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Beware the Perils of Caffeine Withdrawal
palegray.net writes "CNN is running an article on the notorious effects of caffeine withdrawal, a problem that seems to be affecting an increasing number of people. Citing numerous reasons why people might need to cut back on their caffeine intake (pregnancy, pre-surgery requirements, etc), the story notes a significant number of people who are simply unable to quit. I drink around eight cups of coffee a day, along with a soda or two, and I definitely suffer from nasty withdrawal symptoms without my fix."
I had to cut back for surgery awhile back and I found that simply mixing a little bit of regular coffee in with decaf worked like a charm. It didn't even need to be half and half, even just one part caffeinated in four was sufficient to stave off the headaches and malaise.
I once visited a friend for a week and they didn't have any coffee. I wasn't too bothered at first as there was plenty of booze but I woke up after two days with a slight hangover (not that much booze the night before) and a pounding migraine. I had no energy and double vision, the migraine got so bad I was sick.
I thought a coffee would help me feel a little better so I dragged myself to the store round the corner and bought some. As soon as I'd drunk a small cup of coffee my migraine started to disappear and I could see straight again.
I was on around ten triple strength cups a day which would be about three grammes of caffeine. I've since cut down to three cups a day!
Nick
I broke my caffeine addiction by plowing into it headfirst. I used to tear through soda like a man insane. Then, completely unintentionally, I went cold turkey for about a month. Result: increased sensitivity to caffeine. I now naturally limit myself to around two cans a day because anymore than that gives me jitters, a racing pulse, and headaches.
I too have experienced caffeine withdrawal many times. My internist recommended that when I choose not to ingest caffeine anymore, I should start taking 2000 mg of vitamin c daily for about seven days. I have subsequently done this everytime I decide to take a hiatus from caffeine and it has worked wonders - no headaches and no nausea!
Compared to both of you I am a complete lightweight
I may be the lightest lightweight I know. I average 24 oz. of coffee and two cans of soda a day. If I have more than that I get pretty dysfunctional--irritable, nervous, sleepless. If I quit, I have one day of headaches and nausea followed by many days of sluggishness and cravings. I can't say how many days, since I always fall off the wagon.
I find that I really can't write code without caffeine anymore. Maybe I never could. It makes me sad to think that I need a stimulant to do my job, but there it is...
/...
Four hours is probably not enough lead time before sleep. I was taught years ago to never take caffeine after the traditional English "tea time." Tea time is around 4 or 4:30. For the last decade or more I've taken tea or coffee as I pleased up until 4 and then cut it out. Nobody in their right mind should ever drink soda/cola/pop. Forget the caffeine, it is the high fructose corn syrup, or the artificial sweeteners that cause problems. Diabetes in a bottle.
In wartime... truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. (Churchill)
I used to be addicted to the high, but I couldn't stand the lows - migraine-like headache for hours (sensitivity to light, sound, etc.). I tried taking more caffeine to keep the lows away, but that ended the same - once I crashed, I got a migraine-like headache that wouldn't go away until I got a good-nights sleep. The worst part was, I would crash DURING THE WORKDAY, so my work performance was actually suffering.
Once I understood that the migraines were from withdrawal, I decided to quit cold-turkey - nothing but aspirin and lots of water. I took a long weekend over July 4th: the first day was pure anguish and pain, and the second day was worse. But the third day, I could function, and I was feeling pretty good by the fourth day when I went back to work.
After a week, I felt better than I had for years, and I was surprised to find I didn't have the cravings anymore. I also had more get-up-and-go in the mornings than I ever did on caffeine. And YES, I could code just as well without the boost.
If you've got even an ounce of willpower, you can quit too, but I would recommend taking a long weekend away from the world.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
I'm not exactly sure why I tried to quit
another double shot at the end of the day to keep me awake on the road
Maybe you tried to quit because you are chronically sleep deprived due to your caffeine intake? I think I remember reading that caffeine can only fight off four hours of sleep deprivation, after that a different neurochemical kicks in that caffeine doesn't effect. So if you are able to sleep with this much caffeine in your system, you are at least four hours behind on sleep, every single day; even if you got eight hours last night, it doesn't make up for the four hour debt you have built up.
Caffeine is really only useful if you only take it when you need it. Drinking so much everyday that you use up the four hours it gives you just puts you right back in the same boat as everyone else. When you quit that sleep debt hits you like a freight train, combined with the effects of withdrawal (headache and nausea) it is truly miserable. But if you wean yourself off of it slowly and catch up on your missed sleep the dull sleepy feeling will go away, and you could save the $7 a day you spend at Starbucks for something more useful.
I used to drink 2 pots a day but quit cold turkey one week when I had a bad flu. I never noticed the withdrawal, thanks to the flu! Now I'm caffeine-free.
You'll be a lot better off and your body will appreciate it.
Seriously. Mod parent up. I went to see a neurologist a few years ago and she was visibly horrified when I told her I drank about 6 cups of coffee a day.
I tried quitting altogether, but in the end I just cut back to 2-3 cups of black tea per day. It seems to have a more gradual, "extended release" effect that I prefer anyway. I'll also have half a cup of diet cola on the days that I go running.
Multiple pots of coffee a day? Especially on a regular basis? That's pretty much committing suicide in slow motion.
If you have trouble with low energy, try getting some cardiovascular exercise on a regular basis. Your body will work better as a result too, instead of crashing when the caffeine wears off. For me, getting my (giant) tonsils removed helped as well, because it meant I slept much better at night.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Everything in moderation. I am a different case for instance, i suffer from mild ADD and the caffine intake is a natural way to control my focus. When I drink caffine I get much calmer and my thoughts are less scattered. But it also means I have to be a little more deliberate in drinking...a cup every couple hours does great things. Now if it is a crazy day and lots of things are going on I might be ok, but a good cup allows me to do all that nasty paperwork...
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Isn't it interesting caffeine is legal despite the fact it is more addictive and causes more health problems than marijuana. So then why is marijuana illegal yet caffeine is still legal? Gotta love the double standards.
I am an anesthesiologist. I regularly see people who drink 6 cups a day and have to go without food or water before surgery.
Intravenous caffeine is available as a drug and I will give it to patients in a dose of 250-500 mg. to prevent bad withdrawl headaches.
If a heavy coffee drinker has his last coffee at 8pm and goes without until he wakes from surgery 18 hours later he will probably have a withdrawl headache.
Interestingly, IV caffeine is also used to lower the seizure threshold in electroconvulsive therapy for depression. It promotes a longer seizure.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I used to have a caffeine addiction from drinking lots of Coke for many years. I got over it by having a cold. For 3-4 days I couldn't stand the taste of Coke, so didn't drink any. And, already being ill, the withdrawal symptoms didn't bother me. By the time I got over the cold, I didn't need caffeine any more. Simples!
The minimum amount of exercise was, interestingly enough, 4 one minute sprints on an exercise bicycle, all out, as hard as you can go with no holding back. You can take a break after each sprint for a short while to catch your breath. Do this twice a week.
The test subject and controls were from time to time given a glass of glucose water, and the experimenters measured how long it took to clear the sugar from the blood.
The theory was this. The muscles have a ready reserve of energy and resist taking more from the blood unless you deplete some of it. Experiments indicate that the benefits of this "minimum" exercise program last for weeks after ceasing it.
This is not my field and I could not tell you why sugar in the blood is bad for you, or why certain sugars are worse. However, I understand that the Berkley Wellness Letter and Science/Nature are evidence based publications. Anyone not credulous can spend about an afternoon looking these things up, though a library is probably better than the internet because many relevant publications are not free.
In wartime... truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. (Churchill)
I think it depends on the person.
I had an employer who provided free coffee to employees - I used to drink 8 to 10 cups per day on weekdays, zero on weekends. When I switched jobs, and had to pay for coffee (and it was horrible vending-machine coffee) I stopped cold-turkey.
I had no "side effects" at all.
Genetically, I'm northern european - I wonder if there's a lower incidence in Finland because there's a genetic component to caffiene resistance?
Doesn't work. I'm addicted to code.
What's worse is if I've been doing math. That gives me really horrible dreams of numbers trying to combine and interact in different ways. I always dream as if I can find some new better way they should work but of course I never can get a better result. Ick. At least with the code my brain actually can find better patterns while I sleep.
What's weird is when you code without fully waking up. You can accomplish some amazing things but trying to understand the code you've written is all but impossible sometimes. When I was working more with AI I'd come up with some pretty good mental leaps and have no memory of having woke in the night much less having coded anything and trying to untangle the code to see how it worked was a total no-go because it just didn't seem like it should work at all.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Before my friends and I aged, with most getting married and having a kid or two by now, we use to LAN about once a month. At first we'd have a few cases of Mt. Dew in order to stay up all night... but I'd start getting headaches around 3 or 4am which I usually attributed to being tired.
Then once I decided to just drink water all night. I was able to game til 7am and still feel pretty good. While I have no actual evidence, I think my headaches and drowsiness were caused more by becoming dehydrated than by being tired. What I learned that is I should go with water first if I'm feeling fatigued. I still enjoy a coke once or twice a week, along with a couple cups a tea once or twice a week.. but drinking 80-100oz of water a day normally keeps me feeling good and alert.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
I had to give up caffeine. Long story short, I fell while working on a roof and hit my chest hard on a pile of bricks. Most likely damaged my pericardium.
While it healed up, anything that made my heart beat harder made the pain worse. So that meant caffeine - all of it - had to go.
Week long headache. A whopper too, right in the temples. Miserable. But once it's gone, it's gone for good. You can beat it if you have to.
Some advice if you're willing to try. Avoid Excederin. It's a caffeine pill mostly - that's why it cures headaches. It gives you another fix and postpones the withdraw another 8-12 hours. Then you need another one. Avoid chocolate. Read labels. And avoid yerba mate - it has caffeine. If you're going to do it, the only way to do it is cold turkey, 100%. Even the slightest sprinkle of caffeine will halt ALL your progress and you'll have to start from scratch again. And that means another week's worth of headaches.
Anyways, after I healed up I never went back. I am a decaffeinated programmer. Rarest of the rare. It feels great, too. No nervousness, no sweats, my nails look great. And I sleep better than I ever have. That's one of the reasons computer types stay up late - they have to come down off the caffeine before they can sleep.
Once it's out of your life and you have that reference to make a comparison from, you realize just how big of a drug caffeine actually is. It's messing with you more than you probably think it is.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
You want to come to the East End of London, me old china, and I'll show you tea that isn't weak! Proper builders brews.
I'm telling you, you could stand a spoon in some of the brews you get down the proper caffs. Proper traditional places with a big tea pot always on the go, they pour you a couple of inches from that into a mug and then top up the other 2/3 of the mug with hot water. I swear the tea in those big tea pots is some sort of nuclear brew that's been stewing in there since the days the Cutty Sark used to sail up the Thames, they just top it up with a couple more spoonfuls of leaf tea every Christmas and it gets heavier and heavier and more and more evil.
My first job was in a hospital with a couple of retired Navy guys, they'd been through the war, I was the youngest so I was "the boy" and any time we had a problem I was sent to make a pot of tea so we could stand there with our mugs and suck our teeth and sip our tea and work out how to get the box through the door or whatever. Taught me how to make proper strong brews those lads did.
I think your green tea is the happy asian gentle stuff*, nothing wrong with it but not for yer average British builder, you know... you'd get laughed off a site if you tried bringing that along...
cheers though! Nothing like a lovely cup of tea eh? (or 10 or so).
*no disrespect to asian builders, I bet if you're on a building site in Singapore or Tokyo or wherever the lads there can probably brew green tea to some frightening level of intensity too...
I notice that when I hear the word, "Addicted", I feel a slight subterranean urge to start acting.
--That is, to put myself through the drama of addiction. The cravings and the various difficulties. I wonder how much of this is really based on chemical addiction and how much of it is based on behavioral programming.
Coffee and tobacco are interesting. I've played with both. I wanted to try tobacco for a number of reasons and it was pretty cool. "Quitting Smoking" is this buggaboo of a thing in our society, so after I'd been smoking this pipe for several months, (and really quite enjoying it), I said, "Okay. Let's see what this Quitting Smoking thing is all about."
I was a little disappointed. Quitting smoking is pretty easy. It takes seven days for the chemical addiction to be overcome. After that it's entirely a question of behavior and brain chemistry. (Some people are naturally attracted to tobacco because it balances out their neural chemistry. There's a reason why cigarettes are so popular among those with various imbalances. It's self-medication and it helps. A lot. --For these people, I imagine that "Quitting Smoking" is probably much more challenging.)
It's basically like having a mild flu. It gets worse and worse until withdrawal symptoms peek somewhere between day 3 or 4, and then it smooths out. After 7 days are up, you're pretty much in the clear. The difficult part is this: Imagine having the flu, not the worst you've ever had, but pretty uncomfortable. Normally, you'd just tough it out because you have no choice. But with nicotine, you can make the symptoms vanish instantly. Hmmm! --The other part I found really entertaining was seeing the kinds of tricks my rational mind tried to play. As the symptoms progress, your mind will concoct all kinds of logical-seeming arguments for just smoking one more time. Coffee doesn't do that. --Coffee addiction is child's play. Two days, one head-ache, no real cravings to speak of, and you're back to normal. Big deal.
So overall, the whole notion of "Addiction" seems much overblown from my perspective. (Drugs are different for different people; you can't choose your base brain chemistry defaults, --not like behavior programming, which with enough work can be altered.) --Addiction is just a bodily reaction to a substance which you can measure and take into account. Knowing that quitting is just a process with a recognizable cost, I have no fear of using coffee when appropriate, and if I ever go through a period of extreme, prolonged stress, I'd certainly consider using tobacco again. It's really a pretty amazing drug, --though it does make you smell funny and if you smoke the crappy kind, it screws up your breathing. (That was another thing I wanted to learn about. All arguments of toxic additives in big tobacco products aside, the paper in cigarettes is soaked in a weak bath of salt-peter or something akin to it. Take all the tobacco out of a cigarette and light the paper and watch what happens. It's almost like slow-motion magician's flash paper. I found that cigarettes made me cough up fleghm, but that pipe tobacco, organically grown did not. Hmm.)
My current 'addictions' include Coffee and downloads of sci-fi TV. But with no current Doctor Who and Dollhouse heading for the axe, I guess that issue will resolve itself.
-FL