One day I was feeling extremely stressed out at work. I couldn’t pinpoint the reason though. So I sat in my cubicle all day as the stress built up and finally, I snapped. My boss had sent me an email that just rubbed me the wrong way. I totally took the email to be a negative attack on me and I lost it. I stormed into his office and screamed at him for the tone in his email. How dare he email me such rubbish I thought. Later that day I was brought into a meeting and written up for my behavior. My boss told me during our meeting that he felt I had overreacted about the email message. Later I realized that he was right. I read the email again and it wasn’t the knock on my character that I originally thought it was. I was given the weekend off to think about things.

I thought hard about the past few weeks and how I had been feeling. I realized that I had been suffering from extreme mood swings. What could it be that was getting to me? My relationship was good with my girlfriend. Friendships were fine. The parents and I were getting along. I had plenty of money in the bank. Still I felt so stressed that I was grinding my teeth while sleeping at night. I couldn’t even chew food such as pizza on the right side of my mouth because it hurt from the constant grinding.I thought about my eating habits, because I was told that could play a role. What changed? I realized that I had adopted a pretty good habit of drinking Red Bull every day. I felt that it would give me an extra energy kick at work, so I started drinking 1 or 2 Red Bull’s a along with a few diet soft drinks throughout each day. I realized that my caffeine intake was soaring compared to what it used to be. Could caffeine be the reason I was feeling the way I was feeling?

I researched caffeine and the effects on the body. I was stunned to find that it can have some very damaging effects on my mind and body. Sure I knew that caffeine was a stimulant and a drug, but I didn’t ever think that it could have such a tremendous effect on my mood. That stuff is only for cocaine or heroine addicts right? Nope. According to Wikipedia, caffeine can cause all kinds of disorders including nervousness, irritability, anxiety, tremulousness, muscle twitching (hyperreflexia), insomnia, headaches, respiratory alkalosis and heart palpitations.

I have come to realize that caffeine can be just like any other type of drug, illegal or not. I rushed to change my caffeine intake. In the past few weeks, I have been weening myself off of caffeine. I am down to only 1 can of Mountain Dew per day, and I try to stretch that can throughout my morning instead of guzzling it down. The result? I feel more calm at work, I have been sleeping deeper, and the teeth grinding seems to be going away. My alertness isn’t what it used the be though. I have noticed that I have been misplacing things and I’ve made a few mistakes at work. In the long run though I think my effort will pay off. Hopefully I will have a clear mind when my body is completely free of caffeine.