I love coffee. At home, I have a bean to cup machine, a cafetiere, a filter machine, a stand alone grinder, a Moka pot and even an old percolator from the 1980s. I enjoy a great brew. A couple of years back, when working at a large city centre office with coffee available all day, I would have taken five or six mugs a day.
I now find that coffee delivers an energy vacuum, usually five or six hours after the buzz has subsided. When that drop arrives I really feel it. In recent months, I’ve reduced my coffee intake, with a small Latte mid morning and maybe one mid afternoon pick me up.
Coffee started in earnest for me when our kids were young. As sleep deprived new parents of a second and then a third child, there were never enough hours in the day. Before travelling to work via a daycare nursery to drop them off, I would make up a home brewed coffee to drink along the way. A double shot of espresso in an Americano got me going and I felt that I could keep up with life’s challenges.
Habits were formed and then they stayed, and so fifteen years later, I found that I was still stopping throughout my day reaching for that caffeine hit. When I couldn’t sleep well at night, the residual caffeine in my body would keep me alert at 2am, and I’d wake up at 7 feeling tired. The cycle would continue as I needed coffee to get started all over again.
Caffeine has side effects, most noticeably it draws moisture out of my body. This was always visible first in the skin below my eyes, like a canary in the coal mine telling me that all was not well. As I reached my mid forties, dry skin didn’t help to reduce wrinkles. I could counter the effects by taking more water onboard. However, drinking more didn’t come naturally and having to go to the bathroom didn’t appeal to me either.
With the realisation that I didn’t need to be running around so frantically, now that the kids have grown up a bit, I don’t need the extra energy boost throughout the day. I had defined myself as being a ‘Coffee Person’. I loved going into a roastery and breathing in the aroma. Confronting myself and deciding that I needed to consume less was to challenge my perception of myself.
I started by not brewing that pot of coffee around 11am. That change alone was good. I also took out the small afternoon Latte, leaving only one mid morning brew to keep me going. I didn’t suffer any headaches, as going cold turkey might have led to.
By reducing my intake, I do notice a difference. It has taken a while, but I now feel fresher, given the absence of energy drops. When I do take a coffee, I can really feel its power, but I’m also more acutely aware of its impact.
It seems that taking coffee provides much needed stimulus at the time, but leaves its mark. For a more steady run through the day, reducing coffee to a much lower level has led to higher energy levels overall. Thinking ahead to what I’ll need the energy for later in the day helps me to stick to my plan, and replace that coffee with tea or water.
I guess it’s the same thing for all low level addictions, we’re using up tomorrow’s plans for passing pleasure in the moment.
I’m not good at the next obvious one that needs to be tackled.. sugar!
