Giving Up Coffee For 1 Year - How It Changed My Life!

it's been a year without coffee and there should be like kind of a celebration going on right now because to go a year without coffee forget the humility at this point it's insane it's awesome it's amazing and I'm not saying that because I'm awesome cuz that's different story but I'm saying that because anyone who's had coffee more than once in their life realizes how hard it is to quit coffee and it's sort of easy hard in that addictive sort of way like you know I could quit coffee when I wanted to I went five days before I could quit again if I wanted to and then you never do one of those kind of addictions that slowly creep up on you as it did for me in this video is mostly for people who are thinking about quitting and people who are in the middle of quitting because when I started the process of giving up coffee I use these videos as like a lifesaver because I was struggling hardcore like I couldn't give it up I was dying but I pushed through because a lot of other people made videos about quitting coffee so I thought hey this video should help other people out who are thinking about giving up caffeine or coffee or whatever let me start with the story of how I got addicted first I got addicted I don't know maybe I would say in college I started doing energy drinks when I would be doing projects late at night I'd be doing energy drinks like just throw down a monster or whatever was popular back then Red Bull and then I would finish the project at 4 a.m. and be good go the next day and it was okay when you're young because I've learned that young people are able to not only tolerate caffeine more but it doesn't mess with their sleep cycles as much as someone who's a lot older so you know I would do that then I would get to Korea and I became an English teacher for three years and if you've ever worked with kids yeah especially after my school would take us out for drinks in the middle of the week and then we go to school the next day and I'd be like how on earth do you stay awake a packet coffee just like instant coffee over and over again became pretty addicted to that one then I went to grad school for another two years in Korea and I was like alright I can do caffeine I want to do Coke Zero for some reason I got addicted to coke zero cuz I'm like oh it's zero calories I'm healthy and we all know that's not entirely true it's definitely not healthy but I would do that and I would use coffee then when I would go to a cafe and do like a late-night thing where I just I just couldn't stay awake without that boost of caffeine but every day I would have at least a little bit of caffeine then I got out of there and I started doing radio started doing TV started doing stuff like this on YouTube and you go to cafes to work to write scripts so I was like I'll just keep doing caffeine do coffee here at a cafe and when we would be out shooting for videos or whatever we would be having coffee together the producers would buy coffee for us and so I said yeah of course it's a social thing I'll just keep drinking it and I got to the point especially when I was working a lot about a year ago where I realized I was drinking about three to five cups of coffee a day and it wasn't like that's a lot I mean three was the minimum I should say about three to five minimum three roughly four to five occasionally six or seven and these were strong cups of coffee I mean I was talking like Starbucks for some reason Starbucks in Korea is the strongest coffee at least wakes me up the most compared to other ones and I just I realized I was in over my head so I would cut back sort of a little bit but not really I don't know another thing I got tricked into was like if you just go up a half size in the cup it's a half dollar it's 501 so it's like alright I'll just get another taller size right I'll go for the grande or whatever maybe and then something happened and I had stomach problems it's like an ulcer or gastritis something like that something like that happened and I went to the doctor and the doctor said you should take this medicine for seven days and you'll be better don't drink alcohol I was like all right I've done that before that's easy don't smoke no problem there don't have greasy foods and don't she stopped and said do you drink coffee it's like yeah like try to drink one cup of coffee a day and I took that as a challenge I was like Shh whatever I can go for a week without coffee it's not gonna be a problem I thought I thought I thought and I just took it on myself to go a week without coffee while I was taking the medication and so sure enough I did and I started off day one without a problem I think was like a Saturday or something which is by the way an important tip for starting start on the weekend but I started on a Saturday no caffeine felt fine got to the next day and it was the worst worst worst non alcohol hangover of my life like I don't even know how to describe it it was it's like when you're super sick and you just don't feel like doing anything but I wasn't sick I was just off caffeine like my head was foggy people say like Oh your head's foggy and I never really knew what that meant you really can't think straight you're not able to process things you just want to lay in bed but you're not completely able to fall asleep or maybe you do fall asleep and you still wake up tired day two and day three were quite possibly the worst days of this entire experience without a doubt that not possible they were terrible and I explained it in the other video but I get to day five and I really started to finally come around and the addiction withdrawal symptoms started to go down and I was able to finally not be in pain I was finally not in pain I mean it wasn't great but I was not in pain and that was an important start to me so that's the moment though where I realized I had to quit because I had gone through day two and day three the worst non sickness alcohol-related hangover of my life and I just thought to myself I never want to go through that again like if I ever want to quit coffee or caffeine again I I never want to do that again and that to me that was the number one motivating factor at that time it's like it was so much pain now I was super addicted lots of coffee a day but it was so much pain to quit that I just couldn't do it again so I decided I'm gonna keep going I don't know how long it'll be maybe I'll make a youtube video after 21 days I think came up with that idea because you know that's motivating too I do YouTube on the side so hey this would be a fun video to make for people so what happened after that is kind of not on this video that I made before so I'll start to explain a little bit of that process about a month into it is when I started realizing how much had changed now about a week or two when I was sleeping better I wasn't having as big of a problem waking up in the morning but I really noticed it after a month where I could stand there look back on the previous month and just see how much had changed as with like learning a language you don't really know when you're learning it how quickly you'll learn it but when you look back on the past 3 months that's when you figure it out it was the same with that so a month in I looked back and realized I wasn't having any problems waking up in the morning like I was tired if I stayed up late but I wasn't dragging myself out of bed anymore and I think that's the number one thing that anyone out there who's trying to quit coffee or wants to quit coffee you don't want to have that dragging feeling in the morning do that you know go and and quit coffee because you don't need it anymore if you used to have a cup of coffee every morning to get out of bed or to wake you up to make you feel clear in the morning I don't have that morning fog anymore so that's about a month in the second month is when I started notice the other real telltale sign of addiction and that is you think you can go back to it and it's gonna be no problem like I started to really think like I'm good now I'm fine I can go back to having coffee it's no big deal and I didn't but that's kind of because I noticed that feeling when you think you can just go back to something you're addicted to and have no issues that's kind of a sign that you might still have those cravings and and I did so I kept holding off for a little bit and I would hold off and I would hold off this whole time by the way I was drinking green tea and sometimes black tea I wasn't caffeine free but generally speaking you know green tea in the package so it's really a minut amount of caffeine compared to the amount of caffeine you get from a coffee two months in three months in and you still need motivation you still need something to push you to give up coffee and I think that's when I started going with just using YouTube as my motivator and I knew that hey if I can go six months I could make a youtube video after six months and this could be kind of fun so I did create an external motivating factor to keep me going I think if you are quitting and you get to that point where you're thinking I can go back to one cup a week two cups a week I'll be fine but you're still kind of on the inside one a quick coffee that's when you gotta set up that motivating external factor and for me it's like I won't make a video after six months now I didn't make that video after six months because I was busy but I should have but at six months I was thinking to myself oh I'll just make a year video and it's actually been a year and like a week or two now but yeah out a year I'll make this video and share it online it'll help other people trying to quit coffee and a year is a good number anyway six months was just kind of pushing it maybe I just wanna make a youtube video to feel cool about myself giving up coffee again maybe hope not but a year though I think that shows people and shows myself too that this is really a doable thing not just in the short term but in the long term and you know after that I did notice like little areas where I would kind of get addicted to caffeine again because I'd be having too much black tea I tried never to have more than one cup of black tea a day and then I started doing that recently like near the end of a year maybe because I was coming up on a year and I was kidding anxious but I got the same problem again with my stomach yeh that was terrible so I went back to caffeine free for just a little bit I'll go back to green tea though I really want to go back to green tea but I'll go back to tea when the time is right but I am off coffee now for like nine days coffee and tea no caffeine I don't even know if I've had chocolate to be honest I might be on like zero caffeine and I went through a little bit of those signs again and withdrawal and it hurts it's still there but now it's gone but you can still get it if you just go back to tea and then get off t not saying you should quit t not saying you have to forever give up coffee but just know that those things are gonna happen to you on the way so now that I'm here at a year here's what I've learned number one I don't need to go back to coffee I might if I like have a special reason but I don't feel the need to even socially I've had people come up to me and say yeah but you know coffees a social thing and you've got to do it because you know coffee it's social but I can enjoy the tea honestly just fine I did have to sip coffee during that year experience because when you're at a business thing you can't not sip it and coffee is kind of gross now that I was like I think was nine months when I had to have a little bit of coffee and it was not delicious to be honest I don't miss the taste I miss the smell the smell is really good but the taste not so much I also learned that I spend a lot of money on caffeine and that was a huge issue because I would go to cafes and not only get one coffee but then get the dollar or $2 refills I might get a second coffee or switch cafes because I wanted another coffee but I don't wanna buy a same you know a coffee from the same cafe I don't go to a cafe all the time now tea is slightly more expensive and coffee for some stupid reason because I still hate the fact that dried dead leaves cost more than coffee but they are again ok I need to stop complaining about that but overall I don't like on my way to work pick up a coffee I don't get a tea to go because the tea doesn't really pick you up the same way so don't get teas to go when I'm walking to or from work or when I'm passing a cafe and I think that's really been helpful to be honest it's not spending money for those coffees that you just pick while you're walking or while you're moving and if a friend offers to buy me coffee on the when we're walking I just say I'm cool I'm ok I don't need it save that money too you know that that works out anxiety is something that really went down for me again something that I did mention in the other video but if you're someone who has even a little of anxiety caffeine really exacerbates it makes it much worse and I didn't have that kind of anxiety that I used to when I was coming up on big project deadlines or work deadlines I still get some anxiety but I don't feel as terrible about those things as I used to so if you are someone who has anxiety it really gets better it gets a lot better once you've given up coffee so I've kind of mentioned some of these already but the things I didn't find that really changed with me one of them is I still need to go to the cafe to do work I can't work at home I don't know what it is even when I you know do some tea like I'll brew my own tea or whatever because I do have like herbal tea now I do have herbal tea but I can't work at home so I still go there spend money at cafe so I need like that office space as a freelancer so that's something that definitely hasn't changed another thing is that I do still need that occasional pick-me-up and I don't have it and that's one thing that I never got used to is when you're tired at 2:00 o'clock maybe you stayed up late binging on a Netflix series I don't know something when you're tired at 2:00 o'clock you're still wishing you had something to get you going and right now I don't even have black tea or green tea to wake me up so that's unfortunate and it's just something I kind of deal with because I have to kind of keep in the back of my mind as my current motivation I know that having that caffeine or even a coffee at 2:00 o'clock with the half-life decay of six hours is gonna mean that caffeine is still in my body when I'm trying to go to sleep so I know that you know waking up early the next day is better and feeling good the next day is better than trying to get that caffeine that really wakes you up for maybe an hour at the most so that's how I keep motivated is just thinking about the next day and the next day and the next day caffeine is something that is an awesome part of our lives it's cool I love having a little bit of caffeine and by the way not judging anyone who is still drinking coffee out there even if you're addicted or you're not addicted you do whatever you've got to do to get the you shouldn't give up coffee when you are doing a big project you shouldn't be giving it up when you know you've practiced with you like you're an actor or you've been practicing musician 'el musician's musician 'el composition every day until the recital and then you want to quit on the recital like you really shouldn't do that kind of stuff if you are quitting coffee though I hope this video helped out a little bit and I hope that there is a related video on the link somewhere that you can click on to kind of keep you going and keep you motivated and you're telling yourself now I can make it a year if this guy if this idiot can make it a year trust me you can make it seven days or a twenty-one days or a month or six months or whatever it is then you want to quit if you just want to even reset your caffeine tolerance levels I highly highly recommend it that being said if you do want to see the previous video I'll put it down below and also it will be up here somewhere you know so you can click on that if you are someone who is interested in what I talk about it just like hearing me talk you can subscribe but honestly if you're here just to hear about caffeine stuff and you don't wanna subscribe that's awesome that's fine too I completely understand I talked a lot about Korea and my opinions about you know social issues so if you just want to go ahead and leave a thumbs up honestly that would be helpful enough and maybe one day with another video I'll run into you again it's been great talking to you all and also great nice therapeutic relief to talk about my coffee experience here hope it helped you and hope it helps everyone out there trying to quit thanks again for joining my name is Alex sigrist goodbye haseo

Channel: Alex Sigrist

Views: 20,765

Rating: 4.7506633 out of 5

Keywords: caffeine addiction, caffeine withdrawal, giving up coffee, quitting coffee, how to quit coffee, no coffee one year, 1 year without coffee, is caffeine bad for you, how giving up coffee changes your life, is coffee addictive, caffeine withdrawal symptoms

Id: cXUpk0r_QxQ

Length: 17min 10sec (1030 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 16 2020