151–160 of 281 posts
The only good thing that keeps me from collapsing into a state of limbo is coffee and now, even that's bad (seems more like a mixed bag, but still)? Sigh.
Here is a fun citation with a brief summary. They suggest regular caffine use lowers your baseline and it just returns you to where you'd be if you weren't dependent. University of Bristol. "Coffee consumption unrelated to alertness: Stimulating effects may be illusion, study finds." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 3 June 2010. .
After habitually consuming caffeine (not in coffee form) daily, usually multiple times a day, for more than a decade, a horrible mental health incident happened to me that forced me to stop it for a while. Afterwards I didn't resume the habit, and so I no longer have a tolerance. This has let me evaluate what caffeine does with fresh eyes, so to say, because I can now consume it occasionally while having many non-caf…
I couldn't drink coffee or alcohol during those 4 weeks, and notice that I didn't get any migraines after those 4 weeks even when I, for the past 12 years, knew exactly how I got them reliably.
I didn't make sense to me to keep drinking coffee because the benefits of coffee which for me was mostly ritual and taste, didn't outweight the weight of having a migraine for sure if I slept a minute less than 8hrs.
Mind you, I'm talking about a cup almost everyday with milk, ice coffee in the mornings.
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Coffee is a plant demon that created the western civilization as we know it today...
I like this worldview. Prior to coffee, Europe was in the grip of the beer dwarves. Coffee demons took over and invented nationalism, capitalism and Keynesian economics.
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I experienced a similar anhedonia when quitting caffeine. I don't think the caffeine itself was the problem, I think it was just helping a lot more than I knew with the inertia of circling the pit without tottering in. Turns out I needed stimulants from time to time, just not that one.
What stimulants have you landed on? And do you feel they're better for you? I'm pondering getting a coffee machine at home. 400 EUR is not a sizable investment and one I'd have forgotten about it 3 months but I'm getting cold feet when it gets to committing. Americano coffee definitely picks me up and is a full net positive for me. But that's only if I drink 2-3 times a week. Not sure how it's going to be if I start…
Get an Aeropress, or Hario Switch, or Clever dripper. A kettle and some filters. For beans buy from roasters that do light/meduim roasts, and print a recent roasting date on the package/website. The only expensive item should be a grinder, look at 1zpresso Q/Air/X or Kingrinder K6 if you want to limit price.
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I like this worldview. Prior to coffee, Europe was in the grip of the beer dwarves. Coffee demons took over and invented nationalism, capitalism and Keynesian economics.
At least the coffee demons aren't quite as bad as the amphetamine demons that produced Nazi Germany.
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I experienced a similar anhedonia when quitting caffeine. I don't think the caffeine itself was the problem, I think it was just helping a lot more than I knew with the inertia of circling the pit without tottering in. Turns out I needed stimulants from time to time, just not that one.
What stimulants have you landed on? And do you feel they're better for you? I'm pondering getting a coffee machine at home. 400 EUR is not a sizable investment and one I'd have forgotten about it 3 months but I'm getting cold feet when it gets to committing. Americano coffee definitely picks me up and is a full net positive for me. But that's only if I drink 2-3 times a week. Not sure how it's going to be if I start…
Caffeine makes me feel like I'm overclocked, but Adderall lets me run tasks async. The latter is so much more preferable for dealing with the demands of life.
Medicate at 4pm, then I know I can effortlessly interleave chores, family time, social obligations, and my own creative pursuits. Otherwise I'd spend my evenings on the couch stuck trying to offload unsolved problems of the workday.
Vigorous exercise accomplishes the same thing, but I can't always make that happen "as-needed".
After habitually consuming caffeine (not in coffee form) daily, usually multiple times a day, for more than a decade, a horrible mental health incident happened to me that forced me to stop it for a while. Afterwards I didn't resume the habit, and so I no longer have a tolerance. This has let me evaluate what caffeine does with fresh eyes, so to say, because I can now consume it occasionally while having many non-caf…
Very interested.
I am a regular coffee drinker, mostly limited to very early morning (e.g. 5-7 am). Also consume celsius here and there when I want to minimize stomach disruption in the morning (e.g. I am about to run).
But have also used THC in the past (no longer, major anxiety inducer for me). Alcohol like so many people. And more recently went on an assisted MDMA/ketamine therapy journey that continues to amaze me in its impact (in all good ways).
Asking as I am reducing caffeine slowly right now and curious what folks are seeing as differences on/off in real terms.
thirty-one participants were moderate coffee-drinkers (CD, i.e., people that usually consume between 3 to 5 cups of coffee per day). 3-5 is moderate? To me, 3 is already high. Also, sample size is pretty low and they're all Irish.
I agree. I'm deep into specialty coffee and I love making and drinking coffee a lot , but three cups is already higher than what I drink on a normal day. Also, most of the time when I go above this threshold, I drink decaf.