How To Reduce Anxiety By Cutting Back Your Daily Coffee Intake

 Have you ever daydreamed what activity you could do that would remove all joy from your life?

I think I know what it is. I think I know. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Call on me. Call on me.

Yes.

Is it cutting out caffeine or my morning coffee?

Yes,

Oh God,

correct. 

you're the worst. I.

Well, guess what, folks, today  📍 that's actually what we're gonna talk about, reducing your caffeine intake. Please, please, please keep listening.  📍 so Zach, I'm, I'm going through a bit of a breakup, man. Uh, uh, my, my heart's breaking.

No,

no. What happened?

I always said that if the doctor told me one day, listen, it's your coffee or your life, then I was going to say, I'm sorry. My life will have to go 'cause I can't live without my coffee.

Hmm. 

I am slowly backing off of my deep, deep dependence on caffeine

Well that sounds like a horrible way

It's a painful way to live. I used to drink coffee all day, every day. It didn't matter what time, and I could still go to sleep, and I thought, oh, I'm just one of those people. I can just live on this stuff. No big deal.

we've, we talked, you know, of course on the show already about how I was doing that.

And every day felt miserable. It felt like crap all the time. And then when I did finally talk to a, a fitness coach, he said, you know, you might wanna cut back. And so I did. And as he was, he was right. I felt better, more stable energy all day. I was able to get up at five o'clock in the morning and do all the stuff I needed to do, you know, whatever.

But I still was having my two cups of coffee, and along the way I started just noticing that there was, especially like in the mid-morning, so I've had the coffee, it's been a couple of hours. There would just be this like current running through my body. It just felt like I was plugged into a charger of some kind, and I felt like, oh, cool, I'm, I'm all revved up.

I can get things done. I can focus on my work or whatever.

Then like it started messing with my anxiety, which has been on high alert, and I just felt like it was really just throwing gas on that fire. And so I just thought, you know, you and I had a brief conversation about this. I had a conversation with other people about their caffeine, uh, habits, and everybody seemed to be on this trend of cutting back.

And I was like, well, maybe I can cut back further. Maybe I'll take my two cups, but I'll go down to half decaf. I've been doing that and I'm noticing that like, it feels like the anxiety's calming down a little bit, that that current, that charge isn't there. I do like, even though I'm maybe not as driven to like get stuff done really, really fast, I'm a little more focused and, and more balanced throughout the day.

And so I, you know, I don't know. I may go all the way decaf. I may cut it out completely because so far that's been the result is that I kind of feel better.

Interesting. I have recently cut my caffeine down quite a bit as well, just because I've, again, anxiety, like jittery, like I was just drinking. I was just drinking too much. Like I, I, would have far too many cups in the morning and

and now I'm down to like one and a half cups, sometimes two.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm.

it's making a huge difference in my anxiety and like, again, my energy level throughout the day is a little bit more solid and stable. jittery hands have disappeared. , but man, I am, I am still like, I just get pissed, so mad. When I take that last sip of coffee in the morning because I gotta wait 23

hours to drink another cup of coffee.

I know. I, I've been saying forever that I feel like, you know, starting my day with a cup of coffee, like coffee was the one thing I was getting right every day. And so now that I'm like, oh, now I gotta screw with that and, and mess with the formula, I feel like it's just anything's possible now.

Like nothing could go right if I can't get that one thing to happen the way I want it to.

 There is something to it though, like caffeine is a drug, just like anything else that you put in your body is a drug because it reacts with your body. And caffeine can have a different reaction. Like I also have like stomach issues. And when I drink coffee on an empty stomach, like I get heartburn.

I don't know why I have put myself through this pain for so many years. I know it causes me anxiety. I know it gives me indigestion. I know it gives me heartburn. I know it makes me jittery. I know it causes all these negative things, but the dopamine rush in the moment is just so 

powerful. 

It tastes so good, and I, I hear everyone right now going just drink decaf, dummy, but you don't understand that's that. That's just been an unacceptable option for me for my entire life.

Come coming from the guy who stopped drinking seven years ago and drinks non-alcoholic

Right, right. Yeah. I can't, I just, I can't wrap my head around it. What a foreign concept. It makes no sense to me.

good. Excuse.

But it was interesting. I saw a clip from, uh, from author Michael Pollen, who has written a bunch of incredible books about, you know, psilocybin and different things. But he was asked, I think it was on Joe Rogan's podcast, he was asked about the, like, the craziest drug he'd ever taken or something.

And I think he said, .  after three months of not having caffeine, when I had caffeine, that was the craziest thing the way that it messed with me. So I'm curious if I can push myself to go fully decaf and do that experiment of three months without to see how different I feel when I do have a full cup of coffee.

I know there's a guy, , at the gym that I go to that caffeine just hits him differently and on days that he's had caffeine, like in his pre-workout or something like that. But you can tell there's like

an energy and, and his, his, the volume is of his voice is louder and talking faster. And I look at that and I'm just like, So I go from like lethargic to barely awake with my coffee,

right.

right?

Like, I would love to be able to drink a cup of coffee and go to like speedy Gonzales level.

I mean that, that's 

It's a hell of a pre-workout when you use it that way.

it is, , yeah, I'm, I'm definitely not as sensitive to caffeine as, , Going without it for three months would make me bad. I don't know. Like I, I remember quitting smoking cigarettes and like, I got sad when I thought that I would, I would never smoke again. And even just the thought of going without coffee for three months or without caffeine for three months, I mean, there's tears welling up in my eyes right now.

It's a heartbreaking, uh, breakup.

 📍 Mm-hmm.

 📍  

before the listeners. I'm gonna give this a shot too. Actually, while I was in Disney last week, I. A small cup of coffee. And then when I went back for my second, I actually heard your voice in my head and I filled it halfway with regular and halfway with

Really? 

and, and then walked back to my room. Really

Sad in tears. Yeah, I know. I know. They're feeling well 

I was in the happiest place on earth. Thank you, jerk.

Glad I could help.

But, uh, I am, I'm with you. Like I, I, I actually wanna, I wanna try bringing this down even further myself. Because my sleep actually hasn't been very great lately, and I, you know, while I drink all of my caffeine before seven o'clock in the morning, most people know I go to bed at like seven 30 at

night.

So, you know, there could still be caffeine in my, in my system. And I, I, I know for me, I would love to find out whether or not it improves my sleep, but it definitely impacts your sleep. If you're drinking caffeine too late in the

day, like it'll keep you awake or. You'll be able to fall asleep, but it's gonna, you're not gonna be able to get all the, the sleep cycles that you need for the night.

So, , if you don't want to cut caffeine out, at the very least, like don't drink it past 10:00 AM

to like be really, really safe. 

a 12 hour window is generally pretty safe to have it not impact your sleep too much. and also, I mean, I think the reason that you and I are both driven to do this the most is because it can have a big impact on your anxiety. And you know, you talked about that jitteriness. I don't know that I've gotten that, but just, you know, again, that sort of electric charge, just feeling like my mind is out of control. It's, I'm noticing that coming down. So that's, that's a great reason too, if you're considering cutting back, is just to cut back on the anxiety as well,

Yeah, I think that actually has helped me out quite a bit. Um, 'cause you know, again, I run a little anxious, 

just

a little. 

a little.

And, and just cutting back what I have cut back has made a huge difference.

Then one more thing. I remember years ago when I tried to go cold Turkey and quick coffee, and I was drinking like four venti Pike Place roast Starbucks a day, and I went cold Turkey and had heart palpitations the next day. I also had a wicked 

headache from caffeine withdrawal. So we all know about the headache that you get when you're coming off of caffeine. The flip side is also true, like frequent caffeine can actually give you headaches, so reducing it, don't cut it off completely just yet. Reducing it can actually lower your headaches and migraines.

Which I've, I think I've noticed already 'cause I did sort of battle every couple of days, just like a low grade thing and, you know, I take a Tylenol or whatever and I don't like doing that either, but that was how I was managing it. So if I can avoid that by cutting out coffee. There's one more good reason to, uh, to cut it back.

Are you sure you didn't just have a low grade headache? 'cause you hadn't watched Star Wars that day?

It might be I was behind on a Soca, but I'm, I'm  📍 all cut up now, so I'm feeling much better.

Good.

All right, well, I've gotta go get another cup of coffee. So we're gonna wrap this up. Thank you so much for listening. You can subscribe to our newsletter and our website in the show notes for this episode. That is the fit mess.com, and that's where we'll be back in just a few days with a brand new episode.

Thanks for listening.

See everyone.