Taking a Coffee Break

Today I'm sharing my on-and-off again relationship with my first love--a powerful elixir named coffee! Coffee and I go way back. I think my love of coffee began sometime in high school and ever since then, I've been hooked. In college, I craved the "peppy" feeling that coffee would give me as I studied throughout the night and I loved hanging out in coffee shops near my school (shoutout to The Witches Brew + The Cup on Long Island for fueling my first degree!). Any time I started the day without my daily fix, I would be plagued with debilitating headaches. I realized sometime in my twenties that I was completely dependent on caffeine to get through the day so one summer I attempted to quit coffee cold turkey, and I was actually successful for 45 days! Then I decided to indulge in an iced coffee and it was all downhill from there. I'm exaggerating, but my coffee habit picked up right where it left off.

Coffee is known to be addictive. It's the most widely available and used stimulant out there, but just because many people are dependent on coffee doesn't mean it's bad. Coffee has many benefits and it happens to be a powerful antioxidant that may be useful in preventing some forms of diseases and cancer. Regular coffee drinkers may have a decreased risk of diabetes (just hold the cream & sugar), Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and cancers of the liver and colon.

I'm definitely not anti-coffee, but this summer while I was studying for the RD exam I realized I don't LOVE coffee like I used to. Ever since I started drinking coffee (over 10 years now), my sleep has been affected. I know coffee can make me anxious at times, but in the past, the energetic coffee buzz was worth it. What changed for me recently was realizing that I actually don't like that jittery, peppy feeling anymore. As I was driving to take the test, I stopped at Starbucks for my daily ritual, but I was so nervous that I took one sip of coffee and decided that would be my last sip for a while. I couldn't bare to be any more anxious than I already was.

It's now been over a week since I had regular coffee (I did drink decaf for the first 3 days) and I feel surprisingly...normal. I didn't experience any caffeine-withdrawal headaches but I was nauseas for the first few days, which I wasn't expecting. I think I avoided having headaches by drinking a ton of water and taking naps when needed. I'm not sure how long I'll be coffee-free. Unlike previous attempts at ditching the bean, I don't feel like I need to eliminate coffee due to an actual addiction, I'm just kind of over it.

Are you a regular coffee drinker or do you prefer something else? Let me know! I love hearing about other peoples' views on my (former favorite) caffeine-bean 🙂

-Jess