It seems a study has given people more reason to cut out caffeine. I have been cutting caffeine out for other reasons. If you’re female a study shows that caffeine increases the risk of miscarriage. Read the Chicago Tribune article about it.

This is just another step toward the soft drink industry becoming what the cigarette industry is today. The only difference is the drug is sold directly to kids legally. It might take 100 years, but it will happen some day.

A few weeks ago, I realized that caffeine was affecting my mood dramatically. I have been off of caffeine for about 3 weeks now and I thought I was due to share an update in my progress.

I almost relapsed. My girlfriend recently forgot that I had quit caffeine and accidentally bought me my favorite coffee drink. I didn’t want to make her feel bad, so I was going to drink it. After one sip though, I couldn’t take anymore. It tasted absolutely repulsive. I noticed the a year ago with Dr. Pepper after my first attempt to quit caffeine. It suddenly tasted gross when I wasn’t addicted to the caffeine. You can find the same characteristic with any drug. After a few tastes though, the feeling comes back and you want more. Luckily I didn’t relapse.

I can think much clearer. I used to either have too many thoughts to where I couldn’t concentrate on anything, or I’d be worn down from the caffeine crash. I also sleep much better. I sleep so deep that I don’t seem to need as much sleep now. It used to be that I would wake up extra groggy in the morning. Now I can wake up after 6 or 7 hours and be ready to go.

Things get rough when you’re out at a coffee shop with others. I feel I should be holding a fancy coffee cup and talking with my friends. It is always at the coffee house, where the stereotype of the caffeine consuming techie is played out the most. I think many of my friends feel more comfortable consuming all the sugar and the caffeine they want because it fits their culture. It’s like they feel coffee makes them who they are. Of course, I am the alien. They can’t imagine why I would possibly want to quit caffeine. Unless they quit like I have and see how good it feels and realize how gross caffeinated drinks really taste, I guess they will never get it.

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.

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