Virtually Paul

A Decaffeinating Experience

August 17, 2006 on 1:49 pm | In Uncategorized |

I don’t really know why… but I gave up caffeine this week. My housemate is trying to kick a serious coffee addiction… so maybe I was just curious to see if I could do it.

It started on Monday morning when I was pressed for time, given that I’m now working at my usual job for 3 days per week instead of my usual 1 day. (I’ve gone part-time at college this semester.) I didn’t have time for my usual morning cuppa… so I just skipped it. I ended up having lunch with Bec, who was going past the office on her way home from uni… and after making a joke that I didn’t think I’d last the afternoon without getting a caff fix, I decided to find out for real.

Apparently tea has almost as much caffeine in it as coffee but there’s something else in it that lessens the effect. I don’t drink coffee. Giving up coffee would be a bit of a challenge I think. Here’s the summary of my adventure avoiding tea and coke:

Day 1 - easy enough to avoid a cuppa for the day. I felt a bit sluggish. But it was also my earliest Monday morning for a few months so that could have easily been a contributing factor.

Day 2 - having replaced my tea intake at breakfast with juice, by about 3pm I was having the withdrawl headaches that Bec warned me about. They weren’t that bad… but it was a reasonably lightweight afternoon at college. It wouldn’t have been fun if I’d needed to push myself to concentrate for long periods.

Day 3 - bit foggy in the afternoon again. I’ve been drinking a lot of tea as an afternoon ‘pick-me-up’ in the last few months. If you do decide to decaf yourself, expect to feel it the most at the times when you’d usually be getting a buzz.

Day 4 - other than a bit of a disruption to my morning routine (which was disrupted anyway thanks to a power failure at home), I’ve plodded along quite happily today without any caffeine. I’m probably just imagining things to some extent… but the world doesn’t feel like as much of a rush.

The question for you, my adoring fans, is:

How long should I give up caffeine for?

Please register your suggestions.