30 Days Without Caffeine

There came a point where I realised that I was drinking way too much tea and coffee each day.  In fact, I was lurching from cup to cup, not realising that I was just masking my real lifestyle of staying up late, getting up early and feeling tired all the time.  Coffee was my worst addiction, and I was probably drinking more than 10 cups a day from the vending machine at work - which was also full of powdered milk and sugar too, so not the best thing to add to the gallons of coffee either.

At weekends I would rarely have a coffee as my wife does not drink it.  Instead I would drink cup after cup of tea and end up all irritable and grumpy as I was not getting my full caffeine fix.  When I realised that it was affecting my life in this way, it was time that I had to stop or try to keep it under control.  That is why I decided to go cold turkey and give up caffeine for 30 days.

It was not as hard as I thought (having given up smoking 10 years ago) but I was not prepared for the impact it would have on my body.  I can honestly say that in the first 2 weeks of the 30 days, I felt like hell.  My head ached, I was getting aches and pains in my legs and lower back and I just wanted to crawl into bed.  I had the overall feeling of having a really bad head cold, without the head cold!  Again, another realisation for me that my body was crying out for caffeine - as I had just taken it away.

As I was not going to be drinking so much any more, I decided to investigate some fruit tea's to fill the gap. I don't really like just drinking water on it's own. It is pretty boring. Fruit tea seemed to be the answer, so off I trotted to the supermarket and bought a selection. It was not a success. They all smell really nice but taste like vinegar. Without adding sugar (or honey) to the mix, they were not palatable at all and just left a really sour taste in my mouth. Fruit or herbal tea was not the answer.

Around 2 weeks in I decided to try decaffeinated tea. I am not sure why I had not thought of it before really. It was like an epiphany! I was able to drink tea again - and it tasted good! I tried a few different brands of decaf tea and settled on one that really does taste like normal tea, just a little "thinner" tasting. I also started taking tea bags to work and making my own drink, trying to keep it to only 2 cups per day. If I fancy another drink in between, a cup of water will suffice. If I think I deserve a reward I sometimes have a hot chocolate - and yes - I realise that chocolate has caffeine in! But not too much.

My non-caffeine lifestyle has revealed that I do get tired in the evenings and I have started falling asleep in front of the television. I usually get up at 6am each day and found that without the aid of several cups of the black stuff, I was struggling to keep my eyes open from 10:30pm onwards. This is the main thing that has been noticeable from doing this experiment.

At the end of my 30 day experiment, it has taught me several things.

• That I can do without caffeine as I now feel no different from before, just more tired.
• That caffeine free tea and coffee is amazing, although you have to hunt around for a good taste.  They do not all taste nice.
• That is is possible to lead a lifestyle where I am not fuelled by 10 cups of coffee during the day.
• That I do have the willpower to do things like this.

The most amazing part of this test is that although the 30 days are now over, I do not feel like I want to go back to the coffee.  I thought I would be craving a cup of java at my local coffee house as soon as the time was up, but I think I will stick with the decaf teabags for now and maybe indulge in a proper coffee now and again.