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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 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 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!
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.
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)
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.
I like the english idea of small amounts of weak tea during the day for cafeine vs. the megablast followed by dehydration and a crash. I switched from DARK coffee to 2-3 cups of green tea a day, the L-theanine in the green tea is good to keep the jitters away.
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.