I love coffee – the taste of it, the warmth of it, the connotations of talks with friends and productivity. Coffee reminds me of home, of my mother and her endless pots of “crack coffee” as we’ve termed it for being so potent. There is just something about sitting with a latte at a bustling coffee shop that gets me so excited. So why, then, did I give up coffee for 21 days? And what did I learn about my love for coffee and about myself in the process? You might be as surprised as I was.
At the beginning of January 2015 I lead a group of 9 people through a 21 day cleanse program at our office. Since the goal of the program was to remove toxins from our lives and give the liver and kidneys (the body’s filtering system) a break, caffeine had to go. I have to admit that this was the one thing I was sad about when the program began, leaving my good old friend coffee behind. I was okay with eliminating wheat, corn, and soy, but there was something more emotional about saying goodbye to coffee.
The first few days of switching out coffee for herbal tea were hard, not because I was addicted to the caffeine so much, but more because my habits were changing. If I brought up our cleanse program to any of the heavy coffee drinkers in my life, they flat out told me I was insane. “I could never do that,” they said with a roll of the eyes. And they were right, because that is what they believed. They were no longer in control of their habits – coffee was.
To me, breaking up with coffee was a challenge, an experiment. I knew coffee wasn’t the best thing for me, but couldn’t imagine how I would feel without consuming it for so long. Would my body change? Would I be able to wake up in the morning? Would I like it as much when that first sip touched my lips after 3 full weeks of abstention? The truth is, the results really surprised me.
After 21 days without coffee I wake up more easily. I’m not fatigued in the middle of the day. I get tired earlier in the evening (instead of my usual 1 or 2 am) and sleep more soundly at night. I’ve learned to appreciate tea. I’m less dehydrated from caffeine. And how was it when I finally drank coffee again? I have to say it wasn’t as glorious as I imagined. Sure, it’s good, but it definitely wasn’t worth all that worrying I did before giving it up.
To all of my friends whose lives are ruled by coffee, I say this: of course you can give up coffee for 21 days, you just don’t want to – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. You don’t need a cappuccino every morning because you have a caffeine deficiency; you do it because you’re addicted, both mentally and physically. Maybe the coffee that you feel you need is exactly what’s making you tired, sleepless, fatigued – all the symptoms you’re drinking coffee to counteract. But if you don’t give coffee the boot, you will never know. Maybe, in retrospect, coffee isn’t such a good friend, after all.
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