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A year without caffeine (part 2)

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Re: A year without caffeine (part 2)

#101

Post by noveltyaccount »

redwood wrote: post #45
geoka9 wrote: post #3

Reading this gave me chills - the symptoms of withdrawal described here are not unlike those of a heroin addict gone cold turkey. I can't imagine normal healthy people routinely taking a drug and teaching their children to take one. And yet this happens with coffee all the time. Many are even proud of their addiction ("coffee snobs").

I recommend reading "Shantaram" if you want to get a written sense (not that I can confirm its accuracy) of the total hell that is cold turkey off heroin. Both may be tough and painful to quit, but in "Shantaram" the turn off heroin is described as: imagine everything that is in any way good in your life, your being: warmth between your toes, energy to look up at the sky, hope for tomorrow, etc: now imagine every sin…

Great book. I just posted the full quote above. Cheers.

Re: A year without caffeine (part 2)

#102

Post by gnaritas »

marvin wrote: post #12
pretoriusB wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine normal healthy people routinely taking a drug and teaching their children to take one. And yet this happens with coffee all the time. Many are even proud of their addiction ("coffee snobs"). It also happens with sugars, salt, corn syrup and tons of other stuff. Lots of things can be a "drug". Coffee, when drank in moderation, is actually absolutely beneficial to one's health.

Do you have a citation for the "caffeine is healthy" claim? This seems like rationalization to me; as a non-drinker of caffeine, coffee seems like the number one legal drug in the Western world.

You say drug like it's a bad word. People like caffeine and it generally doesn't cause problems in moderation, so what's the problem?

Re: A year without caffeine (part 2)

#103

Post by lambda »

dalke wrote: post #57
lambda wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consuming large amounts of them can cause you to have temporary bursts of pleasure, which then cause you to crave them more when they are missing. Have you never had the experience of eating something salty, and realizing that you craved more, to the point where you ate too much salt? Or had some sugar, and then had a sugar crash a little while later, where you got grumpy until you could have something to eat?

That does not make salt or corn syrup a "drug", which is what brador asked about. Your definition is so broad as to make the term "drug" meaningless, as it means that even water is a drug. Yes, after swimming in the ocean waves for an hour, cold freshwater is pure pleasure, and if I haven't had enough water for a while I start to suffer from dehydration. A friend of mine has to eat a small amount every few others, el…

I don't really know. I was explaining the above comment, not agreeing with it.

One of the problems is that we have this value judgement associated with the word "drug." Once you label something a "drug", it acquires a negative connotation.

One thing that distinguishes a drug from something like water is that you actually, physically depend on water; you cannot live without it. You can, however, live without sugar (though of course, your body will break down complex carbs into sugar). You can't live without salt, though there's a wide range between how much you need and how much many people eat.

Re: A year without caffeine (part 2)

#105

Post by peteretep »

Sindrome wrote: post #53

I think I could do a year without caffeine. But a year without alcohol? IMPOSSIBLE.

I just finished my first year without it. First few months were pretty hard, but I got over it. Saved a bunch of money, got more confident in social situations, lost some weight. It was good enough, I've just started my second year...

Re: A year without caffeine (part 2)

#106

Post by jacques_chester »

gfunk911 wrote: post #24
Evgeny wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always amazing to people how much diet and exercise affect their health This is true. It is equally amazing to me how much abuse the human body can take before it actually breaks down. Sometimes I think it would be better if the results of bad dietary or exercise habits revealed themselves faster - I suppose it would be more convincing and easier to undo the damage.

This is a very interesting observation. Fail fast....

Fail fast is a search rule that makes sense for a startup business. The all-up cost (including opportunity cost) to exploit an unprofitable niche is so high relative to the cost of exploration that it's sensible to jump out of weak local optima and keep moving.

It is not a universal rule of infinite wisdom. Not all situations are startup businesses.

Re: A year without caffeine (part 2)

#107

Post by jacques_chester »

rdtsc wrote: post #95
jakeonthemove wrote: post #49

Going off caffeine gives me 2-3 days of indescribable headaches, then it's a pronounced fatigue for another 2 weeks. It ain't pretty. However, if coffee must be eliminated from your diet, I believe you can always use caffeine pills - same energy without any side effects on the stomach.

I like the taste of coffee but don't feel like a need or want the caffeine boost. Decaf coffees don't taste the same though either. So once in a while I go for about a week or so of drinking coffee, then quit and pay for it with headaches.

Decaf taste depends a lot on the process. Out of the different kinds I've tried, CO2 distillate is best.

Re: A year without caffeine (part 2)

#108

Post by pretoriusB »

dalke wrote: post #57
lambda wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consuming large amounts of them can cause you to have temporary bursts of pleasure, which then cause you to crave them more when they are missing. Have you never had the experience of eating something salty, and realizing that you craved more, to the point where you ate too much salt? Or had some sugar, and then had a sugar crash a little while later, where you got grumpy until you could have something to eat?

That does not make salt or corn syrup a "drug", which is what brador asked about. Your definition is so broad as to make the term "drug" meaningless, as it means that even water is a drug. Yes, after swimming in the ocean waves for an hour, cold freshwater is pure pleasure, and if I haven't had enough water for a while I start to suffer from dehydration. A friend of mine has to eat a small amount every few others, el…

>That does not make salt or corn syrup a "drug", which is what brador asked about.

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_addiction

Re: A year without caffeine (part 2)

#109

Post by pretoriusB »

brador wrote: post #9
pretoriusB wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine normal healthy people routinely taking a drug and teaching their children to take one. And yet this happens with coffee all the time. Many are even proud of their addiction ("coffee snobs"). It also happens with sugars, salt, corn syrup and tons of other stuff. Lots of things can be a "drug". Coffee, when drank in moderation, is actually absolutely beneficial to one's health.

Salt and corn syrup are drugs? Explain please.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110711151451.ht...

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/high-fructose-c...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_addiction

Drug in this context is not something that makes you hallucinate or teens do in urban neighbourhoods. It's all about the addiction.

In nutricional and biological context, their drug-like behaviour is well known.

Re: A year without caffeine (part 2)

#110

Post by pretoriusB »

frewsxcv wrote: post #13
pretoriusB wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't imagine normal healthy people routinely taking a drug and teaching their children to take one. And yet this happens with coffee all the time. Many are even proud of their addiction ("coffee snobs"). It also happens with sugars, salt, corn syrup and tons of other stuff. Lots of things can be a "drug". Coffee, when drank in moderation, is actually absolutely beneficial to one's health.

> It also happens with sugars, salt, corn syrup and tons of other stuff. Citation needed

Search in the web by lazy readers for well known nutricional studies and information needed.
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