Caffeine, Part 1 of 3: Scratching the Itch

Part one of a three part series about quitting caffeine.

Linda edits my writing and routinely reminds me to “back-off!” She says I can sound preachy when discussing personal lifestyle adjustments. She’s right, and I’ll ascribe this annoying tendency to my mechanical perspective on life which ruthlessly drags me to cut-to-the bone conclusions. So here’s the disclaimer for this three-part post: I don’t care if you drink coffee or not. I have nothing to sell you. It’s your life (and I say this without a shred of sarcasm). This topic personally intrigues me and some people have found my standpoint interesting so I am repeating it here. Therefore, for you deeply entrenched caffeine enthusiasts, consider cutting me some slack as I scratch this itch.

Or not! Whatever your stance, your feedback is welcome.

Two random points before we dig into this: First, in this post I am considering Yerba Mate as the equivalent of caffeine. Yes, I know they’re not the same chemically but the reason for it, and the effects of it, are similar enough. Second, whatever your own relationship with caffeine (or lack thereof), maybe consider passing this on to someone you know who is overly caffeinated.

This analysis is punctuated with accepted professional/scientific conclusions, but mostly this is my own experience as I moved from heavy caffeine user to (almost) non-user. I based my personal lifestyle change on the fundamentals of Work the System methodology which revolves around a simple mechanical “systems” approach to life.

So you understand I am down with the joys of caffeine, follow me to YouTube. Turn up the volume. It’s a magic carpet ride. I love this video. Of course it’s about jets, but also about motorcycles, rock climbing, surfing, skiing deep powder on the steeps, and for the confirmed caffeine addict, the day’s first jolt. The music is by Steppenwolf, the sweet 60’s grandmother of jack-me-up heavy metal aggresso-rock.

Let’s get mundane and delve into the boring-but-true realm, starting with sleep. Nowadays, the sleep component of the human diurnal system is under siege. (From Dictionary.com, the word diurnal is defined as “showing a periodic alteration of condition with day and night, as certain flowers that open by day and close by night”). Due to everything from the invention of the electric light bulb, to TV, to computers, to stimulants (yes, caffeine), to things-are-moving-too-damn-fast stress, almost all of us are sleep deprived. Flit around Google and you’ll find sleep deprivation responsible for memory deterioration, weight gain, heart disease, depression, mechanical accidents, and vile dispositions. In geopolitical intrigue, for good reason, sleep deprivation is a popular information gathering tool of the counter-intelligence darlings.

In daily life, sleep deprivation is an enormous encroachment on personal efficiency that most of us ignore, and here’s a fact most of us don’t know: If one is in sleep deficit, the deficit has to be made up somewhere down the line. It doesn’t just go away, and so the question must be asked: Will the deficit be made up now or later? And if the answer is later, know that until later arrives, the integrated system-of-systems that makes decisions and carries you around – your brain/body – will be functioning at less than peak.

Due to daily caffeine consumption, there is a bit of sleep lost every 24 hour cycle as one simply wakes up in the middle of the night and/or wakes up earlier in the morning. After a light coffee day, the deficit might be just a few minutes. On heavy days, an hour or more. In any case, the deficit relentlessly accumulates. Hence, with consistent caffeine consumption comes chronic sleep deprivation and all the negatives that go along with it and, no question, the deeper one goes into it, the harder it is to haul one’s ass out of it: Ever sleep for 72 hours straight?

This is the insidious part: The deficit accumulates slowly and so it’s not noticed as one gets used to negotiating days at increasingly sub-optimal levels, both physically and emotionally. Yes, the blame for this silent downhill slide into sleep deficit can be leveled squarely on one our finest human abilities: the incredible capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.

In any case, for the caffeine-dependent, symptomatic morning grogginess  is wiped out by that first cup.

But being tired in the morning is just one of two reasons for finding oneself using caffeine every day. The other reason is simple addiction. That early morning cup is alleviating the withdrawal symptoms – mental depression, especially – from the previous day’s ingestion. Ah yes! Sweet!

Here’s the root system-process of any addiction: The bell rings and, in electric anticipation, the dog salivates as the treat is about to be delivered. It’s a conditioned addictive response with Pavlov’s dogs, but in chronic human caffeine consumption, chemical dependency is the additional butt-kicking challenge.

Dogs. People. Conditioned. Chemically dependant. Whatever. It doesn’t matter: It’s just mechanics.

Part Two, next time: Life Cold-Turkey.

Tagged as: addiction, caffeine, coffee, quitting coffee, sleep deprivation, yerba mate