Slashdot Mirror
Best Way To Beat A Caffeine Addiction?
ethanms writes "I'm pretty sure that I'm addicted to caffeine... I get nasty headaches if I skip coffee and soda for a day. If I go even longer, then the headaches get worse and I start to become (even more of) a pain in the ass to those around me. Within five or ten minutes of a cup of joe or can of Mountain Dew the headache is gone and I feel fine... There's plenty of advice out there for dealing with addiction, but I'm really interested in how other /. users have managed and controlled their own caffeine intake, especially considering how heavily it is pushed by many development / engineering communities. 'Just drink more' isn't really the answer I'm after either."
I suppose that would work, but have you ever had a caffeine-withdrawl headache?
I stopped getting them (the caffeine-based ones at least, see below) after about a month when I quit.
I'd tried reducing my caffeine intake, but I just kept going back to it (especially when I had early morning meetings), so I figured cold turkey was the only way it was going to happen.
I'd been drinking caffeinated beverages of one kind or another for about fifteen years (since I was ten or so), and at the end of it I was taking No-Doze in the morning and drinking a thermos full of coffee or black tea every day.
It's been about six months, and I have only two minor complaints:
- I can't drink the tea at my favourite Chinese restaurant anymore.
- *Not* drinking caffeine (a painkiller) means that now I feel the migraines I've apparently been getting for a few years (according to my doctor). They're pretty infrequent, though, so I just keep a bottle of aspirin around.
It took about three months before I wasn't really tired in the mornings. After that I was able to sleep normally and my hands don't shake anymore. Maybe I can finally use a soldering iron properly =).
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
The explanation i got from a biochemist when i tried to quit was that the signal-molecules that are there when you are tired compete with the caffeine molecules for the cells receptors (cafeeine is a competitive inhibitor).
The body compensates by overexpressing the receptors, so after a while everything works like you before you started drinking coffee, but if you try to quit you become tired very quickly (because of the extra receptors).
The receptors have a turnover time of a little more than a week, so if you that long you should be ok again... but it's not really a question of the caffeine leaving the body, as much as a question of protein-turnover in your brain.
The advantage over cafeeine addiction over cigarette addiction is that when the physical addiction is gone, then you are ok.
With smoking, the physical addiction is just a tiny part of your addiction.
(note: I am NOT a biochemist)
"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." -George H.W. Bush
One day I just made the decision to stop. I went through about a week solid headache but after that the craving was gone, it really wasn't hard to get rid of.
A year later I couldn't find anything to drink but a coke so I tried one and couldn't stand the taste. At this point I don't think I could ever drink Coke again, the taste is just nasty.
Over time I finally moved myself to mostly water. Being a sugar addict also it took a little while to get used to drinking water. Water works well as an appetite suppressant as well as keeping you well hydrated. Your headaches may not be due to lack of caffeine as much as lack of water.
The downfall is that you run to the bathroom more than anybody you know. But to trade that for less headaches, a happier stomach, and overall better health was definitely worth it. You'll find that drinking water instead of anything else will make you feel better. I found that feeling better was a big contributing factor to me being more productive, both at work and at home.
Take a week and make sure you are well hydrated. WELL hydrated. A glass an hour. If your urine is almost clear you're doing well. If you get into too much water it may be good to replenish yourself with a sports beverage once in a while.
That's another issue. When I drank coke all the time I thought Gatorade was too bland and didn't have any flavor. After a few months of dedicating myself to water a glass of gatorade tastes like pure sugar to me. Suddenly I don't crave sweets as much. Cakes, cookies, candy - they all seem a bit overpowering.
All these positive things just from dropping the sugar and drinking water. Everybody was stunned when I first went to a restaurant and ordered water. Even I felt odd. Now it is just the obvious choice, everything else tastes far too sweet.
Give it a try and let me know how it works for you!
Acetone is naturally produced in the body when acetoacetate spontaneously decarboxylates to form it (instead of being enzymatically reduced by NADH to beta-hydroxybutyrate). When people go on that Atkins diet, the ketogenesis overflow pathway is very active and you can smell acetone on their breath. Plus it is present in dietary sources. So the body can handle its presence and you can ingest a tablespoon of acetone with no ill effect. But the OP wasn't talking about acetone. It was talking about nicotine, and claiming it is legitimately found in the body. It is not.
Whether or not it's called a "poison", if you're going to claim that nicotine is produced naturally in the body, the onus is on you to say where.