A month without Coffee
Coffee was something I looked forward to at the start of my day. A perfectly made Monsoon Malabar or a Mandalkhan in a french press would fill up my house with an aroma. The entire process of heating up the water, warming up the french press and brewing the coffee was reflective. Catching up with people meant a cup of coffee — sometimes cold brew, sometimes cappuccino or else a pour over. Needless to say, I was (still am) a Gold member of Starbucks. I’ve spent countless hours sitting in a Starbucks, working on my Macbook (like countless other people) and have tried every variety of coffee on their menu. Atleast thrice a week, I would catch up with friends for coffee after 9 PM. Coffee was not just some commodity I consumed but a daily routine that I looked forward to. And all this came at a cost — Restlessness, spurts of anxiety and the inability to sleep before 2 AM on any given day. On 1st August 2019 I quit coffee, the drink that found mention on my bios on facebook, twitter and tinder (lol!).
Initially, it was supposed to be a detox month. Just one August where I consumed no coffee. I thought I’ll go back to having a cup of coffee (or two) after 31 August 2019. The first week was way tougher than I envisaged. I was cranky, irritated, angry, anxious and restless. I just wanted to gulp down a cup of strong coffee but then I read online how the first few days of caffeine withdrawal are, and controlled the urge. From the second week, I started feeling really good. I was calm, I wasn’t having a strong urge to drink coffee and the best part was that I started feeling sleepy before 12 AM. I don’t remember the last time I slept before 12 AM and here I was, falling asleep before midnight. By the third week, the craving for coffee was almost gone (except for sudden spurts of craving) and my the quality of my sleep improved dramatically. I even visited couple of cafes with friends and didn’t have any temptation to order coffee. This was a welcome change in less than a month.
On 1st September 2019, I decided to not start consuming coffee again. Yes, a part of me wanted coffee. I thought a cup of coffee in the morning would do no harm and I would restrict myself to a single cup of coffee, but I was scared that a single cup of coffee would slowly grow to two, three and more cups of coffee. I was falling asleep, having a better quality of sleep and wasn’t feeling restless and anxious. Coffee’s effects on the body can last as long as six hours and I didn’t want to go back to that habit again. Surprisingly, I am having lesser quantity of both tea and soft drinks. While I have no intention of giving up on chai, I look forward to reducing or giving up on soft drinks because they have a considerable amount of caffeine plus sugar. However, giving up on soft drinks is going to be a much bigger challenge for than giving up coffee was. Looking at my french press lying idle gives me the motivation that our biggest challenge is our mind and once it is controlled, everything else follows.
