# quit caffeine



## love is like a dream (Jan 7, 2011)

Not because the effects or benefits honestly i care only about one thing anxiety and how caffeine worsens anxiety symptoms I am not saying quit it now completely just keep it in your head do some 5 minutes research think about it first ,I knmow everyone is different but give it a try and see ..


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## Zack (Apr 20, 2013)

Yes, nicotine is much better. So I agree.


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## Overthinker80 (Jun 19, 2013)

I have a HORRIBLE addiction to caffieine, at times I will drink 8 cups a day though these days it's been more like 3-4 cups and a large iced tea.

It's HORRIBLE for my anxiety and also it makes me MORE tired believe it or not and meseses with my sleep, then I need a lot of melatonin but that makes it hard to wake up and makes me need more coffee and it goes in circles.

It also makes me sweat excessively and get dehydrated and get tired really easily when I do sports and I have no cardio when I need it.

I have tried to quit SO many times and even broken the addiction more times than I can count but the MENTAL addiction has gotten me addicted again.

It's one of the things I hope DBT, which I am starting soon, can help me with.

I don't know anyone else who has the compulsion to drink as much coffee as I do.

Does anyone else here feel they NEED to drink a certain number of cups per day and can't seem to stop themselves??

I don't want to quit 100%...what I would like is to get it down to just ONE cup a day so I can wake up more easily, if I could do that it wouldn't be a problem...or MAYBE once in a blue moon a 2nd cup in the afternoon if I have something VERY important to do and didn't sleep well but that would be it.


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## Sacrieur (Jan 14, 2013)

It's not really an addiction so much a chemical dependence. The only thing that happens if you quit is a headache and you might be pretty irritable. Some people get intense headaches and nausea.

People with anxiety tend to avoid caffeine because it makes their anxiety worse.

For me, and for some strange reason, I have the opposite effect. If I drink caffeine in a reasonable amount my anxiety is reduced by quite a bit.


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## farfegnugen (Aug 16, 2010)

Me, too. I love caffeine. It doesn't really make me anxious, but seems to make things clearer. Still, I don't like being dependent on a substance to feel functional.


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## Letmebe (Dec 17, 2012)

Don't quit caffeine but cut back, I drink one cup of coffee or caffeinated tea in the morning and that's it after which I can have a drink of my assorted non caffeinated teas.
That way it does not cause my anxiety to spike and wakes me up in the morning, mind you I do skip my morning caffeine on occasion and because I only drink one cup it is not a big deal.

Best way to go about it I think.


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## Sacrieur (Jan 14, 2013)

The raw food article was a pile of misinformation.

The Forbes article stated things that are true, really. But caffeine really hasn't been determined to have negative health effects. It seems to have positive health effects, really.


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## Olga9 (Aug 22, 2013)

Overthinker80 said:


> Does anyone else here feel they NEED to drink a certain number of cups per day and can't seem to stop themselves??


I have to drink at least 1 cup a day, or I'll never wake up!

Are you on any meds btw?
8 cups sounds like a lot. are you able to fall asleep ok at night?


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## Dylan2 (Jun 3, 2012)

If you're going to quit consuming caffeine, do it because it's affecting your anxiety level. Otherwise, as Sacrieur pointed out, the positive effects of caffeine may outweigh the negative effects.

Here is an article showing how easy it is for caffeine to produce panic attacks in people with anxiety disorders (admittedly the dose of caffeine seems high):

*Abstract*

Studies have demonstrated the vulnerability of anxiety disorder patients to challenge tests. Our aim was to observe if panic disorder (PD) patients and generalized social anxiety disorder (GSAD) and performance social anxiety disorder (PSAD) patients respond in a similar way to the induction of anxiety symptoms and panic attacks by an oral caffeine challenge test. We compared 28 PD patients, 25 GSAD patients, 19 PSAD, and 26 control subjects after a 480-mg caffeine test. The patients had not received psychotropic drugs for at least a 4-week period. In a randomized double-blind experiment performed in two occasions 7 days apart, 480 mg of caffeine and a caffeine-free solution were administered and anxiety scales were administered before and after each test. A panic attack was induced in 17 (60.7%) PD patients, 4 (16.0%) GSAD patients, and 10 (52.6%) PSAD patients, during the caffeine test. None of the control subjects had a panic attack after the caffeine intake. Neither patients nor any control subject had a panic attack after drinking the caffeine-free solution. Our data suggest that there is an association between PD and PSAD hyperreactivity to an oral caffeine challenge test. The PD and PSAD patients had a higher number of induced panic attacks, some specific anxiety symptoms, and a more severe anxiety response than GSAD patients and normal volunteers.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178108001911

Here is an article suggesting caffeine can protect against Parkinson's disease:

*Abstract*

Epidemiological studies have raised the possibility of caffeine serving as a neuroprotective agent in Parkinson's disease (PD). This possibility has gained support from findings that dopaminergic neuron toxicity induced by 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) or other neurotoxins is attenuated by co-administration of caffeine in mice. Here we examined the time window of caffeine's neuroprotection as well as the effects of caffeine's metabolites (theophylline and paraxanthine) in the MPTP mouse model of PD. In the first experiment, caffeine pre-treatment (30 mg/kg ip) significantly attenuated MPTP-induced striatal dopamine depletion when it was given 10 min, 30 min, 1 h, or 2 h but not 6 h before MPTP (40 mg/kg ip) treatment. Meanwhile, caffeine post-treatment also significantly attenuated striatal dopamine loss when it was given 10 min, 30 min, 1 h or 2 h but not 4 h, 8 h or 24 h after MPTP injection. In the second experiment, both theophylline (10 or 20 mg/kg) and paraxanthine (10 or 30 mg/kg) administration (10 min before MPTP) significantly attenuated MPTP-induced dopamine depletion in mice, as did caffeine (10 mg/kg) treatment. Thus the metabolites of caffeine also provide neuroprotective effects in this mouse model of PD. The data suggest that if caffeine protects against putative toxin-induced dopaminergic neuron injury in humans, then precise temporal pairing between caffeine and toxin exposures may not be critical because the duration of neuroprotection by caffeine may be extended by protective effects of its major metabolites.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2849921/


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## Lids (Aug 19, 2013)

I quit drinking anything caffeinated about 3 months ago, though not for anxiety reasons. For some reason caffeine give me girl problems. I do miss coffee though, so sometimes I go to my favorite coffee place and order my favorite drink decaf. I plan on buying decaffeinated coffee grounds too. Coffee is yummy.


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## Sacrieur (Jan 14, 2013)

Coincidence said:


> Could you please point out the wrong parts and provide some scholarly or reputable source that supports your point?! because .. i've read the article and blindly accepted everything in it as facts , Thanks!


You really only need to gander over to a physiology textbook.

From what I remember, it states that Calcium is basic (true), and that it helps regulate pH in the human body (false).

The entire idea that your body has some "pH balance" throughout is wrong. Each organ system has its own different optimal pH maintained via homeostasis. Your blood actually maintains a slightly alkaline pH. If you did make it too basic, you'd likely become ill because it can no longer function properly.

In any case, coffee is certainly not more acidic than say, citrus fruits (which the site recommends you consume).

(The idea that raw foods are better is quite false, but I don't want to wrestle with that right now.)


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## cloud90 (Oct 23, 2012)

Caffeine makes my anxiety better, and it motivates you.

Caffeine >>>>


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## Sacrieur (Jan 14, 2013)

Coincidence said:


> I honestly have absolutely no idea ,, I barely understood what you've explained


The gist is that your bones aren't getting robbed of calcium because you drink coffee. Calcium isn't even used to regulate pH.

The blood's pH is lowered (made more acidic) by simply using muscles. To combat it dropping too low, pH buffers are used which help raise the pH back to healthy levels. No calcium is used.



> does what you said apply to red meat/animal protein and osteoporosis as well ?


There is an association between high levels of animal protein and calcium excretion, but a definitive link that it results in weaker bones has not been established.

Consuming more protein increases the absorption of calcium, so it's possible this counteracts the aforementioned.

Basically, no one is sure



> What else ? Is this the only false point in the article in your opinion


Err not exactly, it's just the one I could explain easily. The part about the weight gain was also misleading and factually incorrect. Caffeine increases activity in the thyroid, meaning an increase in metabolism.

Caffeine doesn't cause glycogen to be released, it actually does the opposite of what the article claims: it metabolizes fats to be used as fuel. This then delays the release of glycogen. This is also the reason it enhances performance in endurance athletes.



> Something I find very interesting about the connection between caffeine and weight gain brings us back to the PH of foods we eat. The reason people lose so much weight on a raw food diet is not because of the how many calories or grams of fat they eat, it has to do with eating alkaline foods instead of acidic ones. We see people on a raw food diet who are eating triple the amount of calories and double the amount of fat but they still lose weight. How can this be? It is because cooked foods, meat, dairy, etc are very acidic and acid is waste in the body and when there is a lot of it the body will store it as fat. So if you are drinking tons of coffee this is no exception to the rule, and your body will store the acid as fat. This is the reason quitting coffee is such an important step in the raw food diet plan


This particular quote is wrong on all fronts.

How much weight you lose is solely determined by caloric intake (and of course subsequent absorption). You would potentially lose weight eating raw foods because cooked foods are easier for your body to absorb, meaning more calories (and vitamins and minerals).

Acid isn't stored as fat. I believe the author is mistaken by the term "fatty acid" when it's often used to refer to fats in biomedical literature. It doesn't actually mean acids are fats, but that fats are chemically a carboxylic acid.


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## Dylan2 (Jun 3, 2012)

Yes, that seems to be what he's saying. I'm having trouble finding credible sources on either side regarding this.

There are a few rat studies that seem to suggest caffeine can have a negative impact on your body's calcium. But there are also some human studies which seem to suggest that the effects of caffeine on calcium are pretty much harmless.


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## Sacrieur (Jan 14, 2013)

I just read through this.

It's important to not confuse "acid producing foods" with "acidic foods". It's the end result of metabolism that we're interested in, not the actual food itself.

Basically, they originally thought that the the kidney buffering wasn't doing a sufficient job, so it was robbing bone calcium as a result. They later discovered that there was a significant increase in calcium absorption that may explain the majority of this extra calcium being excreted.

This study provides further insights into the mechanism of action.

---

But this has to do with animal protein, specifically, and uric acid, specifically. I think we're getting too deep and removed from the original discussion.

The point is that caffeine does not ruin bones.


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## Overthinker80 (Jun 19, 2013)

Olga9 said:


> I have to drink at least 1 cup a day, or I'll never wake up!
> 
> Are you on any meds btw?
> 8 cups sounds like a lot. are you able to fall asleep ok at night?


I'm on Klonopin and Prozac.

These days I don't drink 8 cups, I usually have 3 or 4 in the morning than a large iced tea that is probably about two cups worth in the afternoon so more like 5-6 these days.

I don't have trouble sleeping but that's cause I take a lot of melatonin and I should take less and it makes it hard to wake up so then I need more coffee.

My neurologist agrees it's more of a compulsion than just a physical addiction.

I hope DBT can help me with it.

I personally think that caffeine is a more physically harmful substance than marijuana in the sense that if you drink enough of it you can end up in the hospital and that can't happen with weed unless you have a heart condition.

I know a guy who drank so much iced tea he had to go to the ER for heart palpitations and too much can raise your blood pressure. Hell, the great poet Balzac even died from drinking 100 cups of coffee yet no one has EVER overdosed from weed.

Out of all the drugs I've tried I have the biggest problem with caffeine and I think it should be taken a little more seriously than it is as a possibly dangerous substance even though in general it is not very harmful.

I know it greatly increases my anxiety and I'm MUCH more relaxed without it or the less I drink and I think it played SOME role (though I think I'd have had the attack anyway) in the worst panic attack I ever had.


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## Sacrieur (Jan 14, 2013)

Coincidence said:


> It's all one discussion actually , red meat coffee soda .. still the same discussion ((pH imbalance when the intake of alkaline foods isn't high to neutralize acidity and using calcium as an alkalizing mineral to neutralize excess acid in the blood )) myth of fact in your opinion ?
> That's all I wanted to know because I am now confused . I don't know who's right or wrong ,, It's so confusing .


Err it's more complicated than that.

When you eat foods, it's going to be processed by the extremely acidic environment of the stomach. Once broken down, it enters the small intestines, where it can then be absorbed. The pH is going to be kept around 6 by the end of the duodenum (the part of the small intestine that absorbs the most nutrients), which is only slightly acidic.

What we're interested in is the result of all this digestion. The actual pH of foods before consumption is irrelevant.

It's a fact that a high protein diet causes increased calcium excretion. Whether or not it's robbing it from bones is unestablished.

--

An actual urge to consume caffeine isn't unheard of, but still rare. Most people just get a headache.


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## Overthinker80 (Jun 19, 2013)

Coincidence said:


> Overthinker80
> What happens when you quit for a week or something? headache?other problems? or just the urge to drink it , I always have the urge to drink it but I try to convince myself alternative is fine now I drink everything except coffee . I hope you are not a smoker because it would be so much harder i know ..


Horrible headaches, but I can deal with those with Aleve/Advil, but the worst part is just my EXTREME tiredness.

I have trouble even staying awake, and I have serious mood swings.

Even if I break the addiction, as I have done more times than I could count, sooner or later I just start up again.

Like I said, it's even more of a compulsion for me than an addiction.

I just kind of have a hard time dealing with being tired and always think I NEED coffee.


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## UltraShy (Nov 8, 2003)

I haven't found caffeine to have any adverse effect on my anxiety.


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