On a Sunday morning, having coffee, I recalled the meme saying “remember the days coffee used to have an effect?”. Clearly I needed to get that kick, not this regular coffee feeling!

Caffeine Dependence was the obvious problem. I decided to reset the biochemistry of my body (if only lightly) by not consuming caffeine as long as it would take to get rid of the withdrawal symptoms or at least a week if symptoms go away in, like, a day or two. The thing is, I used to be consciously irregular about coffee consumption to keep my brain on the edge. For example, I would skip a weekend or skip a morning etc. But lately, I have become consistent about when I wake up and study GEB, or write stuff. Which means, I get a cup of coffee at approximately the same time. This went on for more than a month. I was quite sure I had developed stronger dependence.

Having decided to quit caffeine starting Monday, I had a little trouble getting any work done. I had a headache by 11am. Tuesday, I had headache again, but at around 1pm. Wednesday, I got headache at 3pm along with sore muscles - nothing I couldn’t manage. And on Thursday, I was out baby! I worked the whole day, starting at 7am (oh yeah) and kept going till 11pm. I suppose it took me 4 days to get out of the symptoms. As promised, I am going to avoid caffeine till next Monday. And then, I am in for a kick like it was the first day of consuming the drug!

I did nothing special for 3 days, really. I have a habit of drinking something while I read or code. I switched to green tea for such times. As for headaches, well, I believe it is nice to experience mild pain once in a while to remind myself of the pain when I’m healthy. Makes me appreciate normal days more. Also, a headache is a play on the field of consciousness just like thoughts, sounds, vision and can be used to meditate (wink wink, Sam Harris). Since these are COVID days, I was a little worried about muscle soreness, but it went away quickly enough.

Anyway, I’ll tweet/toot about how I felt on Monday ;)