a lot of cuisines. But I can understand that it may be a very alien concept if you like to eat Mac Donald burgers or American pizzas.
I can understand wine or beer -- I was mostly referring to water instead of a sugary soda. But pairing an appropriate wine with seafood or a good steak does enhance the experience.
However, in my case, my schedule (and budget, and family factors) keep me from restaurants, except for an occasional lunch out at work. And then alcohol is verboten if I'm going back to work afterwards.
Re: Quitting Caffeine
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One of the more interesting comments in the article is in regards to the social stigma of only consuming water during meals Wow this is insane. The culture I grew up in is famously health-friendly, so I've never come across this, but it sounds horrible. I started drinking only water around high school, and the only reaction I ever got was "good for you, I wish I had that habit". > Because something like this still…
Ya, I think it's more that people assume that if you choose not to drink, you look down on people who do drink, and especially in one-on-one settings that makes them feel uncomfortable drinking around you
Ah yes, the concept of "anticipated reproach", where seeing someone do something that you deep down know you should do triggers a defense mechanism that makes you dislike them.
It's pretty easy to spot in people, and I go out of my way to avoid people that are that morally and intellectually stunted, so that may contribute to me seeing less of this reaction.
Re: Quitting Caffeine
#360I seem to have more energy than all my coworkers who drink coffee / tea every day at work. Here is how I do it: - Get as much sleep as I need. Most days I need 8 hours. Some days I need 9. So I plan accordingly. - Lunches that are light on carbs. Large amounts of potato, bread and or rice put me to sleep. On most days I have some sort of a salad for lunch with soup and a small piece of bread. That is all. Plenty of s…
> - Get as much sleep as I need. Most days I need 8 hours. Some days I need 9. So I plan accordingly. If you're getting 8-9 hours a night you don't need coffee. I bet your coworkers who are mainlining the stuff either have small kids, or very active social lives.
You might be right. It seems like everyone else at my office needs coffee all the time.