E78 - Caffeine: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Caffeine is a central nervous stimulant and one of the most widely consumed drugs in the world. Today Alex, Anya and Rebecca discuss caffeine, their experiences trying to cut down and stop their use of caffeine, the withdrawal symptoms they experienced and how they plan to use caffeine in the future. They also discuss how caffeine acts on the brain and how it may impact us psychologically.

Dr. Alex Curmi, Dr. Rebecca Wilkinson and Dr. Anya Borissova are all practising psychiatrists and members of the royal college of psychiatry (MRCPsych).

 Follow us here: Twitter @thinkingmindpod Instagram @thinkingmindpodcast

If you would like to enquire about an online psychotherapy appointment with Dr. Alex, you can email - alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com

Join Our Mailing List! - https://thinkingmindpod.aidaform.com/mailinglistsignup

SUPPORT: buymeacoffee.com/thinkingmind

Transcript

Welcome back everyone. We've talked about drugs a fair amount on the podcast. We've talked about drugs like cannabis, psychedelics. We haven't talked about the drug that arguably most people take globally. Arguably most people have some sort of dependence on. And that drug, of course, is caffeine. So today we're going to be talking all about caffeine. And we're not just going to be talking about it from a theoretical perspective, but we're going to talk about our lived experience with caffeine. 1s Myself and John Rebecca all have a history of caffeine use, as you know, and we all went through a period of trying our best to reduce and stop caffeine from 4 to 6 weeks. We're going to talk about what our history with caffeine is like, what it was like to try and stop the pros, the cons, the benefits, and hopefully we'll have some useful take home messages for you guys about the utility of of caffeine, the benefits, but also the advantages of cutting down and stopping and seeing what it's like to use little or no caffeine. And Rebecca, thank you very much for joining me. Thanks for having us. I can't lie, I'm quite excited to do this podcast so that I can start drinking coffee again. There you go. That's take home message number one. 2s Um, I'll explain a bit how this episode came about. I over the Christmas period, I impulsively decided to stop drinking caffeine, and I'll go into why later, but. I decided to stop. And then maybe four weeks into using little or no caffeine, I was having lunch with Anna and Rebecca and I was talking about it, and I basically coerced them into trying themselves. They seemed like vaguely interested, but I coerced them. And then we thought this would be good material for a podcast. So maybe before we talk about our individual experiences, Anya, maybe you can fill us in as our psychopharmacology experts. How does caffeine work? What's it doing for our brains? Yeah. Thanks, Alex. Uh, I mean, it was, I think probably for all of us, part of the fun of this experience was getting to get nerdy and learn a bit about what caffeine was actually doing to us, and why we felt so rotten when we tried to stop using it. Um, but so very I guess one of the key things about caffeine that everyone knows is that it, in theory, makes us feel a bit more awake. It wakes us up in the morning, and that's why people like it. And the reason that it does that is it acts on a molecule that works in our brains called adenosine. And this is well known by people who are interested in sleep as the bit of your body that builds up over the course of the day and tells your body that it's time to go to sleep, or tells your body that it's getting sleepier. And then you go to sleep and your adenosine goes back down to lower levels. What caffeine does is that it blocks the actions of adenosine. Now, it doesn't destroy adenosine, it doesn't get rid of it, but it just stops it working in the same way. And so that's where its wakefulness properties come in. 1s Now the caffeine also acts on other parts of your brain or other systems in your brain. Probably still through its actions on this adenosine molecule. But it also acts with systems that you may have heard us talk on the podcast about places like dopamine. Which are important again in your. How you pay attention to things. How you how much you care about things. How things feel rewarding to you. Um, so the obviously the actions of caffeine are quite widespread, and its action on dopamine is probably one of the reasons why we tend to, as Alex mentioned, uh, why we can get dependent on caffeine. 1s I guess, to to wrap up the kind of the key bits that I took away from this, from learning a bit about caffeine. Um, number one, which is a bit of a tangent, but the really one really cool thing is that, uh, the psychopharmacology, who is responsible for some of the resurgence and psychedelic research role. And Griffiths, who sadly passed away this year, was actually one of the key figures in caffeine research as well. So he was 2s driving some of the conversation to say that we do we can develop dependence on caffeine and that there is a withdrawal effect when we stop using caffeine. Now, why that withdrawal effect is so important is that a lot of the research into caffeine and into its wakefulness properties, and into it saying that it improves our attention, improves our reaction times, improves how awake we feel, has some flaws in the methods and and the flaw is that that's been pointed out by sort of one, one big group of researchers is that a lot of the people who are being tested are actually being tested in caffeine withdrawal. So they are they've been asked not to have their usual cup of coffee that morning. And actually you start to feel the effects of caffeine withdrawal about, you know, you're in withdrawal during your overnight caffeine fast, so to speak. So the caffeine withdrawal is important in thinking about the benefits of caffeine and thinking about the effects of caffeine on the brain. Um, and it is probably true that caffeine has does have some impact on our wakefulness and our attention. But it is also probably true that tolerance to that builds up quite quickly. And actually what you and and what that means is that over time. Probably over about 3 to 5 days. You're actually not really having any of the sort of immediate waking up effects of caffeine, but actually what you're treating every morning when you wake up is the withdrawal that you feel. 2s There's debate on this, as in all of science, it's not definite, but actually one of the for me, probably most convincing studies that was done was by my current supervisor in the lab where I work, and they did kind of a fun study just to test out some of the, uh, some of how we do science just in public. And it was a real world study done in a museum, just people, random members of the public coming in to learn about science at the museum group, a group of them got given. Everyone got given a voucher to have a coffee, but some of them got coffee with caffeine and some of them got a decaf coffee. And in about 500 people it was a pretty big study. 1s Actually, there weren't any effects of coffee on attention tasks. Social cognition tasks. So it was a decent sized study. It was people who it was a real world study, you know. So no one been asked to stop drinking coffee before it was just come in as you are. 1s It was placebo controlled. So some people got the real deal, got the caffeine, some people didn't. And in that kind of setting, that kind of environment doesn't seem like caffeine really did anything. 2s I'm going to pause there because I think I've said a lot, but hopefully that gives us like a bit of a starting point on on coffee and what what it's doing to our bodies. Absolutely. So it's working on the adenosine system and that's going to increase our wakefulness, possibly affecting other neurotransmitters like dopamine. And that to me fits with my personal experience, which I'll talk about in a little bit. And then there's this issue of are people becoming dependent on it? And it would make sense 2s in terms of the tolerance. You mentioned that if people take caffeine regularly, they're going to become tolerant. And what used to be a benefit now just becomes a necessity to maintain your baseline. And really all drugs seem to work like that. Nicotine harder drugs like cocaine, opiates. It wouldn't be surprising necessarily that caffeine works in the same way. Rebecca, what are the fun facts about caffeine that you have for us today? 1s Um, thank you for explaining that, Anya. It really fits in with my experience, which, um. Yeah, we'll go on to talk about in a bit. Um, so Alex asked me to get facts, but I thought, actually, I might put the questions to you and see if you guys know the facts, because it was quite interesting to me that I was doing my research, finding out facts about this drink. I drink far too many times a day before we did our experiment, and I actually knew nothing about it. So my first question to you, and you might know this, because I've been asking people and quite a few people did know this, and maybe I'm just ignorant. Um, but true or false? Coffee beans are beans. 1s Anya. 2s Why would they not be beans if they're called coffee beans? 1s Alex. 2s My. I have no idea. But my reaction would be, if you're even posing the question, then I suppose the answer must be that they're not beans. 1s Clever psychiatrist. Thinking that, um, they're not exams. 2s Um, they're not actually beans. They're actually seeds. And they come from a plant which is called a cherry plant. Um, so, yeah, all my life I've been thinking that they're coffee beans, but but they're seeds. And what's interesting about the seeds, which I thought, I have heard of this already, but I thought was interesting, is have you heard of coffee poo like that? Like the animals that poo. And then coffee's made from it. Like the. Yeah, absolutely. 1s Um, the exact name is a. I'll have to get back to you on the exact word, because I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce it. I don't want to pronounce it wrong. Um, but they they eat the seeds with the fruit and they poop them out. And apparently the process of digestion causes a fermentation process which creates a really delicious, smooth coffee. Um, so, yeah, you can you can get coffee, poo. And although it is very expensive, so I don't know if I'll ever have to try it, but I thought that was quite interesting. I think I remember seeing that on the Discovery Channel when I was a kid. 1s Yeah. The animals, they're quite cute little fluffy things. Um, it originated in India. I remember seeing it in Vietnam. And there's. I have a vague feeling we might have a box of it because I think it was cheaper to buy. Uh, or maybe it was fake and therefore affordable, but. Yeah. Yeah, I do know how expensive it is, but it's apparently a lot more expensive than your average, um, than your average coffee. Although, to be fair, coffee is very expensive, at least in the UK these days, in my opinion. Um, but anyway, that's conversation for another day. Um, so where in the world which country do you think is the biggest consumer of coffee per person? Not not over in total, but per person. 1s I would go for the United States. 3s Yeah. Or. 2s Yeah, I'll. I'll stick with. I'll go with us. Yeah, I thought the US too. So the US are the biggest consumers of coffee overall. But actually over the past few years it's tended to be the biggest coffee consumers per person is the fact Scandinavian countries. So last year it was Finland. I think in 2022 or 2020, um, it was the Netherlands. Um, but the US don't feature in the top, um consumption per person, and nor do the UK, at least the UK weren't in the top 15. Um, last year, which I was quite surprised about. 1s Um, so my last, my last fact. Oh, I've got two more facts. Um, also asking you questions and interrogating you guys. And so this probably doesn't come as a big surprise, but Brazil was the largest producer of coffee beans, um, last year. So they produced 35% of the worldwide total. And just to think about how much coffee we consume as a world in 2015, although it was quite a long time ago, there were 9.92 million tons of green coffee, and green coffee is on roasted coffee. Um, it sounds quite a lot to me. My understanding of tonnes isn't great, but that sounds like a lot of coffee produce. Um, and lastly, I thought this was quite sweet, but this might not actually be true because I looked into it a bit more. Um, I wanted to find out where coffee originated from in terms of who first discovered it, and there are quite a few legends out there at where coffee came from. But my favorite one was that in the 1500s. And if Ethiopian goat farmer noticed that his goats were eating these these fruits, now that we know that they're fruits and seeds and they weren't able to sleep and they were acting funnily, and he spoke to the local monks who started to make their own coffee from these seeds. Um, and apparently the rest is history. But I have to say, there is no strong evidence for that story. Um, nor is there for any other story of where coffee originated from, but that was my favorite one. 1s It did come up quite a lot, so maybe it might be true. Um, but yeah, don't quote me that. That's not scientific evidence. Excellent. So now that we know all about coffee, I'm going to talk about my experience with caffeine and quitting. And then we'll hear on on Rebecca's story. I impulsively decided to quit caffeine in Christmas around the Christmas period. And the reason was because I noticed myself feeling just generally tense. You know, it's Christmas time. There's a lot to deal with. I was actually working largely over Christmas. And for a long time I suspected my caffeine use was a bit high and normally I would have 2 to 3 coffees a day. Not necessarily an enormous amount, but sometimes they'd be stored both coffees, you know, from a from a cafe. And those would have like two shots of espresso. And I guess for a long time I rationalized it and I thought it was fine. And it's probably causing more benefits than, than concerns. I did notice if I ever had, say, 4 or 5 coffees, which I did sometimes, that my sleep would be disrupted, but I kind of thought of it as a relatively benign, manageable habit. And then over Christmas, stuff was a bit stressful. So I thought I should do everything I can to reduce my stress. Caffeine is something I've quit a lot of things in my life. I've never quit caffeine, so I wanted to see what that would be like. And so what I did was first I went down from like 2 or 3 coffees a day to one coffee a day for a couple of days. Then I went down to one cup of tea for a couple of weeks, and then I went down to zero. I suspect of the three of us, my withdrawal experience was probably the mildest. What I felt was for about 3 to 4 days my brain felt subjectively a bit softer. I felt like my ability to concentrate wasn't quite as good, but I was still working over that period and doing cognitively demanding tasks. And if I took my time, I felt like I could do it. And then around day three, day four, I did get some headaches. And those lasted maybe an additional 3 or 4 days. And then funnily enough, I noticed even when I went from tea to zero caffeine again, there was like a little bit of a drop in my energy levels, a little bit of a drop in my ability to concentrate. But then I adapted to that and 2 or 3 days. I would say for me the main benefits have been. 2s I'm definitely my baseline level of tension and anxiety is lower. It wasn't super high before, but it's I'd say 1,020% lower. What I noticed if I drank two cups of coffee in the morning around 1 or 2 p.m., I'd feel like an afterburn of anxiety in my stomach and my abdomen, and that kind of went away. Sleep is better. Sleep more. Feels like I used to sleep okay before, but now it feels like when it's time to go to bed, it's like lights out, solid block of darkness. And then all of a sudden I'm awake again, which is nice. And I feel like. 1s Or per hour of sleep. It's more restful for me. 1s And then the coolest thing I noticed is that. My ability to concentrate is higher and more even and flexible. So whereas before, if I needed a certain optimum level of caffeine to do my hardest work, which would maybe be around 10 or 11 a.m.. Now I feel like I can get up in the morning and pretty much as soon as I'm awake, if I need to, I can concentrate or something on something. If it's late at night, 6 or 7 p.m., I can concentrate on something. And I don't have that strung out feeling that I used to have in the afternoons and evenings as much. So that was my experience, and most of this happened before you guys even got involved. And then it was me telling you about it that made you make the unwise decision to try it yourself. So that was my experience. Anya, what was it like for you? In in lots of ways very similar, which is not surprising because, as Roland Griffith's team argue, the withdrawal effects are shared by many people and well described and and hence why they pushed for there to be a withdrawal syndrome to be recognised. I. 2s I guess the reason why I didn't just tell you to leave me alone is because I was curious about reducing my my caffeine intake. Anyway, I. Think I would drink maybe two cups in the morning and one in the afternoon. And again, for me. For me, it's coffee. I don't really drink anything like tea. I do eat a reasonable amount of chocolate, which is the secret caffeine container that I'm actually not certain that I've cut out. Well, I definitely haven't cut out over the last month, but I feel like that's less, you know, it's low levels, low levels, and I didn't entirely realize that even milk chocolate has caffeine until today. Um, 1s the. Anyway, uh, so and then I think, yeah, we had a bit of a, we had a bit of a lead in because we start we, we decided we'd start in February. And so I think over about a week, I dropped to just having one cup of coffee in the morning and then I went down to zero. But for me the the headaches were the roughest bit. And that went on for about a week. Interestingly, they can go on for 21 days. So it you know, it doesn't it's not necessarily a quick thing. Although I guess headaches are so common it can be. Again, a tricky area to research thoroughly. 1s I. 2s I think the thing that was interesting, probably about two weeks in, I felt really good. And I think I think I remember messaging you guys being like really, really into this low coffee thing 1s that didn't last very long and probably just reflected, I don't know, life or otherwise, or maybe the absence of the headaches. But I think the impact on Sleep's for me as well been huge. And. 2s Really again, similar I would I would struggle to fall asleep. It would usually take me at least half an hour to fall asleep. I'd usually wake up at least once a night. I usually felt rested in the morning, but I sleep way most. I feel like I'm sleeping way more solidly and. Again. That said, the interesting thing that I learned over this week is that you're. So whilst coffee is reasonably short, acting short, its duration of action isn't that long 1s though the way that the The Big Sleep expert Matthew Walker puts it is that you know your sleep, the half life of coffee. So when your bodies work through half of the coffee that you've had, or half of the caffeine that you've had is about 5 to 6 hours, but that means that it's quarter life is another 5 to 6 hours. So if you're having a cup of coffee at like 2 p.m. 1s at midnight, you still have a quarter cup of coffee effectively in your body. So. 2s It's. And the effect of that is an effect on your deep sleep. So you may not necessarily be aware of problems in your sleep. You may say, you know, I can have a cup of coffee with dinner, and I still fall asleep when I go into bed and I still fall asleep just fine. But actually, you'll sleep. Quality. Will be worse. And. And whilst I don't know if that's the bit that I'm now consciously aware of it, again, it kind of makes sense in, in light of my experience. So. 1s Yeah, I think that was me. Did you have any emotional symptoms like irritability, quickness to anger or anything like that? 2s No, I didn't, I and I'm not sure if I felt less anxious and stopping 1s potentially, although I think probably only mildly so. But no irritability. I mean, it takes a lot to get me angry, so I think, I think caffeine wasn't wasn't my Achilles heel, which is good. Good news. You're in the right profession. Yeah, I used to caffeine free. As of today, I am, I am, yeah okay. Apart from the chocolate. 1s Apart from chocolate. Okay. So like definitely significantly reduced. Rebecca, we we understand from the conversations we've had before, you had a bit of a tough time. How did it go? What happened? Yeah. Apologies for my messages through my through my withdrawal phase. Um, I think it's important to say that I probably drink the most coffee out of the three of us. Um, not every day, but most days. I would have a coffee when I wake up. A coffee on my way to work. Um, I would make coffee at work. I'd have a coffee after lunch. And sometimes I even have coffee in the evenings. Um, and I think, reflecting what Anya said earlier, I had no tolerance. Sorry. I had created absolute tolerance to coffee, so I did not feel the effects of coffee at all. It was habitual. I enjoy drinking a hot drink. Um, but I didn't notice the negative effects on my sleep. Having coffee that late, and in hindsight, I didn't notice the positive effects of coffee in the morning. But I like getting out of bed, having something to drink with my breakfast, and the routine of it all. Um, so I was drinking and when I make my own coffees, they are strong if it's instant coffee. So there was a lot of caffeine going on. Um, so I initially cut down to one cup of tea. Um, and that in itself was so difficult, I think because of the drastic, um, the drastic change and I so initially I got the brain fog and the headaches and just felt really rubbish in the first few days in the evenings, particularly because I think some time I was okay kind of going on autopilot, but in I think day, I want to say day five. And this is something that is not an immediate withdrawal effect, but doing some research does come up. I had the worst pains in my legs, which I can only describe as growing pains growing up as a child, and I looked into it. And caffeine can constrict your blood vessels, so in withdrawal you're more likely to have dilated blood vessels, which I can only imagine was the reason I've never experienced a pain like this. And I don't know, maybe I knew. You can tell us a bit more about this because I didn't look into it too much. But but it was. It was extremely painful. Um, and I, I have to admit, I did have I can't remember, to be fair, my memory is a bit hazy, which may be a symptom of the withdrawal as well. Um, but I think I did have to have a coffee on one occasion. Um, and I'll also say that I drank a lot of decaf coffee. Um, because I didn't want to lose the routine of of enjoying that cup of coffee. So I had decaf coffee at work. And I don't know how because people say that there's still some caffeine in decaf coffee. I mean, it was the Nescafe instant coffee that I got at work. It's not gourmet, so it might have some caffeine in it. Um, but over the past week or so, I've even been drinking half a coffee, uh, half a tea in the morning or no tea at all. And I don't feel that different now, to be fair, I guess, because I've still got maybe that half cup of tea in the morning in my system. 1s So those were the negative effects in terms of the positive effects, I completely know what you mean about going to sleep and feeling like you are straightaway lights out. I haven't felt fatigue like that when my head hits the pillow ever before. And it's it's it's a really good feeling. I have to say. I haven't felt it every time I've gone to bed, but the times I have felt it, it is something that I haven't experienced in well, for as long as I can remember. I haven't experienced that fatigue when my head hits the pillow and being able to go to sleep straight away. I don't feel different in the mornings, but I suppose it's it's fair to say I've never really had problems with my sleep. I'm really lucky. Um, so I never I would always get to sleep with it about 10 to 15 minutes anyway. But it was a it is a stark difference to going to sleep straight away and then. In terms of energy levels, I feel like I'm just more steady in the day. I don't plateau. Alex, I think you mentioned that you had a dip maybe 1:02 p.m.. I used to really feel that, and I thought it was because I just had lunch, but now I don't get that. And I wonder if it's because of the caffeine or whether the naturally just feeling fatigued after having food. And so maybe I am fairly blamed that on my on my lunch, but actually it was the caffeine of the morning kind of coming out of my system. So yeah, I feel like it's been a mixed bag. I. I do really miss it. I bought a lot of decaf now, initially I hadn't bought, but then I bought some about two days ago, as well as the decaf I was having at work, and it tastes the same then it's given me. I just had a cup of coffee now, and it's actually quite nice to be able to have a coffee in the evening and not feel guilty about, 1s um, but I have been drinking so much of it now. I think I had two yesterday and I might have two this evening. Um, but yeah, I'm certainly a creature of habit. How long did it take you for you to feel normal again after you went down to one today? About a week, I think. I think maybe Max 8 or 9 days. Um, but it wasn't two weeks. Yeah, it was about a week that the main, really intense, awful feeling. And, uh, Arnie, I'm not sure if I caught what you said. How much coffee were you drinking before you stopped? 2s I was drinking. 1s So. One one home. Coffee in the morning. 1s Seems sometimes a one shop coffee, so I guess it'd be a double shot espresso mix thing and then sometimes another afternoon shop or coffee, so I guess. 1s Got five espressos worth. Yeah. So it's a similar to me. 2 or 3. 1 or 2 of them might be from a cafe. And Rebecca, you're more on like 4 or 5. It's interesting. It's it's worth noting that when we looked, I was surprised that you had the, the leg pains, but when we looked it up, it is one of the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. And also there was abdominal pain. And nausea and vomiting are also possibly symptoms of caffeine withdrawal. I would say without being too, um, discussing my my stomach slowed down in the most polite way of saying, do you know what I mean? Yeah, I didn't have pain, but my body slowed down, which, yeah, I wasn't surprised about. And I noticed that within within 24 hours. So I mean, we all had. Reasonably similar experiences. It sounds like yours was the worst, but actually 8 or 9 days through and you were done. We all had benefits. Do you guys feel overall it's worth doing a caffeine detox and you can start? 2s I think. Yes, definitely. If you if you feel like you're not sure or you know, that coffee's causing you some problems, I think be that with sleep or anxiety or even that if you've got that afternoon crash and you're struggling to do much with it, I think it's worth having a think about trying to come off. I think the other thing that I've been aware with doing it is a quite a few of my friends at the moment are pregnant, and cutting out caffeine is one of the recommendations that exists for pregnancy. 1s And I just always remember thinking, oh my gosh, if I'm ever pregnant, that will be horrendous. And actually, it's been reassuring to see that it is manageable if you if you need to do it, it's it's not the worst thing in the world. So I guess if anyone's worried about how it would be if they had to not drink coffee again, it's worth giving it a go. 1s Equally, you know, obviously we've talked about some of the the problems with with coffee and caffeine we've not really touched on. Some of the benefits that exists. And, you know, it's all about it's all about balancing those things up for yourself. But I think if you're curious and if you think that there's things that coffee might be giving you coffee, caffeine giving you problems with, it's worth a go. Yeah, that makes sense. What do you think, Rebecca? Yeah, I think it's a difficult one because there there is emerging evidence, although there's also evidence that argues with this. I don't know if you guys know more about it, that coffee does have a lot of benefits, health benefits to individuals. And so it is difficult on balance, I think I'm definitely going to reduce my coffee intake. I was quite shocked, um, about specifically the pain in my legs, but also, um, the realization that caffeine wasn't doing anything for me in terms of my alertness and actually stopping it has made me far more stable. 1s But I. 1s Don't know whether I'll give it up forever. Um, because I really do enjoy it. And there is emerging evidence of long term health benefits and so I. 2s Yeah, I think it's all about weighing the risks and benefits as an individual, and I think people should definitely consider giving it a go and seeing how they feel, because everyone will feel differently. Um. 2s You know, everyone's level of attention in general is different. So so people might find it more helpful to not drink it, and some other people might find it helpful. And. 2s Yeah, I'm honestly not sure. I definitely think I'm going to drink less because it was quite scary, but I'm not sure about whether I'd completely cut it out. 1s And one thing I didn't ask you, Rebecca, was were there any emotional benefits to quitting, such as decrease in anxiety, improves relaxation or anything like that? Yeah, it's really difficult to say because when I first gave it up, um, I was I had had some things going on which were going to make me more anxious than normal. And so through the withdrawal phase, I was my baseline of anxiety was really heightened compared to it has been really kind of ever. So that must have affected it. But, um, last week we, um, released a podcast with Andy, um, and after we, we, um, hosted the podcast, Andy did some, um, did some teaching with us about how to improve our podcast style. And part of that teaching, um, was kind of a mindfulness based, um, exercise. And I'm sure you guys can comment on what how I was like after the exercise. But I've always really struggled with mindfulness. I really struggle with maintaining focus and attention during the exercises, and I. I just can't, I couldn't I've never been able to engage and I've tried in person as well as as well as self-directed mindfulness as well. And both times I've struggled. But last week, when I had no caffeine in my system, I didn't find it difficult at all. I was able to engage really quite well. I didn't have many thoughts coming into my mind at all, compared to other times where it would be constant thoughts coming into my mind during an exercise, and afterwards. I describe it as a as a kind of trance I felt. And Andy is obviously amazing and, and it's probably somewhat to do with how how wonderful he is and how amazing he is. But also, I think I said to you because when we first had this discussion to give up coffee, I, I think you asked me, Alex, when was the last time I felt relaxed and I said I genuinely couldn't remember. And then last week, I think that was the first time I've ever actually felt completely relaxed. So yeah, it's definitely had a positive impact on my relaxation. And. That is definitely something to bear in mind. Um, and I suppose I'm being naughty and wondering whether I could maintain that relaxation by only drinking one coffee a day compared to five. So maybe I think over the next few months I'll play around with it and see where I'm at in terms of yeah, but not going back up to 6 or 7. Yeah, I mean, I think all of this is very, very important. 1s I am learning a lot about ADHD at the moment. I'm working more with patients with ADHD, and what's very common in ADHD law is that. If you don't have ADHD and you take a stimulant, be that something mild like coffee or something more severe like an amphetamine or cocaine, stimulants will make you more ADHD like in the sense that you will be more distractible. Your focus will be a bit more all over the place. It will be harder to follow through on tasks. Whereas if you do have ADHD and you take a stimulant, it actually calms your brain down and helps you to focus. So that's just that's how we think about the the difference between the effects of stimulants on people with or without ADHD. And it's really interesting in your case, Rebecca, because you said you are able to focus more on the present, i.e. you're able to practice meditation when your brain was less dependent on caffeine. And that doesn't surprise me because I noticed the same thing myself, and that when I take caffeine, the positive one of the positive benefits actually, is that I become more optimistic, which is a very strange feature. It's not like just wakefulness or happiness, it's optimism. I become more optimistic about the future. This makes sense because if caffeine increases the release of dopamine, dopamine is not as a very future or is part of the future oriented reward system. Serotonin is more associated with present based rewards, like food that we're eating right now or meditation that we're experiencing right now, or warmth that we're experiencing right now. Whereas dopamine is more about what goal am I going to get in the future? Am I going to get that promotion, and am I going to be able to accomplish this particular goal? So that's the positive aspect of it. And then for me, it would bleed into what's the negative aspect of future orientation anxiety. So to go from optimism to fear 1s and that's kind of the pattern that I see playing out. So having discussed all that I'll tell you guys something I haven't told you yet, which is in the past week, what I've experimented with is having a a week cup of coffee every other day to see what that is like and to see what that, uh, what kind of effect that has. And what I've noticed so far is that I seem to get the benefits, basically 80 or 90% of the benefits with very little downsides. Firstly. It is shocking the effects coffee will have on you. If you haven't had it for six weeks like I did you. You don't realize it's a drug until you experience the withdrawal and then be you drink it. Having your baseline being normal and you, it very much feels like you've taken a medication or a drug. And like I said, it feels because I took a low dose. But though it feels like largely positive and then I didn't seem to feel any anxiety, uh, I didn't have it didn't cause any effect on my sleep or anything like that. But it's shocking that such a small amount cause such a big effect. I really felt it quite strongly, and it's shocking to think that I used to drink probably 4 or 5 times as much per day as I'm drinking now, every other day, and basically getting all of the benefits from and minimizing the side effects. So that being the case. Anya, what are you planning to do from this day? Do you have a are you going to feel it out, or do you have a regimen that you're going to plan out with your caffeine? I think I might continue not really drinking it and having my decaf in the morning and and whenever I fancy a drink because similar similar to Beck's, I enjoy the routine. I enjoy the ritual. I enjoy the break though. Going to get a coffee gets. I enjoy the, you know, go to a coffee shop and having a chat with the barista and, you know, all of that. Um. But I think I will maybe once a week, maybe a couple of times a week in a treat myself to a to a proper, really nice coffee because I haven't found a decaf that tastes as good. And it kind of gives you like the smell and the, well, just all the feelings, obviously, but just even the sensory feelings that that a real coffee tipsy. So but I think the thing that I will definitely try to stick to is having it, you know, no later than, say, 10 a.m. and really trying to keep the afternoon clear of caffeine so that I keep the sleep. That's I think that's what I'll try. I mean, ask me next month and I will probably have caved and be, but I think off the wagon. Oh yeah, but I think, I think I will. The bit that I think is good enough that I will stick to it is not having afternoon coffee because I think sleeping better is is well worth it. Um, yeah. 1s Rebecca, what's your plan? 1s Yeah, I think you've you've enticed me to not completely stop after telling me that. Alex. I'm not going to lie. 1s I, I think I yeah, I would like to reduce my intake, but I would like to have a coffee every now and then and actually enjoy the effects that I stopped having because I yeah, I, I love coffee, I love the smell, I love the taste and I love the habit. I might stick to my routine of tea in the morning. Um, even though, yeah, I think I maybe I tried decaf, I don't, I don't know, um, but I, I agree with you. I guess that there's some reason within me that doesn't want to not stop drinking coffee, and I can't put my finger on exactly what that is. And I can tell you lots of positives that I've had, um, after obviously the withdrawal. And yet something within me just doesn't want to stop drinking it. And it probably is related to the dopamine and everything. But yeah. 1s Mhm. Yeah. Fair enough I see 1s um maybe a take home message or a couple of take home messages I'd want to leave you guys with. Firstly if there is anything that in your life you do every day that's not strictly speaking necessary, it's always worth spending some time abstaining from it just to see what effect it has on you, how dependent you are on it. It's really good to have a brain that's dependent on as little things as possible, because it just makes you more flexible. You can handle harder, tougher situations. What I felt through the process of quitting caffeine is that I was removing a vulnerability, like my brain was vulnerable before because it needed this external drug essentially to function well. And. Having decoupled that that necessity has been really helpful. And then the last thing. That I might mention is one really useful thing to know about drugs. And caffeine is a drug is that drugs don't add anything to your brain. Drugs unlock things from your brain. Drugs cause the release of chemicals. We call them neurotransmitters. That already exists in your in your brain. And so when we when we drink something and it makes us feel really good, we feel like the thing is giving us the good feeling. But actually it's more of an unlocking effect. And so what that means is when you're taking any drug, you're kind of making a deal with the devil. I'm going to get a short term release now, and I'm going to pay for it to some degree later. Now, if you only do it a little bit occasionally, then the debt is kind of easily repayable. But if you're constantly making that withdrawal of dopamine, this is something I discussed on our podcast with Nick. You're going to end up in a massive deficit, which you eventually are going to. Have to pay for. So I think that's worth keeping in mind with drugs in general and caffeine in contrast to things like good nutrition, for instance. So when you eat really good food and you exclude food that's bad for you, you actually are taking in things which are the building blocks of your brain, the building blocks of neurotransmitters. So if a person wants to feel better mentally and physically in a more sustainable way, you don't have to. You don't have to make the deal with the devil. You can actually improve your diet, say, and obviously exercise is another thing you can do to actually improve your physiology rather than simply getting that short term unlocking. So those are a couple of points I want to mention. Is there anything else you guys want to say before we conclude? Suppose if any of our listeners think that we should try anything else and they want to know what it's like for us, then I'm happy to do that. Oh yeah. I would encourage you guys, if you'd be keen to try the 30 plant a week challenge that I did. And. 1s If you wanted to. I've. I've definitely seen the benefits of that. At least I have. I've had blood tests to show that it's benefited me. Um, but yeah, if there are any other things that our listeners think that we should try out, we can say, no, obviously, I'm not just going to. We will do anything. Email us our Thinking Mind podcast@gmail.com. 1s Um, Anya, do you have any take home messages? Oh, maybe. No, I think. I think the key. The key thing for me was. Was being mindful of what time you're having your caffeine and that there might be. Impacts on your sleep that you're just not consciously aware of and actually. It that even that may be something that is useful to switch for a decaf. Even if you want to just keep going with with enjoying your coffee or enjoying your teas the rest of the time. That's probably my take home. 1s Wonderful. Thank you guys for joining me in my impulsive lifestyle decisions and for discussing it with me today. And thank you for listening, everyone. Thanks, everyone. 1s Thanks, Alex. 8s Thanks so much for listening this week. If you've got any feedback, as always, do get in touch. If you enjoyed the episode. Why not give us a rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts? Because it really helps other people to find us. If you want to get in touch, you can find us on Instagram or Twitter, or you can drop us an email. And if you value the show more generally, why not by us? Coffee. Thanks so much.