Just wondering if anyone else who was a heavy caffeine user for work/exercise/daily life has tried quitting for a month or longer before. I mean completely: no diet soda, tea, nothing with even a little caffeine for one month.

I have taken a month off in the past. I was sick of crashing every afternoon and feeling too buzzed to focus on something like reading. Also, it didn't really affect my lifting. In fact, I was putting more effort into lifting because it was going to be the only fucking thing that gave me a similar boost all day.

I'm gonna try doing that again. I know the lot of you have opinions.

Quit for a while and it was almost like i was suddenly experiencing adrenaline again.

>>76275320 (OP)
I was grumpy and cranky for ~2 months after I quit

>>76275331
that's really interesting could you share more

>>76275320 (OP)
I quit it for a month before and decided to go back at the end because I just feel better with caffeine, be it tea or coffee. Even after a month of my neurotransmitter receptors going back to normal I still felt worse than when I drink coffee. Maybe you should still do this experiment yourself because it could vary from person to person.

>>76275398
read the op, I did

Caffeine reduces the amount of gray matter in your brain by up to 15% with sustained use. It comes back after abstaining for some amount of time.
Supposedly there is “no” (((evidence))) that this translates to a loss of cognitive ability, but I believe that’s bullshit. I’m a long time caffeine addict and I’m interested in quitting just to see if I regain some of my cognitive ability that has mysteriously disappeared over the years despite micronutrient supplementation and good diet, constant hydration, not drinking or doing drugs… I believe caffeine plays a part. 15% is not insignificant

>>76275346
Yeah it was like caffeine was fake energy that somehow deprived me of real energy

>>76275320 (OP)

Yeah, I have done two weeks off to re-sensitize myself to caffeine. From my analysis of the literature, this is more than enough time to get back to baseline sensitivity. I had a difficult time finding an article that explicitly said this, though.

I will attach some interesting anecdotes from the literature:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7777221/
>Caffeine has consistently been shown to improve exercise performance when consumed in doses of 3–6mg/kg body mass.
>Very high doses of caffeine (e.g. 9mg/kg) are associated with a high incidence of side-effects and do not seem to be required to elicit an ergogenic effect.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223808/
>caffeine half-life of 2.5–4.5 hours

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368315273_The_effect_of_caffeine_on_subsequent_sleep_A_systematic_review_and_meta-analysis
>To avoid reductions in total sleep time, coffee (107 mg per 250 mL) should be consumed at least 8.8 h prior to bedtime
>a standard serving of pre-workout supplement (217.5 mg) should be consumed at least 13.2 h prior to bedtime.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6343867/
>In both tests, the magnitude of the ergogenic effect of caffeine vs. placebo was higher on the first day of ingestion and then progressively decreased.
>These results show a continued ergogenic effect with the daily ingestion of caffeine for 15–18 days; however, the changes in the magnitude of this effect suggest progressive tolerance.


Tl;dr
How much to dose?
>Aim for 3-6 mg/kg of caffeine to body mass for performance enhancement
>The enhancement decreases over time, so caffeine "breaks" are good

What about sleep?
>Caffeine WILL fuck up your sleep, unfortunately
>The more caffeine, the longer you have to space it before bed (try to aim for at least 9 hours lol)

Couldn't be bothered to do more research. I look forward to hearing what you found.

>>76275320 (OP)
i cut coffee entirely when i realized i would have a headache in the morning if i didn't have one
after a few days the headaches were gone and i was free
fast forward a couple of months and i started to enjoy coffee again but more in moderation as well as decaf and less at work

i love coffee it's one of my favorite drinks but i wont tolerate a dependency so i only drink caffeine coffee before 1pm and typically only once be it as an espresso, an americano, or the two and a bit cups i get from a drip or french press
i would drink exclusively decaf but i can't find decaf which is as good as my normal beans

cyp1a2 is the main isozyme responsible for metabolizing caffeine. genetic differences in the alleles responsible for processing caffeine explaing the enhances effects positive or negative that one experiences. genetically slow caffeine metabolizers experience more negatives such as anxiety, depression, heart problems, gut issues and sleep loss. ive tried quitting caffeine several times it tricks you at first you feel worse then remarkably better then worse again. in short caffeine good

>>76275320 (OP)
I've been dry for.. 3 years now? Quit due to migraines.
First few weeks were ass, low energy, had cravings, but overall not too bad. Then the energy came back, and generally started feeling better than before. I feel like my creativity improved, weirdly enough. No difference in sleep quality, as far as I can tell.
The main downside is that a lot of social gatherings in here are around coffee, and explaining to people that I don't drink coffee or tea is a pain. Decaf options are rarely available.
Also, now that my tolerance is shit, chocolate is a fucking stimulant.

>>76275320 (OP)
first time i tried to quit cold turkey, i got tension headaches (unusual for me) so started drinking tea again
second time i phased it out pretty quickly, with 0 side effects
it was very worth it, especially in terms of sleep quality
any caffeine now makes me jittery and garrulous

>>76275732
>garrulous
thanks for that senpai i'll trade you my approbations

>>76275320 (OP)
I don't think it's worth quitting. Your overall energy pool is probably the same, coffee makes it easier to get a kickstart for a day of wagecucking and there's nothing wrong with that. If you don't have to work, do whatever you want, but caffee really makes white collar shit more bearable.

>>76275771
nigga if you work white collar shit then you have zero need for extra energy
my job alternates between blue and white collar and when i'm officecucking i feel so well rested and have so much energy i literally need to work out or i can't sit still
all you have to do is go to bed at 10pm and not sleep next to your phone

>>76275320 (OP)
i ceased all caffeine intake exactly 1 month and one day ago. felt like shit for most of it, but am starting to come good now. not much has changed other than I still feel like a coffee or tea sometimes.

>>76275331
>>76275436
Strongly second. I started having coffee much later than most people and treated it as kind of a treat or "hack" but eventually tumbled into the full on addiction; since then I've "quit" on several separate occasions for a few months at a time but gotten pulled back in, usually because I think I can moderate now (I can't.) The one good thing about it (if it is in fact good) is that it makes monotonous work a lot less unpleasant. Other than that though, most of the pleasant effects of euphoria, energy, etc. eventually fade away unless I have a really impractical amount/enough to feel like shit. It eventually drags me down into this half-zombie state where everything is very "ok" but I feel emotions a lot less strongly, don't care as much about the future, don't make memories as strong, etc; after being off it for maybe a week or so I start to feel human again
>>76275572
This is interesting, I have a friend who's talked about how some people are said to be much more sensitive to the effects but I'm wary of that just being attractive as some special snowflake/main character syndrome. Almost nobody I talk to seems to share my experience of the bad side of it though.

>>76275320 (OP)
Quit for 2 months and it was a waste of time, no point in quitting if you have no isssues and it doesn't fuck up your sleep

>>76275320 (OP)
quit from coffee (but also tea) by 3 years or more. I can use all money I save to buy healthier food.

>>76275320 (OP)
I took two months off caffeine after I had a seizure and noticed no difference. But I am literally retarded

>>76275320 (OP)
I'm baffled how most people here tried it only a month or two and expected some extraordinary results.
Yes I have quit many times, always cold turkey. I have gone 3, 6, 9 months without any caffeine at all. I once even did 1,5 years without it just to prove to myself that I can do it.
I did it mostly because I had too high of a tolerance to it, which resulted in caffeine doing pretty much nothing. I could drink an energy drink and still yawn afterwards. Caffeine is not something you should take without cycling. You need to take breaks or it becomes pointless. My general rule of thumb is that when I start to exceed 200 mg a day and still feel like I need more, then it's time to cut down on it.

After consulting it with my friends I feel like I get worse withdrawal symptoms than most people, but I also get it that most of them don't quit caffeine ever, especially cold turkey. This is how you will feel after quitting:
Day 1-3:
>intense headaches, taking long naps during the day, the whole days are wasted since you can't do anything
Day 4-7:
>mild headache, still no motivation to really do anything but you can manage
Day 8-14:
>Almost no headache or the headache is barely noticeable, you still feel like you're low on energy and you have this urge to go to bed sooner.
Day 15-31:
>No headaches, you start to become normal, although mornings would still be fine with a bit of caffeine
Month 1-2:
>you feel normal. You wake up feeling ready for the day. Feels "liberating" to just get up and function properly without relying on anything. You start to notice your energy depends on if you slept well or not, rather than on drinking x cups of coffee. Still occasional days where you feel a bit more tired than you should
Month 2 and later:
>Everything is just as before you started taking caffeine. All the damage has been undone, energy levels are much more stable. The sleep problems are gone, since your body instinctively knows it's about the time to sleep.

>>76275320 (OP)
I quit roughly one month and a half ago, I'm no longer sleepy in the morning, whereas before there was always a difference between a morning with vs without coffee. More than sleep quality I quit because coffee would exacerbate my anxiety.

yeah it's not a big deal. you have a headache and feel pissed off for a week or 2. i used to abuse the fuck out of caffeine and get a massive tolerance to point I was taking a gram of caffeine pre-gym. and I would have before that in the morning and go to work, have more coffee or an energy drink at lunch and then take 5x200mg caffeine pills and go to the gym. i would take a break to get my tolerance back down. i've done it probably 5 times. i would use nicotine during that time though. then afterwards when I started caffeine again, I would stop the nicotine. now i'm older and don't give a shit and just use nicotine and caffeine nonstop for years.

>>76275449
>Aim for 3-6 mg/kg of caffeine to body mass for performance enhancement
I fucking hate this study. Does anyone who cites it actually understands the practical implications of it?

As a 80 kg man, do you really expect me to fucking intake 480 mg of caffeine into my system to get some "performance boost"? All in one sitting? This shit is not only stupid but also dangerous. Almost everyone who would do that shit would get extreme anxiety and shaky hands, unless of course you are totally hooked up to this drug before and your tolerance is already super high. No one, I repeat NO ONE except for braindead zoomers addicted to their favorite tiktok influencer's preworkout would do that shit.

Just because a study showed a performance boost, it doesn't mean it translates to the real world. Do you know what's the maximum recommended daily intake by FDA? 400 mg. And even better if you spread it out throughout the day. Then why are people giving 6mg/kg of body weight as a good measurement. Do you know what's also known to cause a performance boost? Amphetamines. But you know what? Maybe it's not the smartest idea to drug yourself up just to bench 5 more kilograms. Yet somehow people will recommend taking almost HALF A GRAM of caffeine to get a better workout, because a study said so. This is not the first time I saw people try to use it as a good argument and it's fucking infuriating to see it repeated over and over without one conscious thought about what have you just read. Just blindly repeating what the study told you.

>>76275778
Caffeine doesn't give you extra energy, just makes it easier to slide in into whatever you're doing, especially if it's boring.

>>76275320 (OP)
First 5 days: heavy headaches, napping twice a day and depression. Hard to focus on anything.
Next 5 days: wow, I am reborn
0 cravings after months of heavy abuse of coffee and tea.

>>76275320 (OP)
I have massively reduced my intake.

One cup of iced coffee when i wake up (after 500ml of tap water from the warm tap, stay hydrated), one mountain dew later in the day.

I've been working out at night, so no pre-workout anymore as much as i love it.

>>76275320 (OP)
Good timing for this thread. I'm using retatrutide and I was shocked that my RHR was like 95 and kissing 100. My blood pressure is comically low though. This was in conjunction with a cup of coffee, a pre workout nuun tablet that turned out to have energy drink stuff in it, and a Dr pepper zero in the afternoon.
Cut the coffee out entirely and went to loose leaf green tea to stave off the inevitable withdrawal.
Heart rate is slowly dropping thank goodness. I'm going to ride out green tea for the foreseeable future because reta seems to give me sustainable energy all day.
>Naagr

>>76275320 (OP)
Caffeine does literally nothing to me and I felt absolutely nothing even after stopping cold turkey after consooming like 3 cups a day at work

I'm a 1 cup per day kind of guy because I'm quite sensitive to it. I genuinely feel better when I don't drink it. Sleep better, think clearer, less stress etc. My only issue is that I kind of like the taste of coffee and tea. They definitely have a use for when you didn't sleep well but have to go to work or for lifting or shitting but that's it.

>>76275572
>tried quitting several times
>worse at first, better, then definitively worse overall afterwards
>in short caffeine good
So presumably you have some kind of genetic mutation that reduces cyp1a2 production/efficiency, making you a slower metabolizer and susceptible to depression anxiety etc?

>>76275449
>>Caffeine WILL fuck up your sleep, unfortunately
The half life is like 7 hours, most of it should be gone by the time you're off to bed no?

>>76277279
Still remember the first time I took caffeine pills, not even to weightlift just purely out of curiosity. At the mall, walked out of the store/kiosk and took 1x 200mg. 10 minutes later, "this ain't shit", +400mg. 3 hours later, it finally hits me and I stay up all night playing hoi4 trying to drown out some of the worst anxiety ever experienced thus far. Not in the sense that it was particularly scary, rather it felt very 'synthetic' and dirty.

Mind you I'm a complete lanklet, but scaling up caffeine intake linearly by according to weight sounds utterly stupid, especially that dramatically.

>>76275778
Are you an engineer? Ik most work in office, though I know of one mechE who I believe posted somewhere on 4ch re. the perks of his particular job which involved driving out to the site fairly often & working with the tradies to some extent. Think it was a logging camp or something like that, not a mine.

>>76277109
There're plenty of teas with minimal or no caffeine content, ever plan on trying them or is tea just not of particular interest now that it's no longer needed as a vehicle for caffeine?

>>76277890
A lot of wagies use preworkout at like 18:00 after they get off work and have time to go exercise.

>>76277210
>Caffeine is not something you should take without cycling.
Don't remember the specifics but I'm pretty sure there's also a (short ish) list of co-factor minerals/vitamins that one is supposed to intake alongside it, for maximal effect/minimize negative health effects. Sort of like amphetamine which I think depletes your magnesium.

>>76277666
>a pre workout nuun tablet that turned out to have energy drink stuff in it
Do you mean the energy drink ingredients took you by surprise? That does seem a bit weird, I'm on their site rn and it comes off as just one of those cardiobunny products that replenishes your electrolytes lost from sweat and whatnot. Were you taking pic related?

Also lol at 1.25 dollars per serving, miss me with that bullshit.

>>76277913
Honestly it's pretty nuts how a dude will come off his office job and be like "yeah I need 300mg of this caffeine preworkout to exercise after a long day in the office" bro come on now, you're just spawncamping your future self

>>76275320 (OP)
Yeah I quit a few times. I quit just recently as of two weeks ago (again) after a stint of being off it for a few months and then getting back it for a gym energy levels and performance experiment. My train of thought is that something that gives me headaches and fatigue for a week straight after quitting, can't be good for me long term, it just feels like substance abuse, retarded logic? Definitely, but I literally don't notice the energy difference without it so I'd just rather not take it.

>>76277912
I'm free from smoke, alcohol and caffeine. to turn back

I've been caffeine-free for a week now after trying to quit this garbage for years, fully understanding how bad it really is.

Quitting caffeine is significantly easier than people think it is. Don't listen to anyone that claims they had "withdrawals" for months, they are misguided.
Most "withdrawal" symptoms are psychological, from believing you need that garbage to have energy (you don't) and constantly moping about it. That's what creates the cravings.
The psychological aspect is 90% of the difficulty, the physical withdrawal is extremely mild and manageable. Literally just a little bit of a headache for a couple of days, and that's it.

People who claim to have "withdrawals" for longer than, say, a week, just have psyopped themselves into believing they can't live without caffeine.

If you feel like shit weeks after, it's because you have shit habits that your caffeinism was masking the symptoms of. Bad sleep schedule, too much or too little exercise, crappy diet, etc.
Also, a lot of the cravings for "coffee" are actually cravings for the sugar you were taking it with. I added a couple teaspoons of sugar to my decaf and all the craving went away completely.

Most addictions are mostly psychological. The more you believe in their addictiveness, the more you will have a victim complex and the harder it will be to quit.

>>76277904
>but scaling up caffeine intake linearly by according to weight sounds utterly stupid, especially that dramatically.
Yeah, right? There are just too many factors contributing to how you will feel after caffeine. Weight is only one of them. How about genetics, acquired tolerance, if you take them on an empty stomach or not, or maybe if you take it all at once? They are much more important than simple
>uhh you weigh x kg
One night I drank 2 energy drinks (so that's 320 mg of caffeine) when I was 70 kg (so that's 4.5mg/kg) and have never took caffeine before. I ended up not sleeping the whole night, I couldn't hold a pen properly because I was shaking so much and my heart was pounding for hours. But
>"le muh performance brooo"

>>76277279
For me it’s 500mg in one go in the afternoon before gym.
But I make sure I have has a lot of coffee in the morning too.
I see no need to cut back.

>>76277932
>spawncamping your future self
I have no idea what that means. I suspect that anyone writing it knows nothing about anything.

>>76277943
Nice, gl with that. What'd you use to quit smoking? What turned me off from it as a kid was occasional second-hand smoke, but lately I've been having this idea to go camping and larp as a 'native' with a tobacco smoke tent lol. Wondering if these innocuous things tend to spiral out of control.

>>76277944
Depends on your dosage and sensitivity.
Going from 300-400mg/day to zero will give me 2-3 days of absolute fucking exhaustion.

I'm talking about lying in bed all day shitposting.
Mild withdrawal lasts a week.
Full reset in tolerance probably takes around 2 weeks, maybe a bit more but you don't notice it.

>addiction is psychological bruv
Like weed, nicotine etc? Yes that's what addiction is. Still addictive. It's not like you need to believe in it to work.

>>76277965
>One night I drank 2 energy drinks (so that's 320 mg of caffeine) when I was 70 kg (so that's 4.5mg/kg) and have never took caffeine before. I ended up not sleeping the whole night, I couldn't hold a pen properly because I was shaking so much and my heart was pounding for hours. But
Ik exactly what you mean since that's basically where I was at. Guessing you're around 6ft +-2 inches?
Another ex. was drinking one (1) of those basic Celsius energy cans and having this really weird twitchy feeling around the left collarbone. It'd come and go a few times throughout the next 2 hours, like wtf was even going on there

>>76277979
Spawncamping your future self i.e. setting yourself up for failure by slowing chipping away at your health after destroying your sleep hygiene day in day out. Does saying that stupid phrase really invalidate the basic prediction of what happens after taking caffeine late in the day

>>76277982
>What'd you use to quit smoking?
a bottle of water. Whenever I felt the need to smoke I would take a sip of water from the bottle. it worked for me.

>>76275320 (OP)
Haven't drank caffeine in 3 months and I'm never going back.

>>76275320 (OP)
I drank caffeine from the ages of 7 to 26. In the military I decided it was making me anxious and quit cold turkey. Had a migraine for four days. I drank upwards to 6-8 cups of coffee a day from ages 20-24 and switched to like 4 celsius waters a day and bangs. I ended up having heart palpitations and I decided to quit. Now I can tell when someone uses caffeine because they are always erratic and over exaggerate their thinking. I will never use it again although I do drink decaf still for flavor. I also don't eat dark chocolate for the same reason. Caffeine is a legitimate poison and makes people retarded as fuck. If you can't get a pump from just creatine alone and have to use caffeine well you're weak as fuck imo. Caffeine ruins people's lives

>>76275320 (OP)
I'd quit if it wasn't the cheapest and most potent antioxidant you can get without calories.

>>76278030
>bean juice is healthy
kek, just admit you enjoy the drug

>>76278037
I used to have to bad anxiety upon waking it would make me physically sick. Like dry heaving in the morning just from waking up. Becoming caffine "dependant" has made that not a thing. I wake up a little slow and groggy like everyone else but not to the point I can't put off caffine until noon. The physical dependence does more for me than the coffee probably does.

>>76278015
How does the military's caffeine gum taste?

>>76278030
Lol there is no way caffeine is remotely close to being the most potent antioxidant going by calorie efficiency basis

been drinking coffee every single day, twice a day for 20+ years and it makes me happy with negligible side effects

>>76278037
it is though
and its easy to just stop if you arent a mentalet

>>76278133
>it's easy to stop
yeah but you wont stop because youre addicted and have an array of copes as to why not stopping is a good thing.
>>76278128
>no side effects
how would you even know, you dont know what life is like off the drug

>>76277911
yes and it is not a perk although the engineers who sit in an office all day are overwhelmingly useless and i could not in good conscience be such a useless faggot
even very white collar high up engineers still come onto site and look at the plant if they are any good because it's just a necessity
the ones who sit in an office are disinterested, lazy, and usually incompetent and the paperwork side of it is ridiculously easy
all the crap you learn at school is irrelevant after then because believe it or not nobody calculates tension and shit by hand but designing stuff in such a way that it's literally impossible to assemble happens all the time or not making any accommodations for cleaning/repairing stuff which is going to need it is another popular one
i'm sure this doesn't apply if you're designing space age materials for lockheed martin on a molecular level but 99.99999% of engineers aren't

>>76275320 (OP)
I'm 1.5 months deep currently. I have done ~1 month several times in the past.

Pros:
>feel calmer / less anxious
>enjoy being out in the sun and listening to nature more
>able to focus on same thing for longer at a time, and with less distraction
>train of thought is more linear and clear / focused
>more stable energy throughout day
>less headaches and tension in face / jaw
>time seems a bit slower
>getting up in the morning is not a pain in the ass anymore
>sleep better
>actually get tired in the evening

Cons
>I really like the taste of coffee
>I really like the high of caffeine
>It is really obvious when other people have had a lot of coffee now, as they become annoying and their speech becomes fragmented and too quick
>explaining to people that I am currently not drinking caffeinated things is a pain in the ass
>actually get tired in the evening

I will say that things have stagnated now. I feel pretty stable, and not experiencing more benefits.
Considering starting with coffee again, but I remember regretting it the other times I have relapsed.
Maybe this time is for good.

>>76278833
I forgot to mention that I have been a 4-6 cups of coffee guy from I was 14 to now (28). So 14 years of relatively high coffee consumption.

First week of withdrawal is brutal. Literally felt like flu + worst headaches I have experienced.

>>76278853
Best way off of any substance is to wean. You can avoid most of the worst withdrawal symptoms almost entirely if done effectively. Cold turkey withdrawal is unnecessary pain

>>76278588
I should've mentioned that he considered it the highlight of his job.

>all the crap you learn at school is irrelevant after then because believe it or not nobody calculates tension and shit by hand but designing stuff in such a way that it's literally impossible to assemble happens all the time or not making any accommodations for cleaning/repairing stuff which is going to need it is another popular one
Bit strange that uni doesn't focus a bit more on design/industrial processes.

>>76279082
Meh, I'll take shit for 5 days over a little less shit for weeks on end

>>76275398
>I quit it for a month before and decided to go back at the end because I just feel better with alcohol

>>76279238
it isn't strange at all because most universities are degree mills which are just about rubber stamping monkeys as being ~115iq and they're largely equipped for the 80s
they do have design courses too but it just isn't the same as actually having to regularly source materials, fabricate, and fit stuff yourself and the number which force you to fabricate beyond 3d printing some piss fart garbage is not very many
there's this idea that you can do everything on a computer now and that's all well and good if you have an array of cnc machines and infinity budget but that simply isn't reality in most cases

very often obviously suboptimal designs are given to the people on site and they're basically told "make it work" and given a great deal of disrespect and headache for no good reason and it's ridiculous things like only having a union on either end of a huge gas train but then saying "we don't know the pressure losses if you add more they might be too high" as if any system should be designed with such hair thin tolerances and that diversity factors in the ambient conditions wouldn't have a far greater impact than a couple of unions and flanges not to even mention how much more such a statement values an hour of cad work over the numerous man hours that added to each train
the tradies in question were paid about what i would expect an office rube to be on too and charged out at more than that but it's just disrespect to them and the material costs would have still been less than labor
that's ignoring the fact that these trains all needed disassembling and reassembling when an unrelated issue emerged where more couplings would have made an even greater massive difference

>>76279656
For the love of God, please, learn how to write and especially learn how to use periods and commas. Reading your post was genuinely painful.

>>76279708
>implying i don't know
skill issue

I just love the taste too much bro's. The caffeine is not even the main thing. I wish decaf didn't give you super cancer aids.

Bump

>>76275320 (OP)
>tried
17 years and counting