Quitting Caffeine and Coffee Addiction - 6 Months Caffeine Free! How to quit.

hey what's happening Jack Jones out here on the trail getting ready for my big trip and it struck me that it's been six months now since I've gotten off of caffeine and gotten off of coffee and I would rank it up there with exercise and meditation as far as improving my quality of life it really has made a huge huge dramatic impact on my life overall walk with me I'll tell you why I quit and why it's made such a dramatic impact on my life and also how you can kick the caffeine addiction yourself so I quit back in September because I recognize that my daily coffee intake had really really gotten out of hand and it was getting to the point where it didn't matter how much coffee I drank I would still feel tired like in the mornings I I would not be able to function I wouldn't be able to get out of bed unless I had my coffee and yet even after three or four cups I would still I just wasn't functioning correctly I couldn't think clearly I wasn't able to produce anything coherent and I just needed all throughout the day I was constantly drinking it I was going through probably about eight cups a day so 800 milligrams of caffeine it really reminded me of that old saying like you can't live with them and you can't live without them that's what I felt like with caffeine I couldn't live with it and I couldn't live without it so in addition to not being productive not getting anything done I was having really terribly disrupted sleep like I was wouldn't be able to fall asleep until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning I was having really bad mood swings I just felt kind of crappy all the time and I felt just tired all the time and I thought maybe well I'm almost 30 now maybe that's what it feels like when you get old you just feel tired all the time I had all these symptoms of ADHD I just could not stay focused I would sit on my computer's start to write a blog post and then click over to Reddit click over to bodybuilding.com five minutes later go back to my blog post and just constantly I would only be able to get like a paragraph out before I found myself clicking over to something else and looking back on it it really affected my decision-making because what would happen is I would drink my morning cup of coffee which was actually like three cups of coffee and it would give me a big boost in dopamine and adrenaline and then I would be really excited about just random stuff I took on some really random business projects that I really should not have taken on because that caffeine was giving me an artificial high which then led me to make poor decisions where whenever so I would make those decisions in the morning and then I would crash and come down off my caffeine and be like I have no interest in doing this I'm not excited about this at all so that's what prompted me to quit in September I was just tired of being tired I was tired of needing this coffee this caffeine to just keep myself going every day and I was finally had to recognize that really nothing was getting done I even though caffeine makes you feel energized and feel excited nothing of real value was Guinea produced so I quit cold turkey which I do not recommend it was absolutely brutal and actually quit when I was on a business trip out shooting a video in Chicago which I have no idea what possessed me to do that I had to interview a bunch of people I had to shoot a whole bunch of video and it was like the worst time I could possibly pick to quit but I had I guess I hit my bottom and I had decided on the week before that I was gonna quit so then I did and I didn't have any caffeine so my first four days of that was while I was on a business trip that was super important heard a bunch of noise over there it was just a squirrel and in those first eight weeks I have was not excited about anything I was not motivated about anything whatsoever it was you characterized it as a mild mild depression that would be a good way to characterize it and I was concerned that I wasn't going to be able to get excited energized or motivated about things without caffeine which actually that has turned out to be absolutely not true so if you are in the middle of trying to quit caffeine and you're afraid that you'll never feel excited about things without it don't worry about it that'll pass so after 12 weeks we going off cold turkey I was pretty much back to normal I still my overall energy was lower than it had been before overall my just my drive and my motivation was just a little bit lower and I think it's just going to take a really long time for all that to come back I mean six months on I feel much much more like myself and so that's been you know six months that's a long time but I was on caffeine also for many years in my life so it makes sense alright for anybody out there that's looking to quit I would recommend not going cold turkey unless you can spend about two months doing absolutely nothing I would recommend cutting your caffeine intake by half every week you know if you're a regular to moderate caffeine drinker so if you drink between two and four hundred milligrams a day that should work out fine for you if you're much heavier user like 400 milligrams plus I would cut your caffeine intake 25 percent each week over the course of eight weeks so otherwise everybody else cut your caffeine in half every week for four weeks and by week five that should be the first week that you go completely completely caffeine free and just really expect that the first three months of this are going to be challenging you are not going to feel 100% like yourself you're going to feel slow you're going to feel stupid you're going to feel sluggish you're going to feel on energetic you're going to be less motivated and you're just going to be kind of depressed for that time but trust me after you get through it it really is worth it there's a few supplements that are really helpful for getting off of caffeine one of them is ruta carp and we're just Ruta separate not really sure how to pronounce it but what it does is it helps your liver detox caffeine supposedly they've only done rat studies and it shows that the rats who take it will process break down and get rid of caffeine at a much faster rate than the control rats so who knows if that actually carries over into human beings but there have been some some people's anecdotes that says it helps I couldn't really tell when I took it I think you did help but I think just getting off of caffeine was a much better option so there are also what are known as adaptogenic herbs so these are like rhodiola rosea Luther Oh Luther ooh root and those can help give you a boost of energy and fight fight off the tiredness that getting off of caffeine brings although I found you need to be careful with those as well because rhodiola definitely is a stimulant in its own right and it's hard I can't find the research online to show whether it's working on the same pathways as caffeine or different pathways but if the goal is to reset your body reset your tolerances and rest then I would err on the side of not taking anything that might even be a stimulant even if it's a adaptogen like rhodiola so I would use those sparingly for days that you just need to be more energized more on point if you're on the fence about whether you want to try and get off caffeine I would say it is absolutely worth it just my quality of life overall has improved so dramatically my sleep like I never have trouble sleeping anymore and more importantly in the mornings I wake up feeling rested so before it didn't matter how long I slept I would still feel tired now after just seven eight hours usually everyday I feel really really refreshed and rested and I don't need to lay in bed for two or three hours and then finally start the day it feels amazing and it's amazing not to need to drink a cup of coffee just to get going in the morning like I wake up I do my normal morning routine and I feel great and I don't crash in the afternoons so usually so this is about 6:30 right now usually in the afternoons between like 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. I was absolutely useless and then I would get another burst of energy and wouldn't be able to sleep until 1 or 2 in the morning which led to all sorts of problems but now I have just steady steady energy all throughout the day I don't have crashes I don't have these really high manic states either and overall it's just been it's been wonderful and I highly recommend it hey thanks for watching just know that quitting caffeine it's not easy but it's doable and it is so worth it and the most important parts to push through or between like your second month and your fifth month because during that time you're gonna like you're gonna feel okay but you're gonna feel just a little bit off and just a little bit tired all the time and you're going to miss that feeling of excitement and energy that you used to get when you drink your big cup of coffee and you're going to be really really tempted to get back on caffeine and I would say just just don't do it because past month five months six like now I have all of my natural energy back and I just feel I'm naturally excited about things again I'm naturally motivated about things again and I feel like myself again and I don't I don't feel tired all the time and that is so nice so stick it through you can do it it'll be tough but anything worth doing in life will be a little bit challenging so good luck everybody have an awesome day and I will see you on the trail

Channel: The Healthy Gamer

Views: 84,643

Rating: 4.9315238 out of 5

Keywords: quitting caffeine, coffee addiction, caffeine addiction, how to quit drinking coffee, how to quit caffeine, how to, jack jones, the healthy gamer, coffee, pre workout, c4

Id: _kXq8na6Q9w

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Mon May 02 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/ahncie]

He's on caffeine again now FWIW