Decaffeinated Life - My Caffeine Detox
Caffeine has the power to ignite the fire within us and warm the heart and soul. Caffeine - especially coffee - is a controversial topic in the wellness world. Some believe it can improve our cognitive and physical performance, while others warn about toxic chemicals it may contain and how it can weaken our bones and accelerate the ageing process.
I have always had an interesting relationship with coffee. I love the energising and uplifting effects of my morning brew and intoxicating aroma of it. It’s a ritual in the morning, and during dark winter months it cheers me up. It sharpens my focus and helps me to get going if I otherwise feel lethargic. Yet, overconsuming it makes me feel anxious, and unfocused, and sometimes it even increases my heart rate. Recently I decided to quit caffeine for the next 30 days, and later will plan to get back on it to better understand its effects on me. Remember to watch my Youtube videos about this topic. ;)
The key reason for my caffeine detox is to reset things so that I don't need to use caffeine for my baseline maintenance. Prior to my detox I noticed that I had started to become more tolerant to caffeine, and instead of just having a cup of coffee in the morning, I had started to add a cup of green tea to my afternoon. Even though I wasn’t a heavy coffee drinker this still bothered me since I would like to be naturally more energetic. I had also noticed how the quality of my sleep has gotten worse - it wasn’t the worst-worst but it could have been deeper - and I couldn’t connect the dots until I started my caffeine detox.
The Plant-Based Drug
Caffeine is the most widely used drug in the world and at least 80% of the adult population in the western world use it in amounts large enough to have an effect on the brain. The interesting thing is that most of us don’t think of caffeine as a drug or our daily use as an addiction. Caffeine is a plant-based compound and a central nervous system stimulant that is often consumed daily to “wake up”, get through the day or to improve cognitive and physical performance.
Caffeine is found in plants. Caffeine is not just in coffee but also in many teas, energy drinks, sodas, yerba mate, dark chocolate, and even in certain medications. We often think that caffeine makes us more energetic, alert, and gives us stamina. However, caffeine does not give us real energy. Caffeine works by blocking the action of adenosine, a neurotransmitter that promotes sleep. When adenosine cannot do its job, we feel more alert. But adenosine levels continue to rise, and when the caffeine is eventually metabolised, the tiredness returns. It’s like a debt that needs to be paid back with interest.
How Caffeine Changed The Human Mind and Life
Does Caffeine improve our performance? This is something Michael Pollan goes through in his book, This Is Your Mind on Plants. He even proposes a case that coffee and tea made a substantial, positive contribution to the advance of quote-unquote “civilisation” in the West, leading the world into the Era of Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. Western civilization was innocent of coffee and tea until the 1600s. From Ethiopia to the Arabian Peninsula, coffee houses finally arrived in Europe: the first one popped up in Venice in 1629 and from there spread to Oxford, England. The enthusiasm expanded across the continent and coffee houses earned the name “penny universities” due to the wealth of knowledge one could gain for the price of a cup of coffee. Coffee houses provided much more than just coffee: newspapers, books, magazines, and captivating conversations. Enlightenment philosophers, like Voltaire and Rousseau, and other learned types and scientists gathered at caffeinated spaces for social, intellectual, commercial, and political exchange.
Caffeine - mainly in the form of coffee and tea - created fundamental changes at the level of the human mind Pollan argues. Caffeine freed us from the circadian rhythms of our biology. It made our minds sharper, and improved our energy. With the power of caffeine we can work throughout the night and perform long shifts which were prerequisites for the Industrial Revolution that required labour.
Caffeine and Sleep
The first five days of my caffeine detox were the worst: I was constantly more or less tired and in the afternoon took a nap if I could. I felt dull and everything seemed grey. I had a hard time focusing on anything and being motivated to get things done. After the first week fatigue started to fade away and I stopped craving coffee. During the past three weeks of this caffeine detox, the biggest positive changes are in my sleep quality and my energy levels. I can easily wake up refreshed without an alarm and get moving. It super fascinating how such a simple thing can so hugely affect our sleep. I thought I slept reasonably well, but now without caffeine my sleep is deep and nourishing!
I think caffeine messes up with our natural circadian rhythms or our internal biological 24-hour clock. The effects of caffeine typically peak within an hour of consuming it - but caffeine will stay in our system for hours after that and for this reason it can affect our sleep. The mean half-life of caffeine in healthy individuals is 5 hours, but caffeine’s elimination half-life may range between 1.5 and 9.5 hours. According to Matthew Walker, professor of neuroscience and psychology and author of the book Why We Sleep, the “quarter-life” of caffeine is about twelve hours, meaning that 25 percent of the caffeine in a cup consumed at noon is still circulating in your brain at midnight. Most of the caffeine consumed today is being used to compensate for poor sleep. As ironic as it sounds, caffeine provides a solution to the problem that caffeine creates. Caffeine helps to hide our awareness from the root cause of our sleep issues that typically is caffeine.
If you have trouble with sleep, caffeine consumption is something to pay attention to. At least I have no problem falling asleep when there is zero caffeine in my blood. To get proper sleep we should stop drinking coffee ideally 12 hours before our bedtime. Andrew Huberman has made a fantastic episode about caffeine, and how it can affect our mental and physical performance, including our sleep, which I highly recommend if you are interested in this topic.
How Much Caffeine Is Safe To Consume
According to official recommendations from the US and European Food Safety Authorities up to 400mg of caffeine per day is considered to be safe for most adults - this is up to 4 regular cups of coffee a day. In my opinion this is an insane amount of caffeine. This recommendation excludes pregnant women, children and people with certain health conditions. Moreover, people struggling with anxiety and those with sleep issues should avoid caffeine. In a regular cup there is typically 95-165 mg of caffeine. Or as a general rule, an average 8-ounce (240ml) cup of coffee contains 100mg of caffeine.
How much we can consume without negative side effects has a lot to do with our bio-individuality and how well we metabolise caffeine - some are more sensitive than others. For instance, I don’t do well with more than one cup of coffee per day. And certainly, we can become more tolerant if we consume caffeine a lot.
Manage Your Caffeine Intake
If you are trying to manage or reduce your caffeine intake, pay attention to the size of your cup and also how many shots of espresso are used in your specialty coffee drinks. The brewing technique and the type of coffee beans and tea leaves, as well as their processing affects the caffeine content.
Caffeine withdrawal symptoms are real and they include things like headache, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, decreased motivation, decreased alertness, depressed mood, and irritability. You can try to avoid them by reducing your caffeine intake slowly for instance by dropping one serving per day for a week after which you can reduce further. Or you can trade one coffee per day for green tea which has much less caffeine.
Other things you can try to feel more energised include: proper hydration, getting at least seven hours of quality sleep per night, avoiding processed foods to eliminate blood sugar crashes, physical movement, and getting daylight. For me long walks in nature have helped to ease withdrawal symptoms which in my case have been afternoon fatigue and brain fog. In my caffeine deprived life I have been drinking rooibos tea and this has helped me feel grounded and balanced in the morning.
I have also tried decaffeinated coffee a couple of times during my detox. I have to say that my decaf flat white and decaf cappuccino with plant-based milk were almost as good as regular coffee. Only the aroma was slightly milder and I didn’t get the dopamine high as I would from normal coffee. But I certainly felt a tiny bit better afterwards.
The main difference between normal coffee and decaf coffee is that decaf coffee has had most of the caffeine removed - yes, most, not all. The process also removes some of the rich aroma coffee would normally have, making the taste of decaf coffee typically weaker than regular coffee. Both decaf and regular coffee provide health-protective antioxidants like polyphenols. The good thing is that decaf coffee can be a nice transitionary option when you are trying to quit your old coffee habit or reduce your caffeine intake. It can also be an option for those sensitive to caffeine, and for people who struggle with anxiety, those who have sleep issues or those with underlying health conditions.
However, there are some concerns regarding decaffeinated coffee because a lot of chemicals are used in the process to remove caffeine from coffee beans. For instance, methylene chloride is often used; Inhalation of this chemical can impact the central nervous system. If you use decaf coffee, I highly recommend paying attention to the decaffeination method and making sure it’s chemical-free and organic because there are higher quality decaf coffee options out there where they use water-only method or the Swiss water process.
The Long Term Effect Of Caffeine Consumption
The research suggests that moderate consumption of coffee and tea could provide some health benefits like improved focus and alertness, cognitive function, and physical performance. Both tea and coffee also include many beneficial antioxidants even though I believe it’s much better to get them from real foods.
Caffeine is very acidic in the body, and it can prevent calcium absorption in the bones. Even studies show that - but also note that adding a couple of spoons of milk to your coffee can prevent this from happening. To be on the safe side I always add some plant-based milk to my coffee.
From a beauty perspective, there’s very little beauty in coffee: it’s dark and looks more like motor oil. The more I have studied this, the more I have become convinced that caffeine is not going to increase our beauty. Caffeine is diuretic, meaning that it removes water from the body and can make our skin drier leading to wrinkles. Therefore, I always have a glass of water when I drink coffee or tea. Dark drinks like coffee, tea, and soda can also stain our teeth and erode our tooth enamel.
In general I think it’s important to become conscious of how you feel before, during, and after your morning brew. Does it bring you more joy and bliss, or is it just a default habit that leaves you anxious and restless a couple of hours later?
These were my thoughts about caffeine so far. I will continue my 30-Day Caffeine Detox.
Sending you so much love and peace!
RESOURCES
Articles:
FT: Sleep expert Matthew Walker on the secret to a good night’s rest
Books:
This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan
Videos:
Huberman Lab: Using Caffeine to Optimize Mental & Physical Performance | Huberman Podcast 101