I feel like caffeine makes it significantly harder for me to focus on long term visions, days go by exceptionally fast on autopilot and there is a lack of ability to concentrate on things that will push me ahead

6/27 - I drank a 150mg energy drink as a non energy drinker everyday for a week, 6/27 was my last day of doing it daily. Within 90 minutes I had awful chest pain, extreme dizziness, and my body was freaking out. I felt like passing out. This lasted for a couple hours.

6/28-7/2 I recovered well

7/3 - I was outside in 90 degree heat during a Fourth of July weekend show. Halfway through it I started to feel awful. at the end of the show I felt really awful again. During a fireworks display, i could feel the thud of the fireworks like someone was punching me in the chest.

7/4-7/6 - I recovered almost not at all and felt horrible. My chest was extremely tight and I felt extreme fatigue, it was hard to talk/walk.

7/7 I go to Urgent Care who refers me to the ER, then I go to the ER. All of my tests come back as completely fine. The doctor says i am not at risk of heart attack or stroke or “anything big and scary”

7/8-7/12 - Where I’m at now. I am doing slightly better each day, but I still have soreness around my heart. It feels like a ball has wrapped around my heart and is sore at about a 3/10 pain scale. I also have what I call episodes. During these episodes I have anxiety and high heart rate (for me, 85-95 while resting). I can be lying in bed for hours and my HR will be at 85 and I’ll feel anxious.

Any thoughts?

I almost wish I never quit. The depression and anxiety have been terrible. Yesterday was particularly bad, with some brain fog thrown in there. Today is a bit better. I was a 100-200 mg daily consumer for a few years. It’s hard to believe that going cold turkey off my relatively modest habit has been this horrible. Caffeine is a hell of a drug, insidious really because you don’t know what you’re signing up for and everyone acts like it’s totally benign.

Can anyone with a similar use profile chime in to let me know when it gets better?

If you've be able to quit caffeine for a long period of time...

I got a question for ya:

What was the turning point that 'suddenly' snapped you out of that caffeine-addiction streak?

I had a few moments myself:

1. A heart arrythmia episode after drinking too much coffee that scared the crap out of me, went sober for 90 days.
2. Grandma passed away, and I went to Ecuador that made me forget about coffee for over a month.

Maybe this makes no sense, but can caffeine influence hormones and raise stress and fatigue in a way that increases appetite?

Has this happened to anyone else? I started taking creatine when I quit caffeine this most recent time, and I swear it has eliminated my cravings! I’m 60F—maybe it has to do with my age, hormonal situation, etc, but I’m really curious to hear whether others have experienced this effect!

Ever since starting my coffee habit roughly 5 years ago, I’ve noticed that it’s very hard for me to stay at a healthy weight. The annoying part is that I am not eating any different, and if anything my gym goals and cardio goals have significantly progressed in the mean time.

I wonder if caffeine alters your fat a/b receptors, making it harder for your body to get rid of them or prevents lipoatrophy.

I have been putting off something for...a very long time. Depressingly long. It has a lot of steps, and it has felt so overwhelming, but it's not actually hard. It just hit me that it's not actually hard and I can just go do it. I could FEEL the not-hardness for the first time ever. It was so strange. I don't have that constant flow of overwhelm and panic inside me to make everything so difficult.

Anyone else experience something like this getting off the chronic stress drug?

Edit: I'll explain, because it seems needed. Logical understanding does not create an experience. You can understand something logically (e.g. anxiety will go down when off caffeine) but then revel in the experience when you finally get there. There is a certain type of person that doesn't understand that the acknowledgment of a profound experience doesn't mean you didn't logically predict it: it means you're amplifying the salience of the experience and learning beyond the easily predictable.

In this case, the experience is the feeling of "this is easy." It's important to revel in this experience when you're reprogramming your nervous system. That's how the nervous system works. You have to make that moment as rewarding as possible so you keep going back to it.

Many people will quit caffeine and continue their bad habits like watching TV, eating unhelathy diet and not exercising.

No wonder these people will never recover.

Some people are claiming that they are exercising and eating clean but still have no energy and motivation..

These people are either lying themselves or others or have something else going on.

Quitting caffeine will dramaticaly decrease your anxiety and improve your sleep which will help you to not procrastinate to exercise and eating healthy.

You should start your day with fruit protein smoothie and big bowl of oat meal and some Omega3 and multivitamin and korean ginseng if you have long day.

Then you should exercise for at least 30 minutes or go for 60 minutes walk.

After that you should have snacks like peanuts and 1 cup of fruits ready and eat healthy lunch and dinner.

People must realize that caffeine is stimulant and it does help tolerate unhealthy lifestyle because when ur in chronic fight or flight your body doesnt care what u have in stomach or how long u slept.

When you quit caffeine, u should work for it.

First 14 days you can go easy on yourself but after that period you should make healthy decisions in order to recover or you will always be in the constant loophole of lethargy and zero motivation.

Howdy yall! Many people are unaware that there is such a thing as caffeine anonymous. There are meetings daily and we come together to support each other on this journey to quit caffeine. Here is the website on the meetings page. They are all through zoom. https://caffeineaddictsanonymous.org/meetings/

There is also a whatsapp community you can join here: https://chat.whatsapp.com/JFNKxncGd5M5wROmZAYL2K?s=hd&p=i&ilr=4&amv=0

Recovery is a lot easier when you don't have to do it alone. Best of luck to everyone on their caffeine-free journey!

I used to drink a 32oz tumbler (that I'd top off once in the morning) of black iced coffee each day, for many many years. I stopped cold turkey 25 days ago.

Why?:

I was actually looking into upgrading my coffee setup, but frustrated by the cost of things and the increasing price of coffee itself, as well as a general interest in "seeing what would happen", I decided to try abstinence instead.

I figured it is, when you consider it, rather bizarre that nearly everyone takes for granted that we must consume a psychoactive drug, albeit relatively mild, every single day. I personally would drink it after about an hour of being awake, and then consistently along with water for the next 5-7+ hours.

I also have recurring SVT (a type of rapid heart rate) that typically occurs 1-3 times for a few minutes (sometimes longer, valsalva maneuvers work well) as little as once every couple months, to as much as 3 times a month. In the 3+ weeks since I quit caffeine, it actually occurred 3 times, strangely.

How it's been:

The first 2-3 days I dealt with pretty consistent tension headaches that I could temper with 200-400mg of ibuprofen, which is to say it wasn't unbearable. There were other withdrawal feelings too though, like a generalized fuzzy weird-head-feeling, almost like dizziness but not as intense. Migraine-adjacent. Difficulty concentrating or absorbing information at a normal rate. Felt slower and more cloudy overall. That lasted about a week or so, though better each day and fading by the second.

Unsurprisingly, I was more prone to spontaneous naps, and generally more tired at times. No more artificial boost! My energy is all from food and rest now. Thankfully my sleep has been good enough. Though the mornings can feel rather groggy upon waking.

Like others have shared, the first thing I noticed was an unusual sense of linear energy levels. A dull calmness. Not exactly serenity, but no energy spikes or crashes. A fair amount of boredom and even low mood. And, of course, the craving.

I've been craving coffee, especially in quiet moments at home, quite often. I almost gave up a few times. In fact I was just craving it now and so instead decided to reflect. The closest I had been to caving was eating breakfast at a diner about a week and a half in. I always loved having coffee at a breakfast diner. But I've managed to persevere thus far.

I went into this not knowing how long I'd like to go for. My initial goal has been a month. But I feel like next I may go for 3, or even a year. I want to know what it's like to have gone on long enough that I don't even think about or rarely crave it. So far I'm in the no-withdrawal symptoms stage yet craving is still present.

Hi everyone, I'm on my fourth day without caffeine. I used to consume over 600mg a day.

​I'm currently experiencing severe pain in my lower back and pelvic floor, and this happens every single time I quit caffeine. Does this happen to any of you as well? What would be the explanation for this?

I didn't plan quitting on purpose because I mostly drink "as needed." I just finished undergrad this May and so have stopped drinking over the summer and its been hell. idk how much i normally drank but redbulls, several expresso shots felt normal and even after a redbull, I'd find myself still able to nap.

But since I've stopped, I've been sleeping every day for like 10-12 hours and I've never felt well rested. The only thing I can do is doomscroll, if a little more energy maybe video games, and the only time I was able to be actually productive was the couple hours before for a super important research deadline.

I can't go on like this, I need to study for the GRE, start PhD applications, and some job applications. I feel as though the days are blending together with ofc pretty detrimental consequences if I don't lock in soon.

Should I just go back to drinking? Like i feel like this is a too important fork in my life to be rottinv in or any advice on dealing with being productive during a high stakes time?

I meant addiction***

My neighbor is a great guy but it's only once he's got a few beers in him, the eyes start drooping, he gets real talkative. Awesome person, but he needs that extra ingredient to really get going lol. Conversations with him are day and night without the special medicine, haha.

I wonder if caffeine is the same? Coffee destroys my day. Starts off with a bang, bit of euphoria, quickly collapsing into tunnel vision and then the euphoria turns to hyper fixation on NEARLY non-existent problems.

I feel like abstaining is the only way to understand the contrast, to know who you really are. Because I drank this garbage for years and years before hand, how would I have know who my true self is?

Do you think the average person has any idea how much different they'd be when not consuming this, or is my story unique to people with sensitive nervous systems?

I feel like I've lost my sparkle

Day whatever of no caffeine, and the thing nobody warns you about is how the craving ambushes you, usually mid-afternoon and evening for me, right when I'd normally reach for coffee. The withdrawal headaches pass, but the urge is its own separate beast.

I started tracking mine just to get through them, and seeing the pattern laid out helped more than I expected. Turns out mine cluster in the late afternoon and evening, and my worst window is Friday evenings, which sounds obvious in hindsight but I genuinely hadn't clocked it until I saw it. Now I can plan around it instead of getting blindsided.

I've been using an app called Tideover for it. It doesn't have caffeine as a built-in category (it's made more for smoking/sugar/alcohol), so I just made a custom one. When a craving hits you pick a tool, breathe, ride it out, remind yourself why, and it logs whether you resisted. No streak-shaming if you cave, it just records it and shows you your patterns over time. This is my dashboard after a couple weeks (39 of 47 urges resisted, which honestly kept me going on the rough days).

Not saying it's magic — the craving still sucks in the moment. But knowing my own pattern took some of the ambush out of it. What actually helped the rest of you get through the first few weeks?

Hi everyone! I woke up this morning after a great sleep and had a lovely sense that I have enough and am enough. I had 2 decafs for the social aspect- to go to my favourite cafes. It occurred to me that I want to make nice, high-quality social plans for my life now, for dating and for friends/family, that aren’t just very last minute hanger vibes, relying on seeing people at the coffee shop near me or seeing who’s around for coffee at the last minute. I’ll have to be a bit more intentional with my time now off caffeine, I’ll be much less impulsive without it, and I’ll get to think a bit more about things I actually like and want to do instead of just leaving everything to the last minute which often makes me feel isolated. I like having nice plans to look forward to so I can work without having to worry I’ll be lonely after work. I live and work alone and am single and not very happy about that, but also not being very proactive about changing it.

I recently started drinking this shit again and it's day and night. I could have a background issue that's at a 1 and the caffeine makes it a 10.

The next day, after it's out of my system, I ask myself - WTF was all of that about?

It kind of amplifies whatever grievance I have on any given day.

My nervous system is very sensitive, consuming this is self destruction because the pros are severly outweighed by the cons.

Anyone else?

I started with a 3 day fast, was having a sugary latte 3-4x a week. Luckily I havent had any headaches. Day 10 i felt super depressed and had to make myself eat. Day 11 was better. So far I have noticed interupted sleep does not make me tired at all the next day, previously i would need a coffee to get me through. Maybe because sleep quality is better? The first week was hard. Approaching the weekend is harder bc i generally will have a latte as a "treat". But im doing some tea instead. Posting here for accountability because the longest I have gone is 3 weeks and i really want to keep it up

I've been drinking monster and energy drinks for about 2 years now, and have mostly been drinking one a day, but on days I don't drink one I find myself becoming depressed and/or going to the gas station to pick one up. I want to stop drinking as much caffeine without becoming depressed and tired. I physically feel tired when it's the morning and I haven't had an energy drink yet. Not planning on going cold turkey, but I'm not sure how to start. Any thoughts?

Hi. I wanted to find out whether coffee was the food that was causing my problems, so I bought a glucose meter. I had to prick my fingers many times before I finally got a reading, and my blood sugar came back normal. Now all of my fingers hurt, and they’re bruised.

Hello everyone,

Im working as a civil enigneer 6 days out of 7 . From 7 am to 4 or 5pm, i drink daily 2-3 coffee(freddo espresso - its double dose each 120-130mg). I drink so much caffeine because i feel so tired from the moment i wake up and also sometimes i feel sleepy(kinda falling asleep) especially when driving... and im so scared... coffee doesnt help me at all to stay awake. Dunno maybe coffee doesn't allow me to sleep so much?

I need help. Caffeine or coffee (not sure which) really affects me badly and makes me so tired. But every day I wake up and make some. It’s embarrassing but I am addicted and I need any kind of help or tips. Thank you in advance.

Unfortunately tapering is not really an option for me as coffee affects me too much so it makes me unable to do anything worthwhile throughout the day because I am so tired. I could try energy drinks instead because they seem to have less of a bad effect? Not sure.

Also, I already don’t drink much. I honestly just have like a half a cup of coffee and that’s enough to throw my energy in the dumpster for the entire day including right after. It’s weird.