I know this sounds weird, but I’m often exhausted with terrible brain fog and dry eyes after ejaculation while on caffeine.

I’ve experimented multiple times with cycling off caffeine, and noticed that my focus is sustained when I’m off caffeine.

Does anybody feel this wonderful?

I seem to take 3 days to recover from caffeine withdrawal, but that’s probably also why I relapse easily.

I tell myself “one cup wouldn’t hurt”, and the history repeats itself.

While off caffeine, I feel calm, focused, and actually happy.

After a year of telling everyone I was caffeine free I started dark chocolate 3 weeks ago and was confused why I was jittery but high energy after.

I only started it cause vegan chocolate sucks and dark chocolate has barley if not no milk in it 😂

My friend has been “caffeine free” for 3 years until I told him this

If everyone could only get once a day 250 mg of pure caffeine powder in some water or just water. What would be the point. Would anyone even use it then.

Im off caffeine nearly a month now anxiety way down thats the only benefit so far but . Im having like 4 decaf tea a day a decaf latte and chocolate is this keeping me stuck . My sleep is still bad . Feel tired after 8 hours and cant fall asleep handy

Hi all. I just stumbled upon this subreddit, and figured sharing my experience and mentality could be valuable to some of you trying to quit.

So, I don't drink coffee. A lot of people find that weird (I live in Australia, huge coffee culture here).

I always saw it as a way to save yourself if you were tired, or for some people, they genuinely enjoy the taste. Whatever it was, I knew that it was something that people easily became attached to.

And that is where I drew the line. I always wanted to be in control of my energy, my mood, and be the one to control how locked in I was.

During the critical stages of late high school, this was where many of my classmates turned to coffee as the only way to study and cram last minute, and into the night. But since I drew the line at relying on a stimulant, I got my ass so organised and on the ball that I aced most of my exams, and was honestly chilling in the final weeks before those exams.

Not having coffee to rely on made me opt for a better life. I'll get shit done so I can get a good sleep. I started going for more walks as breaks, or drinking water or having fruit. I feel so engaged with life and I don't feel anxious or irritable.

And now, I am a Industrial Designer. Again, as a creative field it has a big coffee culture. But when my colleagues go get coffee, I'll still go but just enjoy t he social time while I sip on my water. I can be super focused on my work, and even when I need to stay up late, I can. They all compliment me on how I don't drink yet I am such a hard worker.

...

Because I said no to drinking coffee as a teenager, it help me build great skills and shaped me into a motivated worker who can smash out 10 hour shifts without struggle.

Not only that, but I am so proud that my body functions without any stimulants. My parents call me a monk, but I just embrace my body and what works to keep me happy. I'm not even spiritual or anything. I just know that this lifestyle is the right one for me.

So my advice isn't about the withdraws or quitting. It's about how I am genuinely thriving, present with every moment, and how you need to have healthy habits in order to live without caffeine.

Please feel free to ask any questions on how to leverage the decaf mentality!

I've been drinking coffee/tea regularly for the past four or five years and I realized recently that it's been a pretty long time since I last went without it for any significant stretch of time. I mostly use it as a substitute for ADHD medication, of which I've tried many but none have really worked that well for me. Caffeine, meanwhile, is available everywhere and in whatever amount you might need basically anywhere you go.

I think more than anything, I just want to remember what it's like to not have caffeine in my system. I think it's dulled a lot of life and I've also become entirely dependent on it to function, plus I'm so bad at measuring how much is enough that I so easily go over just to feel something and end up too anxious to function instead. I'm always so tired and incessantly yawning when it wears off and sometimes it makes me even more tired. The issue is that I recently started at a new job and am about to start tutoring someone independently, and I'm scared out of my wits that giving up caffeine will spell out failure for me, that I won't be able to get any of what I need to get done because I'll be too scatterbrained and exhausted. I'm gonna try to take it one day at a time, but I guess I'd just like to hear some success stories or advice others might have on this front.

I tried to quite caffeine cold turkey yesterday, I was having 600-900mg of caffeine daily but I decided to try quitting. I didn’t have any symptoms besides my heart felt super weird and at 2pm I caved and had a shot of espresso so that the feeling would go away… is this normal

Facial flushing, stiff neck, diarrhea, eye pain, anxious, back of my neck hurts by the base of my skull, if I turn my head or try to pop my neck my body will start sweating

Hii! I’m 25M, trying to quit caffeine since about 3 months now, but couldn’t get rid of the muscle memory of drinking smthg in the morning and afternoon. Tried decaf, but its bit out of my budget. Any other options you guys suggest and use yourself??

Everytime I drank coffee my cortisol went through the roof and my body was like let’s fight or flight. Had very bad anxiety spikes, I was worried and felt that it’s just not worth it anymore. Switched to habitone recently which has low caffeine, lions mane and reishi. Been a month and my nervous system feels better and calm. Haven’t had any 11AM anxiety spikes since then. What helped you balance stress levels while quitting coffee ?

57F- I was having migraines that woke me in the middle of the night. I had an MRI of the brain that was normal. We figured out that it was caffeine withdrawal, causing the headaches. I tried tapering down, but was not successful. I listened to the Allen Carr book and I was able to quit cold turkey by basically being a zombie for about a week, thankfully I had just retired.

I struggled with cravings for two years and would have an occasional Swiss water decaf and I did eat fairly heavy amount of chocolate. This past 9 months I have been on a GLP medication which has taken away nearly all the chocolate cravings, and I rarely have the decaf coffee.

My sleep continued to be poor, despite quitting the coffee. A couple of weeks ago I got myself fine-tuned with ways to improve my circadian rhythm. Sunrise walks, daylight frequently, sunset walk, dim amber lights in evening, turning off screens at night. Sleep is greatly improved. That’s my 3 year recap!

Hello r/decaf,

Drinking coffee never occurred to me as a problematic habit.

I've been drinking it since I was 15.

Today is the sixth week since my last cup.

I am shocked at how much influence this drug was having over me.

I sleep a lot better now. I am much calmer, especially during stressful situations.

The biggest benefit so far is having stable energy from dawn til dusk.

The second is the ability to let negative thoughts pass.

Making and drinking a cup of coffee was in hindsight a way for me to procrastinate on getting stuff done.

Productivity has gone up for me, not down.

Time passes slower now.

Waking up early is not an issue suddenly.

What used to be a 'personality trait' seemed to actually be just the side-effects of a potent drug.

Somehow I woke up one morning and decided to stop.

It hasn't been easy to quit.

It's been shocking to see how strong the dependency actually is.

I'm determined not to go back.

That's all I have to say about that. Stay strong everyone

Maybe this isn't the right place for this but I have been involuntarily caffeine free for 6 years now. I drank a Mt Dew on the way home from work one day. A hour later I bent over to adjust the sprinkler and almost hit the ground. My heart was racing and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I took my blood pressure and it was way high and the machine reported an erratic heart beat. I did not end up calling an ambulance but that was the start of my caffeine free journey.

I am at the point now where even dark chocolate can make my heart race and give me a major headache. I miss coffee. I didn't like the effects of caffeine but I loved coffee and black tea and unsweet tea. My question to you is, what is your alternative drink when you gave up coffee or tea? I like seltzer waters but sometimes I want something hot and with more body than seltzer water. I have tried herbal tea but there isn't enough body for me. What are your thoughts?

EDIT: I should have included that I have tried decaf coffee and tea but unfortunately there is still enough caffeine to give me heart palpitations from a couple sips. I have talked to my doctor about this and he just kinda shrugs because he doesn't have an answer for why I developed a caffeine sensitivity after so many years of drinking caffeinated beverages.

I’ve been trying to quit coffee for a few years. On day 10 still drinking some tea. But my God. Even just with that the depression is just insane. And it’s like this basically every time I quit. I have gotten to a good baseline before like 2 months in a couple times but life events have led me back to it.

This time I’m determined but I’m just like. Can it really be this bad?

My mid-lower back aches are horrible, they were worse yesterday but still pretty bad today.

I had back aches last time I gave up cold turkey and that was pretty bad. I think it lasted for roughly a week last time. I'll report back here when the aches finally leave me. I hope it leaves in the next couple days.

I'm thinking I'll keep posting daily until I get to day 0. I'll get there eventually

How do you rewire this shit? Need to be constantly exposed to decaf thinking