Going without that cup of coffee is really rough on people the first few days. So is going without cola, dark chocolate and energy drinks. Caffeine is in all of these things.
Hang in there! There is life after caffeine!
When we stop drinking coffee or other caffeinated we get the typical symptoms of withdrawal which include irritability, drowsiness, fatigue, headache, and anxiety.
The side effects of withdrawal are short-lived, and don’t happen at all for many. Some people do not experience them at all.
Nonetheless, caffeine withdrawal is considered serious enough that caffeine addiction was proposed as a substance-abuse problem to the American Psychiatric Association. The duration of withdrawal is estimated to be two to nine days for most people.
Why do we need to quit caffeine? It is hard to believe but it is just no good for you.
Caffeine further exhausts the body by stimulating our adrenal glands to produce adrenaline. Adrenaline is part of the “fight-or-flight response which is a biological reaction to stress. During this response, your body also produces higher levels of the hormone Cortisol—the “stress hormone.”
Cortisol is considered a stress hormone not because it is inherently bad for you; in fact, at normal levels it helps with glucose metabolism, regulating blood pressure, lowering inflammation, and raising immunity.
Cortisol is not all bad. It also has some short-term benefits when it enters the bloodstream in higher amounts: it creates better memory function, enables a quick burst of energy, and lowers our sensitivity to pain.
Substances like caffeine, can all too easily keep our Cortisol levels artificially high. That in turn can cause problem like lowered thyroid function, cognitive problems, decreased bone density and muscle tissue, higher blood pressure, lowered immunity, and an overall inflammatory reaction in the body.
Also if you have a belly roll around your middle you can probably blame that on cortisol overload as well.
To completely avoid caffeine, you will also want to avoid foods that are coffee flavored, such as ice cream and yogurt.
As far as chocolate goes, dark chocolate has the most caffeine. Even a small serving of dark chocolate can have up to30 milligrams of caffeine in it, nearly the same amount as a can of cola (as compared with 90-150 milligrams in a cup of coffee and 30-70 milligrams in a cup of caffeinated tea).
These foods are verboten during the cleanse anyway, but now you have even more reason to steer clear of them.
If you really can't stand the withdrawal you can yourself off coffee. Begin by cutting your regular coffee with decaffeinated coffee. You can create a mix of two-thirds coffee to one-third decaf for the first week. For week two, drop your coffee down to one-third real coffee to two-thirds decaf.