Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Decaffeinated Dio

Well, been a busy month - haven't had time to drop in here for a while, but I thought I'd take five minutes to do so. I needed a moan you see.

So, for years I've been a caffeine addict, generally five to six cups of well stewed tea a day. So I was watching something at the weekend, and decided the time had come to quit my addiction. I've been feeling that the tea wasn't so much waking me up as knocking out the negative effects caused by caffeine dependency. That's kind of what smoking was like, smoke to relieve the negative effects caused by smoking. I think it was Diet Doctors or something I'd watched, and it mentioned caffeine and the effects it can have and it acted as a spur to get out of the tea fuelled rut I was in.

From Monday, I stopped drinking tea. I gave up once before, and remember getting bad headaches for a week after it. Well, the same has happened again. But worse than that, I've been suffering what can only be described as Flu. My back aches, my joints are all sore and it's a struggle to sit up for any length of time due to the discomfort. I've had headaches as well, and also been really tired. I thought I'd got ill at the same time, but as it turns out, it seems this is just the effects of the caffeine withdrawal.

It's pretty powerful stuff caffeine, given its acceptability and dominance. Reading around it, it only takes a small amount a day to get addicted, but most people don't realise they are, as their intake is regular enough to not hit the withdrawal stage. In many people though, that morning hit is not the coffee waking them up, it's the removal of the withdrawal symptoms the drink causes.

I've been sensing this was what was happening with my tea drinking. And I've found already, despite the symptoms of the withdrawal, I feel more awake, or at least as awake and alert as I did drinking the stuff, if not a fraction more so. My concentration seems to be improving as well. Now if this aching body could just sort itself out, I'd be on to a winner...

Posted by Dio Bach at 07:38

1 Comments:

holly said...: Good for you! I've heard that caffeine is one of the harder addictions to kick. In this case I'm extremely lucky because I drink coffee and tea because I like the flavor, but I can take it or leave it without that old "haven't had my coffee yet" excuse. I do better to take the dog out for a quick, brisk walk. But a cappuccino or a cup of P.G. Tipps in the middle of the day is a nice treat. It amazes me that I'm not a fiend, considering I can become addicted to bad stuff at the drop of a hat. Caffeine has just never been one of them.

I bet you're finding caffeine in all kinds of things, aren't you? I hope your body aches sort themselves out-- that sounds really awful.; 8:48 PM