Day One

I gave up caffeine years ago. I recently decided to try reintroducing it into my life, to combat a persistent sleepiness during the day. Today was the first experiment with reintroduction, via a cup of white tea — one of the lowest caffeine beverages.

So far, the results have been encouraging. I gave up caffeine in the 1990s when my daily cup of coffee started creating very undesirable side effects. The worst was heart palpitations which could come at any time — driving a car, during a meeting or at other inappropriate times. It became quickly apparent that I couldn’t keep up a professional career if I might have panic-like attacks during meetings.

The only remedy seemed to be giving up caffeine cold turkey, right away. To help prevent the intense headaches I got when I tried to give it up previously, the next morning I filled up a measuring cup with coffee to the one cup level. Each day thereafter, I reduced my intake by one-eighth of a cup. Eight days later, I was done with coffee and caffeine.

For a while, I drank decaf, but eventually even that began affecting me, too, and I had to give it up totally. I’ve been caffeine-free for at least a couple of decades now.

So now I’ve permitted caffeine in my system again after so many years of total abstinence. The effects this morning were mostly positive — I felt more focused and alert.

It reminded me of my friend Jim. He and his girlfriend decided to reduce their caffeine intake, for some reason, and that meant no morning tea for Jim. He had been an inveterate and long-time morning tea drinker. He told me about one caffeine-less morning, when he was feeling hopeless and morose. He had prepared a thermos of iced tea to have with lunch. When he drank the tea that afternoon, he said he suddenly felt alive and “plugged in.”

Well, we will see how this goes. As of this writing, in the afternoon of “C-day,” I’m feeling like most of the effects have worn off. Will I have trouble sleeping? Will I get headaches? I’ll write about my experiences over the next few days.