I like to make some experiments in my daily life, try out new things, new methods or simply learn something new. In November I decided to cut coffee and its caffeine out of my life . Find out why!

No caffeine November 

Coffee is part of most people’s life. We wake up and treat ourselves with a warm coffee, helping us to get up and get ready for our long journey. At work, our first instinct is to get another coffee, its fragrance is thought to keep the mind fresh like a deodorant does for the body. In the corporate world it has even become a religion. Since coffee is thought to be the greatest ally to boost our productivity, our company sometimes installed coffee machines, allowing us to drink more of this magic potion.

But coffee is not only a productivity booster. Instead of taking breaks, we take coffee breaks, we take coffee as an excuse to socialize with our coworkers. Coffee creating social links. Even when flirting, coffee is used an excuse to go on a date with our beloved one.

My addiction

For lots of us, it’s more than just coffee. I got to the point where I was drinking up to 5 cups a day. My favorite cup was the morning one, when I just got to work. Its mesmerizing smell helped me to stay awake and boost my clarity early in the morning. When I started working at this company, I was consuming 2 cups a day but then, socializing with my coworkers at the coffee machine drastically increased my daily caffeine intake.

Drinking coffee was slowly getting a core habit, after a few months I started to drink coffee even during the weekend. Each Saturday, I would wake up and get a cup while reading blogs. Coffee was gaining ground and its usage wasn’t solely restricted to the work environment anymore.

One day, my girlfriend pointed out my coffee addiction in a rather offensive manner. She even called me “coffee addict” and argued that I was consuming coffee in copious quantities even during free time. I tried to argue that I was not more addicted to coffee than anyone else, but she reminds me on my short temper when I hadn’t got my coffee early in the morning. I felt quite offended by her remark and by being on the defensive. Why was I justifying myself!? Did I really have an addiction to coffee? Hell no! And I will prove her wrong. That is why I decided to engage in my “No caffeine November”

Long story short, she was right, I was a coffee addict. I was consuming 5 cups of coffee each day, even on Sunday.

Break the addiction

When something becomes a need, a requirement, it locks us in. We have to have it, which means we start structuring our lives around it. Since I was a coffee addict, I linked my morning mood to drinking a coffee early in the morning. If I couldn’t drink my coffee, you better not have talked to me (ask my girlfriend and my family :D). I made coffee a necessary requirement to have a good day.

The first week without caffeine was tough. I felt a bit dizzy in the morning, I struggled to wake up every morning on time, etc… After the first week, things got better. I could wake up every morning on time and I felt ready for my day at work. The dizziness of the morning was replaced by a positive mood and I felt more energized than during the past weeks. The longer this experiment lasted, the better I felt.

I can now say that I am no longer addicted to coffee, and I am quite proud of it. I hate all sort of addictions and don’t want let me use an addiction as an excuse to have a short temper.

Should you quit coffee?

Let me list the advantages and the disadvantages of quitting coffee:

Pro:

Better sleep: The funny thing about coffee is that most of the people I know use it as remedy against tiredness , but it has long been proved that caffeine disturbs your sleep. So basically, people fight their lack of sleep with a caffeine shot that will negatively impact their night of sleep. I was playing this game as well, but let’s face reality, we can only lose this game! Since I quit coffee, I have to admit that I feel more fresh early in the morning.

Financial savings: let’s not forget that this blog is about money 🙂 Assuming that someone is drinking 3 coffees per day, each of them costing CHF 3.-, then he is spending CHF 9.- per working day for his coffees, or CHF 180.- per month. This results in a yearly coffee consumption amounting to CHF 2160.-. Let’s say you work 40 years and assuming an interest rate of 3%, over your working life the average guy is spending CHF 167,752. It seems to me that this is a quite expensive addict! If you reduce your consumption to 2 coffee per working day, you basically save CHF 83,976 over your life, how ridiculous! You might want to consider if you coffee habit is worth the 167,752 😀 And just imagine if you are drinking fancy Starbucks coffees every day… (you can create your own calculation based on you own consumption on this website)

Better mood: It’s just that any external dependency in your life is bad, and gives you another excuse to have a shitty day, a terrible morning, or a bad head start. It gives you an easy way out to explain away your headache, your bad mood, your short temper.

Fewer trips to the bathroom: coffee is diuretic, meaning that it increases the production of urine.

The ultimate caffeine shot will work again: As you won’t consume huge amounts of caffeine anymore, your body will more strongly to caffeine. You will be able to use an espresso in desperate situation at work and have the feeling that you just took some other drug. It is actually why we all started drinking coffee, to study a bit harder at the end of the semester, being a bit more productive  at work when a deadline is approaching or just playing video games the whole night. Coffee should remain the ultimate booster and not something you take on a daily basis.

Contra:

Socialization: As I said before, people tend to use coffee as an excuse to socialize. By not drinking coffee, you might be excluded of the coffee breaks. But you can still find alternatives you can drink tea or hot chocolate and still go on « coffee » breaks with you colleagues

Instant poop: I think the title says it all, by quitting coffee you might say goodbye to the morning poop! I won’t elaborate further on this topic for hygienic reasons.

Conclusion

Now you know all good reasons to reduce you caffeine intake. Personnally, I really enjoyed doing this small challenge and I feel better now that I reduced my daily caffeine intake, even though it was quite difficult at the beginning. I recommend you to challenge yourself and try out the effect of the zero coffee life 🙂

I wish you a merry free caffeine Christmas!

 

And you, are a coffee addict? Have you ever tried to live without your daily cups of coffee?