Ask HN: Quit caffeine? Before and after anecdotes

I worked without it for 25+ years due to religion/religious upbringing.

I started it on my way out of the religion and realized it could even benefit what we called spiritual revelation experiences. Which was funny.

After first experiments I quit a few times but didn't notice that not using was an advantage in any way, unless I was using too much caffeine in certain specific circumstances.

After that I measured my dosages more directly and tried different stacks alongside. 2:1 L-Theanine is by far my favorite to use with caffeine.

At night I stick with a homemade cacao drink for the theobromine and maybe some cinnamon.

The best benefits to my creativity, problem solving, and coding were along the lines of learning about my psychology though, not caffeine and stuff like that.

For one, caffeine can stimulate the imagination but it's crucial to be able to recognize how and when to consciously use the imagination for personal benefit. Otherwise...what do you need to imagine, for work? You can get caught out by beginner questions like that, so you are stuck in your past even with the caffeine. Caffeine has no user manual for really leveraging the psychological effect at a subjective level, which sucks :-)

Good luck in your search.

I was never a huge caffeine user, my peak was maybe 3 or 4 cans of coke zero a day. Since I quit I've seen my level of general anxiety go down, my moods are more stabler (like less feelings of irritability, stress, feeling overwhelmed), and I feel like my sleep has improved. I haven't noticed any real change in my performance after quitting. Maybe I don't feel as "sharp", but I'm still getting the same amount of things done at the same quality as before.

One thing to note is that once you quit you will not be able to really use caffeine effectively at the same level you are currently using it.

I recently had some caffeine, and after being off it for so long, it was actually very unpleasant. I felt like a cpu that got overclocked and was overheating. It didn't really make me any more productive, it just made feel like wow I'm really up right now, too far up and I want to be back to normal, but I can't until the caffeine passes through my system. And just that feeling of being trapped in the "high" and being unable to get out was very disturbing to me personally.

I have been drinking coffe since I was 14 (I am 36)… I reached my peak during university with 8 espressos a day but for the past 10 years I only drank 4 espressos a day. I sometimes stopped drinking (like a couple of years ago I went for 3 weeks in the states on vacation and since there the coffee is basically liquid shit I decided it was better tu just avoid drinking it!) and never noticed any difference!

I was getting some really bad anxiety and a pounding heart rate, an hour or two after having caffeine. Because I mostly consume in the morning, this meant that afternoons were especially difficult. Because I slowly drank it through the morning, it meant several hours of misery.

It took me a really long time to realize that it might be related to the caffeine. I tapered myself down by using Excedrin (65 mg per pill) and Jet-Alert (100 mg per pill) and cutting the pills smaller each day. If you're disciplined you can do that and not experience too much discomfort.

I also used "de-caffeinate"[1] which seemed like it helped, especially before bed to sleep, but I'm not positive.

[1]: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01997EVNG/ref=ppx_yo_dt...

You do realise most studies are just a collation of anecdotes.... They literally are what the big picture is compiled of....