Decaf yourself

I work two part time jobs and I'm a full time student. I drink two cups of coffee every morning and while I'm working here at the call center, I drink coffee as well.

I feel your pain

I had a midterm this morning and I ended up drinking three cups of coffee along with a cup of green tea. Maybe it's time for a caffeine detox.

Caffeine exhibits the features of a typical psychoactive substance of dependence. It is valuable to recognize caffeine dependence as a clinical syndrome, since some people feel compelled to continue caffeine use despite desires and recommendations to the contrary (x). 

Mind that caffeine dependence happens when you drink about 5-7 cups of coffee daily.

Excessive consumption of caffeine will produce problems, and appropriate information should be given to minimize effects in psychiatric patients and other sensitive groups. It is important to balance this with information on the benefits of caffeine, for most consumers can usually control their intake to maximize the beneficial effects and reduce or prevent adverse effects due to over-consumption or consumption at inappropriate times (x). 

While there are health benefits derived from caffeine, it's probably not healthy to be sleepy around 3 P.M. and have to drink another cup or two of coffee to be able to function and get rid of a headache. I've decided to start a caffeine detox and have a bit better relationship with coffee after that.

While there's no consensus on the best way to go about it, it's generally advised to slowly wean off caffeine. Let's get our schedule in order!

Day 1: Regular amount of coffee

Day 2: 10% decaf 

Day 3: 25% decaf

Day 4: 50% decaf

Day 5: 75% decaf and black tea

Day 6: just tea

Day 7: regular tea and a cup of decaf tea

Day 8: decaf tea

Day 9: decaf tea and water

Day 10: just water

Once we've gotten past out caffeine deficiency, we can better enjoy an occasional cup of coffee instead of always waiting until our next one.

If anyone is joining me next week in this, let me know how it goes!

Morning Classes, Alarm Clocks and Caffeine Overdose

Summer II classes begin tomorrow, July 9th and I'm signed up for Gen Chem II and its lab component. And guess what? It starts at 9am! 
And guess what else? Summer I classes were supposed to finish last week but for Calculus II, it didn't- it's extended for 3 more weeks because of the heavy course! Which means... my Summer I and II classes will clash for 3 weeks. That's 3 hectic, sleepless weeks for me. (Both classes are held Monday through Friday).

The biggest challenge for me is waking up so early in the morning. I don't know how morning people do it. I just don't. Before 11am or before I've had my dose of caffeine, my brain is still usually asleep and I'm usually this cranky monster. I had a 7:30am class last spring and I had to bring two thermoses of coffee to class just to get through it. My classmates joked that one day I would just drop, overdosed on caffeine.

If you're like me and have difficulty getting up in the morning, here are a few pointers that helped me:

Caffeine

Anybody else feel like the professors had conspired against us with making this past week the week of tests? They secretly and deviously planned to plan all their tests together and make their students sleepless and zombified. Which always ends up with staying up in the early morning hours studying or getting up in those early hours to before the test. Staying up late at night studying typical means lots of caffeine to keep drooping eyelids to win in the fight for sleep.

This past week some of our caffeine addiction is probably showing. Whether your choice of administering the need for a caffeine boost is coffee, energy drinks or sodas.

Being addicted or dependent on anything isn't very good obviously, so if you're like me and were hit with the recent epiphany that I may, in fact, have a problem with caffeine and sodas. Lucky for you, I have some tips to help stop the dependency! the right way.

1.Going cold turkey with caffeine isn't the best, you will usually deal with withdrawal symptoms

2. Start by decreasing your consumption gradually over days or weeks.

3. Find an alternative to drink and start replacing your daily dose of caffeine with it.

That's all I have! I'm starting today! by cutting my Dr. Pepper consumption to one Dr.Pepper a day! Woop! Let's see if this goes well.