Coffee and caffeine have been keeping the world awake for decades. With the hustle and bustle all kinds of business sectors across the globe, coffee is what helps people focus, give them the much-needed energy, and help them stay up at night to grind out work.
For many office workers, truck operators driving long hours, and elderly folks who want to have a good time in cafes, coffee is an excellent way of getting people together and starting the day right.
Even though the majority of Britons don’t necessarily drink coffee, with most only drinking around 1.7 kilograms of coffee each year, most get their caffeine intake from tea. Still, coffee and tea both contain caffeine, with tea being in the lower end of the spectrum. Nonetheless, there are over 70 million cups of coffee that are consumed each day. With much of the United Kingdom’s economy relying on businesses, almost everyone needs to stay up to get the job done.
Of course, caffeine can also harm individuals if it’s taken in large amounts. Contrary to what most people think, caffeine does not give energy to individuals, but rather, helps focus our energy and attention in a certain period.
Why You Should Cut Caffeine
There has been a long-standing debate on whether caffeine’s benefits outways its drawbacks, but this will ultimately boil down to how the person’s psychological mechanism reacts to coffee. Some individuals are not able to concentrate when taking the right amount of caffeine, while some can focus.
If caffeine might be more of an impediment to your lifestyle and concentration rather than something that can help you through most of your daily tasks, here are some ways of cutting caffeine.
Coffee Sensitivity and Allergies
First and foremost, individuals who have an affinity for coffee and caffeine will need to quit for physiological reasons.
Contrary to what most people think, coffee sensitivity is quite different from an allergic reaction caused by coffee. Compared to allergies, sensitivity is characterised by:
- Muscle tremors
- Acidic stomach
- Sensitivity to stimuli and irritability
- Anxiety
- Muscle cramps
- Involuntary neural spasms
When it comes to allergies, the symptoms can be quite severe, which can range from:
- Rashes and blotched skin
- Vomiting and difficulty to maintain control
- Diarrhoea
- Stomach cramps
- Difficulty swallowing
- Loss of consciousness
- Acute drop in blood pressure
If you have a history of allergies with anything that might have caffeine or coffee, it’s imperative to see a certified medical practitioner regarding this condition.
In some cases, allergic reactions could cause the entire face to swell as well as rashes across the eyes. If this is the case, it might be best to get an allergic conjunctivitis treatment.
Slowly Cutting It Off
Most of the time, an office environment is fast-paced. That said, workers will need to be quick on their feet and aware of what’s happening around them. Since coffee does help with wakefulness and awareness, it would be counter-intuitive to outright quit.
Therefore, gradually reducing caffeine intake is the best way of ensuring that withdrawal symptoms will not manifest until you have done a considerable amount of work. Most experts would suggest replacing coffee with water.
Rest when Needed
For most people who are reaching deadlines, they have to sacrifice the right amount of their sleep and their health by pushing their bodies to the limit. Most of the time, this is with the help of coffee.
Of course, during the weekends, when we don’t necessarily have anything urgent that we have to do, coffee might still be a daily ritual since it is ingrained in our daily routine. This unnecessary dependency can only contribute to more psychological factors.
As such, it’s essential to know when to rest and when to have coffee. Associating coffee and caffeine with almost every aspect of your life means that you’ll start drinking it when you do crave it.
Remember: If you’re planning on doing 80 hours of work for a week, you are essentially borrowing those hours from your weekends or next week. Working long hours can be detrimental to productivity.
Withdrawal Symptoms
There’s bound to be withdrawal symptoms from cutting caffeine from your system. If you have been relying on caffeine for years to function at work, it might take a longer time.
Usually, withdrawal symptoms will start manifesting around two days and will subside after nine days. You might have trouble concentrating while having mood swings. If ever you do plan on cutting it from your system, it’s suggested that you do it when there is not much work that has to be done.
Quitting caffeine might seem like a daunting task, but it can be done. There is a multitude of ways of quitting caffeine, which can range from replacing coffee with water or lower doses of caffeine in the form of tea.
It all boils down to how your body reacts to caffeine. Most of the time, some individuals can go through their day without the need for their fix of caffeine, while other elderly folks might need it to function.