Quitting Caffeine - <AUTHOR> https://enki.org/2017/08/13/quitting-caffeine/ <comment><USER2> I've been off Caffeine for a good two years now and have no plans of going back.

Life runs too fast for me on caffeine, yes I can blow through work faster, but when I was on caffeine it would feel like days, weeks, months would go by in the blink of an eye.

I wasn't enjoying the moment.. and then I stopped drinking caffeine.

Life became more present for me, not slower in the bad sense, but that I was able to relish every moment more, more aware... more conscious of what was going on around me. My fuse also got really short when I was consuming caffeine, I'd get into a lot of fights and arguments, since I've stopped, it's really helped.

I still get all my work done and have time to spare, I'm working, going to school and have an infant at home. So life after caffeine is definitely possible.

<comment><USER3> Hm..reading this makes me wonder ... I noticed that life is running extremely fast lately and I am having a hard time being "in the moment" ... and I drink a lot of coffee. I really enjoy everything about coffee from roasting to brewing though, so it would probably be quite hard giving it up. Anyway, thanks for sharing this, I will take a long look at that.

<comment><USER4> _I noticed that life is running extremely fast lately and I am having a hard time being "in the moment" ... and I drink a lot of coffee._

I drink a lot of coffee. I'm a very in the moment person, meditate regularly, enjoy and live in the moment, etc.

This is an approach to life thing that is quite orthogonal to whether you drink coffee or not.

<comment><USER2> I was saying that it worked _for me_ to stop. Not that you should all stop drinking coffee. If it helps you then why stop. I was just sharing how stopping helped me and that if you want to you can. Nor was I promoting a quick fix. It's not a quick fix and was initially quite a difficult experience for me.

And I disagree that they're orthogonal. There's definitely some correlation between what you consume and your state of mind and awareness. (Don't believe me? Eat a handful of chillies) It is why the Buddhist monks live such a moderate lifestyle, would recommend chefs table episode 1 of the latest season.

<comment><USER4> "I was saying that it worked for me to stop."

Great. I was replying to someone else who took your statement to mean that stopping coffee == enlightenment.

I'm not looking for an argument, but far too often on here people look for, or push, an easy fix for larger problems. "I started working at a standing desk and now I'm a 10x programmer", "I stopped watching TV and now I'm a great artist", etc. But in reality the causation was "I realized I needed to make change, and for now at least things are different but here's some proxy symbolic thing". I realized that I needed to live healthier, and in doing so wore gym shorts more often, so gym shorts make you healthier.

Regarding the Buddhist monks, be wary clutching onto something they did given the mysticism, but it's notable that monks drink tea (and, in many cases, coffee), and their precepts are against intoxicants like alcohol. And some of the things they avoided were things like onions and garlic, which were believed to make them aroused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What the author didn't mention, and I haven't seen mentioned in these comments, are the extremely beneficial health effects of coffee (not caffeine, decaf has shown the same benefits). Most significantly, studies have shown that coffee reduces overall mortality rates significantly, with the reduced chance of dying from any cause increasing with coffee consumption (up to a point).

>Compared with nonconsumers, participants in the highest quartile of coffee consumption had statistically significantly lower all-cause mortality (men: HR, 0.88 [95% CI, 0.82 to 0.95]; P for trend < 0.001; women: HR, 0.93 [CI, 0.87 to 0.98]; P for trend = 0.009). Inverse associations were also observed for digestive disease mortality for men (HR, 0.41 [CI, 0.32 to 0.54]; P for trend < 0.001) and women (HR, 0.60 [CI, 0.46 to 0.78]; P for trend < 0.001). Among women, there was a statistically significant inverse association of coffee drinking with circulatory disease mortality (HR, 0.78 [CI, 0.68 to 0.90]; P for trend < 0.001) and cerebrovascular disease mortality (HR, 0.70 [CI, 0.55 to 0.90]; P for trend = 0.002) and a positive association with ovarian cancer mortality (HR, 1.31 [CI, 1.07 to 1.61]; P for trend = 0.015). In the EPIC Biomarkers subcohort, higher coffee consumption was associated with lower serum alkaline phosphatase; alanine aminotransferase; aspartate aminotransferase; γ-glutamyltransferase; and, in women, C-reactive protein, lipoprotein(a), and glycated hemoglobin levels.

[http://annals.org/aim/article/2643435/coffee-drinking- mortal...](http://annals.org/aim/article/2643435/coffee-drinking- mortality-10-european-countries-multinational-cohort-study)

In addition, according to other studies, coffee prevents and/or reverses liver damage due to alcohol consumption. One study suggested an extremely significant (44%) reduction in occurrences of cirrhosis among those who drink 2 cups of coffee a day.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coffee-liver- cirrho...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coffee-liver-cirrhosis- idUSKCN0VR2JN)

When considering whether or not to give up your morning coffee, consider the good with the bad.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if some of this is due to a subtle intervening variable like conscious or subconscious (i.e. fidgeting) decisions to exercise more accumulated over time because of increased energy, rather than caffeine per se.

<comment><USER7> In epidemiological studies we refer to these variables as confoundimg variables. There's another term as well that I can't seem to remember.

When you try and correlate one specific variable, like coffee, to trends like mortality, you must control for every other variable. Socioeconomic factors like income generally cause confounding of your results.

For example, there was a recent paper that showed that women with gum disease were at higher risk for certain cancers. Is it a wide stretch to believe that people with gum disease may be of lower socioeconomic status, and also probably not take care of their diets and health anyways?

Can someone link the PDF? My login for the acp journal article the parent linked to describing the health correlations won't work for some reason. I want to see how they controlled for some of these factors.

Edit: I found the full PDF through my institution. They note that their study may contain confounds, and note possible ones that they tried to control for. The paper isn't perfect, but I applaud the authors for being as thorough as they could. That being said, this sort of article is bound to go viral as soon as possible, with many misleading headlines.

<comment><USER8> > epidemiological studies

Tough field... How do you survive with the overwhelming stigma of doubt connected to it?

<comment><USER7> I'm not involved in any epidemiological studies, simply a medical student :).

But that being said, I think a lot of the stigma comes from researchers using biased data, or acting unethically with their data. Good epidemiological studies exist that have improved the health of the general public.

As a guide for new readers of public health research, here are my suggestions:

1\. Read the abstract. Think about the claims that are being made. For example, if someone tells me that drinking 2 cups of coffee a day leads to a lower risk of cancer, my first thought is: what kinds of things do people drinking 2 cups of coffee a day do that would lower their risk of cancer? Could they have a different diet? Do they make more money, leading to them being able to afford preventative health? Do coffee drinkers just have more awareness about their health? Do their regular schedules and sleep cycles give them a health advantage? Keep these questions in mind when reading the rest of the paper. See if the researchers tried to control for these easy alternative explanations.

2\. Get a fundamental understanding of some of the statistical terms and calculations used, and make sure you are not misinterpreting them. Thinks like odds ratio, attributable risk, relative risk, etc. Each of them means something specific, and should not be used for extrapolation. Google is your friend!

3\. Read the paper as completely as you can!

4\. Especially look at the discussion section for maybe reasons that their data isn't great, or also discussing alternative explanations. Also look at their appendix for their exclusion criteria. This can be a clue towards whether or not a researcher is being genuine about their dataset or data collection. In the ACP article about coffee drinkers, there were quite a few exclusions made, and the population they pulled data from seemed biased (women who went to mammogram screenings might care a bit more about their health than the average person)

That's all I have for now. I'd welcome any actual researcher to provide feedback and suggestions!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the more interesting comments in the article is in regards to the social stigma of only consuming water during meals - people who have quit alcohol for various reasons have faced the same stigma when going out with friends.

I've found that ordering something that has little to no calories or substance goes a long way to alleviate these fears (like tonic or sparkling water).

Because something like this still costs money, it helps convince the purchaser that they aren't appearing to be "cheap" by only ordering water. Topo Chico (a sparkling water similar to San Pellegrino) is a favorite among recovering alcoholics in my area.

<comment><USER10> _> One of the more interesting comments in the article is in regards to the social stigma of only consuming water during meals - people who have quit alcohol for various reasons have faced the same stigma when going out with friends._

That stigma is entirely self-perception. No one cares or even notices what anyone else drinking.

<comment><USER11> This is definitely false. I've had multiple women tell me the dominant thing they noticed on a first date was that I didn't order a drink. Likewise, many people can attest that the social encouragement to get everyone drinking in group situations is very explicit. Shared consumption of intoxicating substances is closely monitored by everyone in the group, and is not same thing as the true fact that no one cares whether you have a brown or black belt.

<comment><USER12> I overheard one of my male co-workers telling a female co-worker that he doesn't drink. Her reaction was a literal "eww".

That's when I learned that - much like smokers - drinkers were a tribe.

<comment><USER13> Were? Smoking isn't very cool anymore, but drinking is still pretty cool. It's losing popularity in some circles, but in pop culture, rappers are still in the club ordering bottles, and not of Voss. Weed has a big chance to shake up the alcohol industry, because you can smoke like a Cummins 12-valve until you pass out, then feel fine the next morning. You also don't die if you have too much to smoke. It does have to do some work to get out of the goofy / high schooler / college bro image, but I think they can make it classy (esp stuff like vape pens...the whole blow torch + dabber + water pipe thing has pretty limited appeal because it's too involved and conspicuous).

Coming soon to a state near you.

<comment><USER14> I am suspicious that smoking pot is just as bad for your lungs as smoking tobacco and we simply don't have decades of evidence yet. It stands to reason that inhaling burnt organics is going to have many of the same effects regardless of which plant is involved.

<comment><USER15> That's likely true, although with legalization has come the popularity of - and even preference to - vape pens and edibles, which weren't as accessible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am a coffee drinker but I don't really get boost or anything. Nor do I feel tired or anything else that could be called withdrawal during the weekends, when I don't drink it.

For me, making a cup of coffee is just a... ritual of sorts. Weighting the beans, pouring over water, all these things. And I really enjoy the taste, trying different beans. I don't want to sound pretentious, it's just a hobby for me.

Maybe there are some alternatives to it (tea?) that have lower impact on health over time, but I haven't really explored it.

<comment><USER17> Two days is not enough. Try being off it for a week. I bet you will feel terible on day 4.

<comment><USER18> I drink 3 cups of coffee every day. Often when traveling I'll have occasional periods of 3-5 days without any coffee whatsoever. Don't feel any different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I drink coffee because I enjoy it, not to give me a "boost" in the morning. I limit myself to 1 large mug per day, with the (very) occasional afternoon cup. I don't notice any difference between my energy levels before / after my morning coffee, nor on days I skip it. I get a headache in the early afternoon when I skip it, though, so I'm definitely addicted.

I wonder if the author's energy level issues were due to his "ever-increasing consumption".

<comment><USER20> Do you notice you are more tired in the afternoon on days you have had coffee in the morning?

For the life of me at around 4pm I start to feel snoozy if I had one in the morning.

<comment><USER21> I thought that originally, but turns out my lunchtime routine had more of an effect than my coffee consumption. Getting up and away from my desk for 30 minutes has far more of an impact than whether I have 0 1 or 2 coffees that day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > A caveat to all of these points: I also now consume very little sugar and > alcohol and I meditate regularly.

Things like this generally make me wary. Not so much because of them causing side effects that are harder to disentangle, but their adoption indicating that the author is fairly stabilized, which is a giant side effect in itself.

<comment><USER23> I have a fairly unhealthy lifestyle. When I started getting panic attacks, trembling, palpitations, skin rashes, walking up 5x during the night, feeling exhausted all day, etc, I stopped taking caffeine... And did not change a single other thing.

It took me over a month to few "normal" again.

First week: headaches, back pain, vomiting, nausea, cramps, etc.

Second week: feeling like shit. Had no energy for anything.

Third week: a resemblance of being normal again.

Fourth week: feeling like I was at 60% of my previous energy levels and thinking "this sucks but if this is the new normal, I can get used to it".

Second month: energy levels are back, never feel sleepy again, focus is back completely, etc. I'm even thinking about gym, running, etc.

So this is my data point. From 3-4 expressos and of caffeinated sodas to zero.

<comment><USER24> This could be explained by regression towards the mean. When your health problems reached an extreme they were very likely to eventually get better. This might have happened regardless of any changes to your lifestyle.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean)

It really is a very fascinating phenomenon. My friend who works as a psychologist have noticed that the most "successful" work is to always accept crisis patients immediately. If they have to queue for 2 months before getting clinical help, they have often improved by themselves, and it is therefore harder to reduce their problems further.

<comment><USER23> I'm having a hard time figuring out your point for this specific situation. Are you saying the list of symptoms I described would eventually go away by itself?

<comment><USER25> (I'm not op).

It's not that there's a regression-to-mean force that eliminates abnormal symptoms. It's more that the symptoms have some underlying cause that will fix itself over time.

If you start some intervention (such as stopping caffeine) at the same time you are naturally getting better, then you nay false attribute your getting better to the intervention rather than to its real cause: our bodies tend to bounch back from illness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I occasionally quit caffeine as a way to recalibrate the tolerance that develops over time. But, within certain limits (my general consumption is 1-2 coffees a day, sometimes 3-4 if super tired or when exercising), there's very few negatives for most people, and quite a number of benefits. Nice explanatory video on the matter: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTVE5iPMKLg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTVE5iPMKLg)

<comment><USER27> I also find that my tolerance drops very quickly when I quit. When I'm on vacation, I don't drink much coffee because my schedule is different. I find after 2-3 days, I no longer am in withdrawal and when I come back from a 1-2 week break, my tolerance is very low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Quit coffee 6 months ago after 20 years on the daily (generally 2 very strong home made double or triple espressos).

It's not so much that eliminating caffeine is a life changing experience, but rather, you're unchained from the _necessity_ to, above all else, get your caffeine fix. Some people can take it or leave it, go without for days at a stretch, which was not at all the case for me -- the only time I ever went without was when bed ridden or on a meditation retreat.

In terms of energy, the reserves are deeper, since the energy depleting caffeine rush is gone. Also, quit consuming refined sugar, which may be a bigger win than quitting caffeine -- I think it's closer to the natural state that humans experienced long before concentrated Xs came into being.

You have to want to quit. If you're younger you probably can withstand the racing heart, having to urinate frequently, insomnia, mood swings, and other negative side effects that inevitably affect the aging caffeine drinker.

<comment><USER29> How old are you? I love my coffee but I have those problems too.

On my short experiment quitting coffee (30 days IIRC), nothing really changed, so I restarted using it (which always feels great).

<comment><USER28> > How old are you?

45

> On my short experiment quitting coffee (30 days IIRC), nothing really > changed

What has changed for me is that I no longer feel shackled to a pernicious habit. The caffeine addicted mind is very persuasive: "it's healthy, don't stop", "it's normal, everyone drinks coffee", "but the withdrawl symptoms", "I won't be as productive", etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I find it hard to take articles around this seriously when they don't take into consideration the huge variability humans show in metabolising coffee and it's related health effects. A light introduction can be found here: [https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/for-coffee- drinker...](https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/for-coffee-drinkers-the- buzz-may-be-in-your-genes/) A more in depth can be found: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4242593/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4242593/) It's all about CYP1A2

<comment><AUTHOR> You make a good point. I've had my genome sampled by 23andMe, so I went back and looked at my report. I updated my post to point out that my results might not be the same as those for others.

<comment><USER30> Interesting, thanks for the comment, actually I started reading on this because of 23andMe as well and I'm on the opposite spectrum, which means coffee doesn't affect me much, the same can't be said of my partner who has like you also quit btw.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I love coffee, "wake up and smell the coffee" has a true meaning to me. I usually drink one or two cups of black (no sugar) coffee every morning, and 2 espressos during the rest of the day.

I exercise on a daily basis, I eat well and I go to bed on time and I usually sleep between 7-8 hours.

I don't have the same side-effects most people talk here, thankfully, because the smell of a just made home-made coffee is one the best things ever :P

</comment><comment><USER32> I've also been off of caffeine for about two years, for a few reasons (anxiety reduction, desire to be free of chemical dependencies, and especially sleep improvement). It took me about three weeks of depression and lethargy, but was totally worth it. My sleep especially is much-improved, and I'd say that my anxiety levels are generally lower.

The main thing is that you need to get enough sleep at night.

If you're interested, I found some support on reddit, [http://www.reddit.com/r/decaf](http://www.reddit.com/r/decaf).

<comment><USER33> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Quitting caffeine is hard, but I found a workaround: get the flu.

If you're like me, when you're sick in bed, the last thing you'll want is coffee. By the end of your flu, you'll also have gotten off caffeine and you'll have ascribed the withdrawal symptoms to the flu. Done! Now go buy some decaf :-)

<comment><USER35> My father quit smoking this way.

<comment> 52-6F-62 I quit smoking similarly -- a bit of a hangover, an illness, followed by a terrible week of digestive issues (likely due to the quitting smoking) and after the week, not starting again wasn't a problem.

Now I wish I'd never done it in the first place, but here we are.

I think it just comes down to feeling unable to procure the item of your addiction -- and the mental position to want to leave it behind. I couldn't properly quit until that point... pure resolve. Pure resolve, and being stuck in bed in terrible pain for a week (haha?)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> As for me, I enjoy drinking coffee and I enjoy drinking alcohol. They're small pleasures of life that contribute to my overall happiness.

<comment><USER37> "As for me, I enjoy drinking coffee and I enjoy drinking alcohol. They're small pleasures of life that contribute to my overall happiness."

Yeah - it's like the old saying "it's easy to live to 100 years old, just give up all the things that make you want to live until 100'.

<comment><USER38> I am typically very health conscious, even an aspiring sort of pseudo- vegetarian, with the exception of cured meat. Keep hearing about how bad the stuff is for you but you can pry my prosciutto from my cold dead hands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I only drank coffee regularly for a few months in my life and the past five years I've removed all caffeine (that I'm aware of) from my diet except for special occasions where I need to stay up for safety reasons, usually driving long distances (extremely rare). It definitely helps as I have insomnia. The insomnia did not go away, but I have noticed a huge improvement. When I do have caffeine it wires me up the whole day into the night, even if I drink it in the morning. I have no problems with energy or anything like that and also sometimes do the intermittent fasting the author talks about. All in all, I agree that it's a huge improvement. I'm also not dependent which is a huge plus and it saves money. I think it's definitely worth trying, especially for people that are consuming many cups of coffee throughout the day. Of course, as the author points out, if you are going to try it, make sure you get enough sleep. Focusing on getting enough sleep, I find, is a much better energy boosting technique (for the next day) than caffeine or anything else for that matter.

<comment><USER40> Coincidentally I just decided a few days ago to ditch caffeine for awhile.

Last week I had terrible sleep, from 3-5 hours a night. Even though I was exhausted during the day, I still couldn't fall asleep at night.

I only drink two cups a day, with sometimes a Coke at lunch. But might be my old age that is making me hypersensitive to caffeine. Back in college I could drink cup after cup and still fall asleep when I was ready.

So I'm stopping caffeine for awhile to see how it goes.

<comment><USER39> In my experience, sleep definitely gets worse with age. I often can't fall asleep even when exhausted or wake up multiple times sometimes unable to get back to sleep. That's why I put such a premium on it. Sleep decides at least 50 to 75% of how my day will be, maybe more. It's by far the most important bodily function, imo. Exercise is second and can undo many of the effects of bad sleep temporarily, but there's nothing like a good night's sleep. I would not skimp on it. The anti sleep culture that exists is horror and hell to me but to each his own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I love coffee ... when I'm addicted to caffeine. I found when I get off of caffeine my love of coffee disappears.

I've been on/off caffeine numerous times. Mostly because I have a big backpack trip where obtaining caffeine is a pain. It takes exactly a week for me with days 3-6 being miserable. I feel I am not fully "there" almost as if I'm an observer in my own body.

There are two advantages I see in being off caffeine. First you are not dependent on a drug. Second, if you do need the drug for a rare occasion (maybe driving late into the night etc.) it is there for you. Being off caffeine then drinking a cup of coffee gives you a huge jolt.

I got back on caffeine recently to see if it would help me lose weight. It did not. Now I'm fat and addicted.

<comment><USER41> > There are two advantages I see in being off caffeine. First you are not > dependent on a drug. Second, if you do need the drug for a rare occasion > (maybe driving late into the night etc.) it is there for you. Being off > caffeine then drinking a cup of coffee gives you a huge jolt.

This is my exact experience with the various kinds of ADHD stimulant meds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> The good thing about going off caffeine is that it works well when you have some from time. For example, when I have a long drive ahead of me I get some Starbucks. I am so sensitive to caffeine now that it keeps me awake the whole drive (and a few hours more unfortunately).

<comment><USER43> For staying awake I can also recommend ice cream OR chewing gum.

edit: not at the same time

<comment><USER32> My favorite ice cream flavor as a child was Pink Bubblegum at Baskin Robbins: [https://www.baskinrobbins.com/content/baskinrobbins/en/produ...](https://www.baskinrobbins.com/content/baskinrobbins/en/products/icecream/flavors/pink_bubblegum.html)

<comment><USER44> Holy crap I hated that flavor when it was in.

(former BR scooper. It got _everywhere_)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I think the supplements and alternatives, which are mentioned in the article are a bit weird...I think those are sports-products, and not real alternatives to coffee.

I also want to reduce my caffeine/coffee intake, but I want to have the "same feeling" as when I drink coffee...

For this I drink the following: * My girlfriend showed me Caro Coffee (wheat- basis): [http://amzn.to/2w8RhDu](http://amzn.to/2w8RhDu) You make it like instant coffee with hot water (and milk/sugar)

* Yogi Tea (chocolate-taste) [http://amzn.to/2wZCVSP](http://amzn.to/2wZCVSP) Usually I drink this in winter.. But I'm not sure whether it is completly caffeine free.

* Eimalzin (malt-cocoa) [http://amzn.to/2i3bTrs](http://amzn.to/2i3bTrs) ok thats just cocoa.. still I like it from time to time

* Zotter (various drinking chocolates) [http://amzn.to/2w5W7SD](http://amzn.to/2w5W7SD) hmm very tasty! but a bit "heavy", so I only drink them from time to time.

But I am always happy to find good tasting alternatives to coffee... Do you have any suggestions?

<comment><USER46> Just a bit of nitpicking: Caro Coffee is made from roasted barley, malted barley, chicory, and rye; not wheat.

Wikipedia has a list of coffee substitutes[0], but the only one I know and can recommend is barley malt coffee, which you've already mentioned.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_substitute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_substitute)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> One thing that was striking to me when quitting caffeine (after drinking coffee consistently for years every day) was how after a week or two the feeling you have when waking up is completely different. I had always assumed when you wake up it was normal to feel terrible until the morning coffee. Not so. Off caffeine, a proper nights sleep will have you up and active right away.

<comment><USER48> > Off caffeine, a proper nights sleep will have you up and active right away.

This is not universally true.

I've experienced mornings in four different cases. Chronologically: drinking lots of soda, dropping caffeine and taking Adderall, consuming basically no stimulants for a year or so other than the occasional soda once or twice a month, and drinking black coffee and/or green tea regularly.

They've all been universally pretty awful, with still an hour of snooze button needed at most, but caffeine by itself has been the least bad both for mornings (including compared to no stimulant consumption) and in terms of overall side effects.

By far the worst regular day-to-day experience is the caffeine+sugar combo, though. If you can tolerate your caffeine without sugar, it can be quite nice.

(The worst absolute experience is a cold-turkey dropping of amphetamines for a weekend to reset a growing tolerance. Be prepared to watch a lot of TV, eat a lot of cheetos, and have very little desire or ability for serious thinking.)

<comment><USER49> Assuming you wake with an alarm, the biggest impact on how you feel when you first wake is where you were in your sleep cycle. In deep or REM sleep you will feel lousy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I only started drinking coffee two years ago. First it was once or twice a week, then it became everyday.

About 6 months ago I started having slight muscle tremors, my doctor said it could be because of stress. I didn't tell him I started having too much coffee (nor he asked me).

But the tremors kind of increased slowly. I read on HN about some guy who had similar problem with caffeine shots. It then struck them that coffee could be the problem.

Now I rarely drink coffee and tremors are also gone.

<comment><USER51> Caffeine increases excretion of calcium and magnesium [1]. This is why some caffeine pills are pressed with ~75mg calcium.

Muscle tremors could be a sign of magnesium and/or calcium deficiency, so it's likely that you were losing too many minerals and not making up for it in your diet.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7836625](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7836625)

</comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash I "quit" caffeine while dealing with a mysterious and persistent nausea which ended up being mild food allergies.

Either way, before I knew what was going on, I got frustrated at my textbook healthiness yielding no answers, went off the low-carb deep and and cut out grains and sugars almost entirely from my diet.

Because my insulin/glucose levels have now moved from the penthouse to a basement apartment, I no longer have dramatic swings in energy throughout the day. My energy at 7AM is roughly the same energy I have by half after 4. I don't need caffeine or sugar to push me though a tired spell, and I haven't felt a caffeine/insulin crash in months.

Caffeine control is one thing but insulin is the body's top dog energy regulator. If you have energy issues, start by focusing on insulin, not caffeine.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the original author. I should have mentioned in my post that I've also been consuming very few daily carbs for a few years now. I experience the effects you describe now when I do indulge in a doughnut or the like. It's hard to tell now how much of my even mood is due to quitting caffeine and how much is due to steady insulin levels. I do feel that I benefit from being very cautious about consuming all of the above (caffeine, sugar, carbs).

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I love coffee-- the smell, the ritual, the taste, but even 1 cup turns my anxiety from a normal 2/10 to a 7/10.

On top of that I don't even feel more focused or productive from caffeine. Actually I get easily overwhelmed and rather indecisive. My brain is not made for stimulants, as adderall makes me tired.

I'm going to try taking theanine with a cup tomorrow, if that doesn't improve things then I'm off caffeine for a long time.

<comment><USER53> Same reasons why I quit coffee 7 years ago.

It's not even hard. Coffee is only useful for zombies.

<comment><USER29> I love the taste, and even the most popular drink around here ("mate") has caffeine. So quitting would be hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Started drinking water instead of drinking soda and coffee very often. Never looked back. I may drink a soda once or twice but I really don't miss it at this point. I got into this after using the MyWater app [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mywater/id665244736?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mywater/id665244736?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER55> >There have been many demanding days in the last couple of years where I felt that if I would just give in and allow myself a cup of coffee, I would get more done.

Caffeine doesn't do anything for me anymore except stop dependence side effects - been thinking about ditching it and using modafinil on days like these - seems relatively side effect free and easy to get pharma grade stuff.

<comment><USER56> Modafinil is relatively side effects free? Are there any studies of long-term modafinil use effects?

<comment><USER57> With long-term use Stevens–Johnson syndrome is a risk.

<comment><USER58> I'm not a doctor, but is SJS a long-term risk of *afinil?

Or is it the symptom of a drug sensitivity that some people have and some people don't?

All the research I did indicated that it was an extremely rare reaction that certain people would have, not that it was a result of long-term use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I have a lot of problems trying to quit caffeine. Ever since I was a young child, they gave me really powerful amphetamines to get me to focus. Then when I turned 18 it became much more difficult to obtain.

In the US, Ritalin/dexadrine/adderall are all class II controlled substances with similar restrictions to cocaine or fentynal, so in order to get it I would need to have a doctor's appointment every month, which wasn't only inconvenient but super expensive once I lost my mom's insurance.

So, dipshit that I am, I replaced it with megadoses of caffeine. At my peak, I was consuming 1g (yes, gram) of the stuff every day in the form of energy drinks. I am now down to 280-560mg per day on average. I have tried not drinking any, but the inability to focus and headaches mean that trying to cutback seriously puts my job at risk.

I really wish I could just get back on ritalin or something so that I can give my poor heart a rest, but I am afraid to walk into a doctors office after not going for years and asking for drugs.

<comment><USER60> Jesus, that's like 10 espressos!

I'm at >= 5. Pretty bad.

I also feels like caffeine doesn't have much effect anymore.

Any way to make quitting easier?

<comment><USER61> I quit a heavy coffee habit recently.

I cut my caffeine in half each day (and went from a quarter cup to zero) I did experience some withdrawal symptoms, including headache, lethargy, and some mild but notable depression. The worst of it was over in a couple of days, I'd say the full deal took about a week and a half. Not a load of fun but honestly not that bad considering I was a heavy coffee drinker for 30 years.

I'd recommend drawing down a little slower than 50% a day. Maybe a third or quarter? Either way don't go cold turkey definitely draw down.

<comment><USER62> I've been out out caffeine since January because I did something similar (and got similar withdrawal symptoms): I started by mixing regular coffee beans with decaf ones. First two weeks I used a 25/75% decaf to regular mix, next two weeks 50/50%, then 75%/25%, etc.

The key for my was finding good quality (and expensive) decaf coffe beans. After triying differente brands I settled with Lavazza.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> This article reminds me of what I have been wanting to do for a while, but have not succeeded yet in spite of having tried this a few times. The goal is to prevent large fluctuations in energy and mood. My plan is to:

\- Quit caffeine

\- Quit sugar (in all forms e.g. refined sugar, honey, fructose syrup etc.)

\- Consume alcohol only occasionally

\- Consume white flour only occasionally

\- Meditate

> I don't think the ketones are necessary, but it helps me with running while > fasted.

Our body generates ketones when carbohydrate intake is reduced enough, and it feels great. Perhaps the author's tinnitus _may_ benefit from reduction in carb intake [1]. It is a common misconception to attribute certain benefits to presence of ketones while the actual benefit comes from the absence of sugar metabolism.

[1] [https://www.tinnitusformula.com/library/sugar-metabolism- aff...](https://www.tinnitusformula.com/library/sugar-metabolism-affects- tinnitus/)

<comment><USER64> That's quite a list you want to undertake. Most of these seem perfectly attainable, but you might want to cut yourself some slack on the sugar bit. Way too much sugar is added to processed foods of course, and cutting back on that is beneficial for anyone, but sugar can be part of a healthy diet too; it naturally occurs in fruit (would you omit almost all fruits from your diet?) and frankly, our body simply uses it like any other carbohydrates if you don't overeat (which are broken down to sugar to fuel us!). It's fine in moderate quantities, and the occasional treat won't harm you if you eat sensibly.

<comment><USER65> > it naturally occurs in fruit

With fiber. The human body has evolved to receive fructose with fiber. When you give it fructose without fiber, it doesn't satiate and it's metabolized in a similar way to alcohol (except for the cognitive effects).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I am 50 and I am addicted to the worlds favorite psychoactive drug, caffeine. It ruins my sleep. It ruins my concentration. It makes me have to visit the toilet way too often. Day and night. If you can stop, then do it.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've been drinking about 1000mg of caffeine a day and developed tolerance to the point where I don't feel any effects anymore.

Recently, I tried to quit caffeine for 10 days and didn't feel the need for it, so I'm hardly addicted to it, rather I just enjoy the taste of it. Since I'm completely tolerant, to the effects of caffeine at this point, trying a decaf could be an interesting option. Has anyone researched health implication of drinking decaf?

</comment><comment><USER67> Every so often I hit a ceiling where I worry that I'm going to kill myself with caffeine and hypertension or whatever so I stop for a week. Recently I took 400mg in pill form at 10pm in order to keep me up until 2am. I get 6-8 hours of sleep a night and everything else about my life is within the error margins of "healthy". I just like stretching my day, and find that caffeine's efficacy has dropped off a cliff since university.

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm addicted to black tea. If I don't have two cups, daily, I get bad headaches.

It's not caffeine, because coffee doesn't substitute, neither does green tea.

So it must be some stimulant unique to black tea.

Maybe theobromine, theophylline, or L-Theanine? (see [http://www.healthline.com/nutrition/stimulants-in- tea](http://www.healthline.com/nutrition/stimulants-in-tea) \- maybe a questionable source...)

</comment><comment><USER69> I've never been on coffee. I only drink water since... forever.

It is true that getting coffee is kind of a social situation. But I'm ok just getting a hot chocolate or some other drink when I'm with people.

The thing about less ability to compensate lack of sleep. The way I deal with that isn't with sugar or caffeine. I just take naps. If I only got between 3-5 hours of sleep, I might need a 15-min nap but once I get that I'm good to go again.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the original author. I can't nap, unfortunately. I feel groggy after a nap and it messes up my sleep schedule. I envy those of you who can benefit from a nap.

I'll update my post to explain that.

</comment></comment><comment> k-ian cached version: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fenki.org%2F2017%2F08%2F13%2Fquitting- caffeine%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fenki.org%2F2017%2F08%2F13%2Fquitting- caffeine%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.1551j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

</comment><comment><USER70> Google cached version as it won't load for me [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yLb33Z...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yLb33ZgbkOYJ:https://enki.org/2017/08/13/quitting- caffeine/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ch)

</comment><comment> Blinks- One of the things that always gets to me when I try to stop drinking coffee/tea is that I end up feeling tired all day and then can't get to sleep at night. Apparently sleeplessness is a side effect of caffeine withdrawal, it's almost comical. Then again I have never tried slowly reducing my intake over a month, might be worth a try.

<comment><USER71> I've found that going cold-turkey is actually way easier than trying to ween yourself off of it. Reducing my intake only makes me want it more and more because I already have a little bit of it in my system. While going cold- turkey sucks for a 2-3 days, after you're off of it you have almost no urge what-so-ever to drink it.

<comment><USER72> Going cold turkey while increasing physical activity for a week or two is super effective at resetting my sleep patterns and daytime energy levels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> I've been off coffee for 1 month now. I've drank one or 2 decaff cortado or americanos because I like the taste of coffee, but I feel like decaf doesn't taste as good.

I was a good week with intense headaches, it was scary. I used to drink 1 or 2 a day, nothing more.

As for the link, it doesn't work ... hackernews DoS induced?

<comment><USER74> Btw to eliminate withdrawal headaches one only needs a small amount of caffeine. I've taken one caffeine pill per day for about a week (~100mg daily depending on brand which is less than one cup of coffee equivalent).

<comment><USER73> Well, the headaches were annoying, but it seems so much simpler to just go cold turkey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> The author had some good reasons, but drug dependence on its own seems like a pretty poor reason to stop drinking caffeine unless you have other symptoms. There exists a great deal of consensus on Coffee's effect on health: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/upshot/more-consensus- on-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/upshot/more-consensus-on-coffees- benefits-than-you-might-think.html)

... people tend to build a great deal of psychological dependence on friends and significant others as well. Dependence does not seem a bad thing on its own.

<comment><USER76> "The total economic impact of the coffee industry in the United States in 2015 was $225.2 billion" [1]

So it's not hard to imagine that in our fucked up world at least some of the "research" on coffee is "fake news".

[1] [http://www.ncausa.org/Industry-Resources/Economic- Impact](http://www.ncausa.org/Industry-Resources/Economic-Impact)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> I seem to have more energy than all my coworkers who drink coffee / tea every day at work. Here is how I do it:

\- Get as much sleep as I need. Most days I need 8 hours. Some days I need 9. So I plan accordingly.

\- Lunches that are light on carbs. Large amounts of potato, bread and or rice put me to sleep. On most days I have some sort of a salad for lunch with soup and a small piece of bread.

That is all. Plenty of sleep and not overeating. There are other things: a relatively active lifestyle, exercise, walks etc.. but the two items I mentioned above make the greatest difference in-terms of being awake and remaining alert all day for me.

<comment><USER78> > \- Get as much sleep as I need. Most days I need 8 hours. Some days I need > 9. So I plan accordingly.

If you're getting 8-9 hours a night you don't _need_ coffee. I bet your coworkers who are mainlining the stuff either have small kids, or very active social lives.

<comment><USER77> You might be right. It seems like everyone else at my office needs coffee all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> I love coffee, but not caffeine. I used to drink a _lot_ of coffee – up to 8 cups a day – until I began to notice the negative effect it was having on my creativity.

On caffeine, my thinking is somehow more "linear", taking the shortest path to solutions. Lateral thinking is more difficult and I am more easily distracted.

For this reason, I have since cut down my caffeine consumption to 2-3 cups a day. I wish decaf tasted better. Then I would drink coffee all day. Sadly I have still not found any that I truly enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER80> > I now use a workout supplement without caffeine. There are very few of > these, I've found. Pretty much every supplement that gives you some kind of > bump has caffeine in it. I have found that my energy level is improved by > ensuring that I consume lots of electrolytes.

Interesting. I would be more wary of using (artificial) workout supplements than indulging in (moderate quantities of) caffeine, sugar or alcohol. With latter at least we know the side effects. But then, we each choose our own poison I guess...

</comment><comment><USER81> I consume caffeine pretty rarely, so when I do, it has a nice kick!

In the morning, I usually eat some fruit to help me wake up. I generally just drink water throughout the day.

</comment><comment><USER82> Wondering if Northern Europe has developed some sort of genetic immunity/reduced influence to caffeine. With the Netherlands having a an average of 2.4 cups of coffee a day, one would expect chronic insomnia, yet this is not the case.

I live in Denmark, where the average is 1.27 cups a day, and I oftentimes go over 10 cups a day of coffee, and I know a handful of people who're either up there with me, or drink even more.

<comment><USER83> As I understand it, the research is not completely conclusive but the claim is that there is significant habituation effect. I've also heard that restlessness/insomnia are just as likely to be caused by withdrawal effects in the evening as they are by high consumption. Withdrawal effects have similarities to high usage, and anecdotally if I'm drinking a lot of coffee but stop early in the day I often have problems sleeping.

<comment><USER82> Huh, seems almost comical that withdrawal produces these symptoms. Thanks for your insight :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> I quit coffee when I realized that it was greatly exacerbating some anxiety issues. I do have the occasional tea though, and the occasional decaf.

</comment><comment><USER85> I love coffee but have often thought of quitting as well. I found that skipping coffee every other day does two things. First, it keeps the ever increasing coffee/caffeine requirement in check. Second, your enjoyment of that cup goes up so much more.

My life mantra is "everything in moderation". This method fits in a bit better with just quitting cold turkey.

<comment><USER86> "everything in moderation", including moderation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> I personally never drink coffee. I do however drink tea and other drinks with caffeine in them (mostly Coca Cola). But I do wonder how much of a perceptible difference drinking coffee makes. I'm also curious whether you get a tolerance, so that heavy drinkers need to drink more to recover the same amount of energy. Can anyone give their experience?

<comment><USER88> > I'm also curious whether you get a tolerance, so that heavy drinkers need to > drink more to recover the same amount of energy. Can anyone give their > experience?

You don't have to go by anecdotes: caffeine is the most popular drug in the world and has been studied fairly heavily. It improves focus and some other cognitive metrics for a short period of regular use, and then your daily hit of caffeine just brings you up to what your baseline used to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Caffeine is worth quitting at least for periods of time to rebalance your cortisol and dompamine sensitivity. Both neurochemicals that affect focus, motivation, drive, etc.

I love coffee and I found that when cycling off one of the best things to do is to switch to decaf (some tasty options out there) + L-Theanine. Another great help when cycling off is Rhodiola Rosea.

</comment><comment><USER90> As for the "wildly varying amounts of caffeine", for purposes of not exceeding 400 mg/day,I have settled on what I saw on the side of a can of coffee that one tablespoon of the average coffee has 63 mg of caffeine in it. Would love to see a precise, detailed breakdown of caffeine content and variances in coffee, tea etc.

</comment><comment><USER91> I've found for me the secret to effective coffee drinking is don't drink it right away upon awaking, particularly on an empty stomach. Move about, have breakfast, wake up naturally. Then an hour or two after waking up have a small amount. Much less negative effect on rest of day while getting the energy benefits.

</comment><comment><USER92> I've quit caffeine on a few occasions for long stretches. Most recently I just reduced consumption to a couple of cups of coffee in the mornings and that was it (a little creamer, no sugar/honey). That worked really well for 2 years.

Then we got a puppy and I haven't slept well in 4 weeks.

Typing this as I consume a Diet Dr. Pepper.

<comment><USER93> A replacement product may help. Try replacing it with something less potent like tea and see where you can go from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> When I quit smoking I wore nicotine patches for months. They were actually quite pleasant, providing a nice memory and creativity boost. It's now been a few years without cigarettes or patches, but I'm missing the warm stimulation and considering taking up just the patches.

<comment><USER95> nicotine gum is hacker gum. mix it with some betel nuts for an extra kick and a very odd texture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> 'One needs to gradually and continually increase the amount of caffeine consumed in order to experience the stimulant effect.' <\- I still don't understand the problem here? Not sold on his 'why' answer, sorry.

</comment><comment><USER97> I've been wanting to do this, but I think I'll probably have to take 2 weeks of PTO to do that, unfortunately. At least it's a relatively benign addiction, I suppose.

<comment><USER98> The few times I've quit, I switched to decaf and caffeine pills, and then slowly reduced the amount of caffeine from pills. No side-effects from this approach. Cold turkey almost killed me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> How do you call that condition when you can drink e.g. 8 cups of coffee, not feeling any kick and going to sleep like a baby as if caffeine never mattered?

<comment><USER100> I guess it's called working to hard, i'm currently also in that state.. Almost vacation..

<comment><USER99> Nay, I meant some people just don't react to caffeine and I am curious what is the name of this "medical condition"; this pertains to myself and a few others I know. We can drink coffee/coke/whatever and sleep instantly and have zero boost from caffeine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER101> Quitting 30 years of daily caffeine was easy, I did it in a day by switching to amphetamines. I'm very happy with the change.

</comment><comment><USER102> The picture of the author at the end of the article was probably taken BEFORE he's given up caffeine :)

</comment><comment><USER103> It's not a great idea to regularly consume large quantities of what is essentially a natural insecticide. If you're tired, it's a much better idea to have a nap for 20 mins. Wish that was more socially acceptable

<comment><USER104> Did you know 100% of the people who have consumed h2o in history have died?

If you have a specific link between the 'insecticide' and poor health let's hear it - otherwise it's just a ridiculous statement.

<comment><USER103> I don't have a direct link to poor health - but sleep performs many functions we are just starting to understand, and feeling tired is usually an indicator that you need sleep.

Replacing that with a buzz from an insecticide - and that is the purpose for which plants produce caffeine - on a regular basis doesn't feel like a great idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> Once I stopped drinking coffee for a couple of days before an Ayahuasca session. The headaches were terrible.

I rarely drink anything other than a doppio in the morning, but I simply can't start my day without it.

</comment><comment><USER106> Has anyone tried the Caffeine + L-Theanine pills?

<comment><USER97> No, but certain teas have rather high amount or caffeine in addition to L-Theanine. Especially mate. Sadly the only place I knew of near me to get that was Teavana, and they're all closing...

<comment><USER29> I wonder how much caffeine one is really consuming with argentinian-style mate ([https://thony.com.br/blog/wp- content/uploads/2015/09/chimarr...](https://thony.com.br/blog/wp- content/uploads/2015/09/chimarr%C3%A3o.jpg)) since one is only pouring more water on the same amount of leaves.

(When you make coffee you get new coffee beans and drink all of it. Tea is different, mechanically.. ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> I'm celiac and my symptoms* can best be described as hyper sensitivity to addictive foods. I suspect this is more common than has been studied [1] as my main symptom was daily sinus headaches.

The first thing I cut out was gluten. Gluten has been shown to act like an opiate in people with autism. [2] I believe I was going through a short time- scale withdrawal when consuming it regularly. That was the best I ever felt, but I would still get the occasional sinus headache. Having tasted the good life, I was on a mission to feel 100%.

The next thing I cut out was caffeine. It was tough. On all my attempts to give things up, I've gone back and forth multiple times. I joke that it's to "confirm" the trigger, but really it's because giving up tasty foods is tough. Each time I go through an initial withdrawal. Bad sinus headache, shaking (nerves), vomiting, stomach problems. It took about a month until my energy levels were back to normal after giving up caffeine. I would usually come home and work on side projects, I just didn't have the energy for a solid month. If it didn't get better I was ready to suffer through the headaches to get my energy back, but it did get better.

There is an amazing gluten free restaurant near me, and they have pizza. I was eating pepperoni pizza's pretty regularly (because omg pizza) and still getting headaches. Narrowing it down, only eating their pizza in the day and seeing what happened I was able to identify what it was that was triggering headaches on those days. I brought it up to the owner and he pointed out sodium nitrite as an ingredient in the pepperoni. This is a common ingredient in bacon and BBQ meats, which explained my sinus headaches with those too. Did a few tests and it seemed consistent. There is uncured bacon and pepperoni but it's just a trick. They use celery powder or celery juice to cure it. Celery contains sodium nitrite. This also explains the headaches I get with Old Bay seasoning (contains celery).

I feel there is a perfect phrase to describe this, but I can't think of it, so I'll just say I cut down more of the forest I could more easily identify the trees that were giving me sinus headaches. While I had given up caffeine, I was still a total sugar fiend. Caffeine-free root beer, bowls of vanilla ice cream doused in sprinkles. With my limited diet it was pretty easy to identify the causes. Sugar was really rough to give up. I don't know if it was the quantity I was eating, how long I had been eating it, but it was bad. With sodium nitrites I just get a sinus headache when exposed to them. With sugar I get the full symptoms described above. I went back and forth on sugar a few times but the withdrawal symptoms (after giving it up) are what made me finally say this is horrible and I'm never doing it again.

The final thing was MSG. I eat a lot of chips, since I can eat potato and corn. I was particularly fond of the Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream ones. But lo' a headache! Reading over the ingredients, monosodium glutamate. I didn't know that was MSG at first, I had to Google each ingredient, but when I found out, it made a lot of sense.

Giving this stuff up is difficult. I'm actually incredibly thankful for my hyper-sensitive symptoms as it has gotten me to start eating healthily. It has also made me realize how much addictive stuff is put into foods and how scarcely it is researched.

*Celiac symptoms vary wildly, and I can only speak from my own experience.

1\. [http://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coeliac-disease- sinusiti...](http://www.aaaai.org/ask-the-expert/coeliac-disease-sinusitis)

2\. [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1517/14728184.108.40.206](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1517/14728220.127.116.11)

<comment><USER108> So much this. What you are describing very closely parallels my own journey with food. The only thing I haven't cut out is caffeine, but I have cut out most sources of gluten (I can't help the odd dish of orange chicken), MSG, sugar, and most interestingly also, sodium nitrite. That one was easy because a smart doctor identified it as a sensitivity when I was a child so I have always avoided sources of it. When I make the mistake of trying anything that contains it my body swiftly and appropriately punishes me.

The final, most recent and by far most difficult was sugar. My experience cutting it out was the same as yours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> Someone i know has shizophrenia, for him, cafeein ment propelling insomnia and a infinite creation drug binge. Also a inability to socialize regularly and bursts of paranoia.

Its fascinating what this drug has created. Just look at pre cofee europe and post coffe europe. All those half thought through manifestos would have never been written if it werent for that coup burning the midnight oil.

</comment><comment><USER110> It has always been interesting to me that (at least in America) this particular drug dependence is something we joke lightly about ("don't talk to me before I've had my coffee"). And of course it's much less serious than other forms of dependence, but it still seems not particularly good to me. I try to refrain from having caffeine often so that it still has an effect when I drink a coffee.

<comment><USER111> Why does caffeine "dependence" concern you? It's extremely harmless and for the vast majority of the population the sole remaining effect is that of a very slight laxative.

Frankly, people drinking coffee over sugary beverages is a public health win.

<comment><USER112> > effect is that of a very slight laxative

That's why I had to stop. Over time the effect bacame "non-slight". That wasn't convenient for my 1h commute...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER113> Best thing I ever did.

For me it was the worst kind of vicious cycle - drink more, sleep worse, drink even more the next day.

Although I am sorely tempted every morning when I get a whiff of freshly ground coffee being brewed up.

</comment><comment><USER114> Aaaaaaaaah! <breath> Aaaaaaaaah!</comment>


Ask HN: Has someone made this? - <AUTHOR> I have really shitty memory.
I also have friends and check out stuff.
So sometimes my friends will suggest a new TV show or book I should check out. I say I will and then completely forget about it.
Also, sometimes there are announcements about stuff I should get but maybe I don't have the money or just don't want to deal with it.
I could use an app or web service that makes this stupid easy. I open it, type the thing (such as that cool book I should check out) in and then close it.
Every so often I can open it and look at the list of stuff. Maybe I got a raise and want to  buy something cool, maybe I'm bored and need a new Netflix show to watch.
I'd also want it to notify me once in a while. Maybe once a week or even just once a month to check out the list.
Stupid simple. I know I could use a note app like evernote or keep but then the list gets lost in everything else there. <comment><USER2> I sympathize. Any of the the todo apps that have an Inbox feature that you can add to from anywhere would probably be most of what you want. I use Omnifocus, though something free/web like Todoist is probably sufficient. If you spend a lot of time on the command line, todo.txt type apps are nice and simple.

For me the main thing was: I want to hit a key, type something, and be done. Don't show me a bunch of other stuff or I'll get distracted. So like right now I can hit ctrl-opt-space and a little Omnifocus box pops up to capture my thought and then goes away. When I'm in the mind to sort through the list, then I'll look at all the gory details.

<comment><USER3> I've got a catch all Evernote notebook that I can email to. Evernote web clipper goes there too. Every week or two (when I remember...) I go through it, sort it into wherever it should go, and rip through the action items.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I made an Android app like this as a class project to mess with Firebase. Here is a demo, sounds like the same idea.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB_lGaKHODY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB_lGaKHODY)

I never polished it and put it on the store though. Is this what you had in mind?

</comment><comment><USER5> I have a Dropbox directory for small note files that I can access from desktop or mobile. I use Jota editor on the mobile side, but any that copes with CR/LF conversions should do for multiple platforms.

</comment><comment><USER6> You need simplenote [1], free, no photos nothing, just simple notes. I use and love it. Android app have even small psss

[1] [https://simplenote.com](https://simplenote.com)

<comment><USER7> I run my whole life off a combination of Simplenote and Trello

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use Wunderlist precisely for that purpose:

When I discover an interesting book/movie, I just add it to my list there "read to" or "watch to".

</comment><comment><USER9> I use google keep for this. "Read" book-lists, "to read" book-lists, pictures of book covers that I want to buy etc.</comment>


Should 3-Year-Olds Learn Computer Programming? - <AUTHOR> http://www.good.is/post/should-3-year-olds-learn-computer-programming/

<comment><USER2> To stimulate a child's brain you want to go from general to specific patterns. At such a young age I would suggest simple games and fun IQ boosters. A solid continuation might be chess (at about 5 or 6 y/o). With such a strong background they'll be ready to start learning about computers before their teens.

Disclosure: I train Math Olympiad contestants for living a while ago.</comment>


Getting cp to give a progress bar like wget - <AUTHOR> https://chris-lamb.co.uk/2008/01/24/can-you-get-cp-to-give-a-progress-bar-like-wget/ <comment><USER2> You can also use scp or rsync (altho scp doesn't give you a progress bar IIRC, only the percentage done and the ETA)</comment>


Hurry up. Shodan Account for $1 only for next 24h - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/shodanhq/status/1198033142130581505 <comment><USER2> Signed up, but there servers are overloaded!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've already bought!</comment>


Meditations on Moloch (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20200516181754/https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ <comment><USER2> I read this the other week before the site got taken down and I found it to be incredibly prophetic.

I especially enjoyed this part:

"The point is – imagine a country full of bioweapon labs, where people toil day and night to invent new infectious agents. The existence of these labs, and their right to throw whatever they develop in the water supply is protected by law. And the country is also linked by the world's most perfect mass transit system that every single person uses every day, so that any new pathogen can spread to the entire country instantaneously. You'd expect things to start going bad for that city pretty quickly.

Well, we have about a zillion think tanks researching new and better forms of propaganda. And we have constitutionally protected freedom of speech. And we have the Internet. So we're kind of screwed."

<comment><USER3> While the memes-as-viruses thing can be illustrative, it can also be oversold. We don't actually live in _Snow Crash_. Putting the wrong text in front of people does not turn them into zombies. The reality is both more banal and more horrifying: people out there genuinely have minds and mindsets that are different from your own, and arrive at conclusions that feel the same to them as yours do to you.

<comment><USER4> Yes. And some people are illiberal. Some people don't like the conflict and confusion and disruption of a liberal democracy; they'd rather a consensus of "people like us". And bad things happen when they support a leader who promises to make things simple.

This is not a left vs right thing, it's a liberty vs autocracy thing. If the popular autocrats win, they punish the people who have "mindsets that are different from" their supporters.

<comment><USER5> > This is not a left vs right thing, it's a liberty vs autocracy thing. If the > popular autocrats win, they punish the people who have "mindsets that are > different from" their supporters.

... Idk why you chose to use liberals in your example when their push for woke political correctness is nothing short of autocratic thought control.

<comment><USER6> He's probably talking about the principal of liberty. Turns out branding works really well to muddy natural language

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Moloch is game theory. Moloch is emergent behaviors in large groups of agents. We want to stop it, but these things are vastly larger and more powerful than the individuals who make them up. We can't resist any more than atoms can resist the properties of the matter they form.

Or can we? I think there are a few cases where we have, cases where we have used law or religion or spiritual awakenings or technology or bureaucracy to countermand the emergent will of the mindless collective of history, economy, and ecology. But somewhere along the way we listened to those who equate is with ought and gave up on such attempts, or we listened to the cynics who say the whole endeavor was a waste because it was only 70% successful not 100% successful.

BTW I think conspiracy theory is a folklore level awareness of game theoretic and emergent properties. Conspiracy theorists posit invisible canals behind these things. They are right about the effect but wrong about the cause. The agenda is real but the cabal does not exist. The cabal is all of us and none of us.

</comment><comment><USER8> I also recommend Nick Bostrom's article "The Future of Human Evolution", predating OP by ten years, which contains essentially the same arguments and conclusions.

[https://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/evolution.html](https://www.nickbostrom.com/fut/evolution.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Always glad to see this get some play on HN. As our civilization gets more interconnected and systems-centric, it becomes more and more useful to have a name for the demon in the machine.

<comment><USER10> I'm glad to see people keeping Scott's writing alive in the general conversation here. He has written so much over the years. It would be a terrible shame to see it fade into obscurity after the deletion of the blog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Game theory / Moloch should've never let open-source software happen. While not perfect it works surprisingly well despite potentially suffering from all the same coordination problems outlined in this essay: free rider problem, tragedy of the commons, and all sorts of game theory race-to-the-bottom scenarios.

I also notice random acts of kindness from people, spontaneous corporation amongst rivaling tribes or companies, and things a strict self-interested agent-based analysis will tell us it's not possible.

It's an insightful model of the world but it's too simplistic and pessimistic.

<comment><USER12> Part VIII.

> Somewhere in this darkness is another god. He has also had many names. In > the Kushiel books, his name was Elua. He is the god of flowers and free love > and all soft and fragile things. Of art and science and philosophy and love. > Of niceness, community, and civilization. He is a god of humans.

> The other gods sit on their dark thrones and think "Ha ha, a god who doesn't > even control any hell-monsters or command his worshippers to become killing > machines. What a weakling! This is going to be so easy!"

> But somehow Elua is still here. No one knows exactly how. And the gods who > oppose Him tend to find Themselves meeting with a _surprising_ number of > unfortunate accidents.

> There are many gods, but this one is ours.

<comment><USER13> Flowers and free love, just the other side of the coin:

>4\. The Malthusian trap, at least at its extremely pure theoretical limits. Suppose you are one of the first rats introduced onto a pristine island. It is full of yummy plants and you live an idyllic life lounging about, eating, and composing great works of art (you're one of those rats from The Rats of NIMH).

>You live a long life, mate, and have a dozen children. All of them have a dozen children, and so on. In a couple generations, the island has ten thousand rats and has reached its carrying capacity. Now there's not enough food and space to go around, and a certain percent of each new generation dies in order to keep the population steady at ten thousand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Sure, the Conspiracy program is cruel and demeaning, the cage is cramped and > ugly and smells bad, but you can't get out and if you did get out you'd just > want right back in again because the thing that is making the situation > intolerable isn't in the situation, it's in your head.

NENSLO "hateword" [http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/answers/rants/X0022_Nenslo_...](http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/answers/rants/X0022_Nenslo_HATEWORD.html)

FWIW, we have simple, easy solutions to all our physical problems. (Ask me about "aircrete".)

<comment><USER15> > Ask me about "aircrete".

Alright, what about aircrete and how can it solve all our physical problems?

<comment><USER14> Cheers!

Air-crete is basically foam (like dish soap foam) mixed with concrete. It can't solve all of our physical problems but it's pretty useful: It's fire proof (you can build a furnace out of it), water proof (you can build a boat out of it), also bug- and mildew-proof. It's lightweight, strong, durable, and non-toxic. You can work it with hand tools. It holds nails and screws. It can be formed in blocks or panels or columns or poured into molds. The machinery to make it can be assembled from off-the-shelf parts for a couple of hundred dollars. You can use plain ol' concrete mix and dish soap for the foaming agent.

I heard about it years ago (Christopher Alexander wanted to use it with his Pattern Language generative architecture) but it seems that there's been a recent bloom of interest and applications with the invention of the small backyard-scale foamer/mixers. People can and are using aircrete to make all kinds of homes and other buildings. One group is teaching workshops on making cool spherical homes that cost a few thousand dollars, can be built by a handful of people in a couple of weeks, and will last for decades or even centuries.

This is just one example of a really keen solution that's (as yet) underutilized. I collect ideas the way stamp collectors collect stamps, and I've "seen things you people wouldn't believe." (I.e. ever heard of a _phase conjugate mirror?_ You point your flash light at this mirror and the light is reflected back into the bulb.)

<comment><USER15> Thanks!

That does sound pretty cool.

But what was the reasoning behind your statement that "we have simple, easy solutions to all our physical problems" (even if not all those solutions come from aircrete)?

<comment><USER14> You're welcome. BTW here's the aircrete dome people: [https://www.domegaia.com/](https://www.domegaia.com/)

> But what was the reasoning behind your statement that "we have simple, easy > solutions to all our physical problems" (even if not all those solutions > come from aircrete)?

Thanks for asking! Let me see if I can compress and express the kernel of what I mean.

First, let me specify that, by "physical problems", I mean provisioning food, water, shelter, waste recycling, clothing, transportation, electric power, etc. as contrasted with political, ideological, social, and spiritual problems.

I'm a fan of a school of applied ecology called "Permaculture" (I recently learned of a parallel evolution of the same ideas called "Syntropic" agriculture.) It's been demonstrated in farms and projects all over the world by now. We can transform deserts into forests and meadows.

That accounts for food, water, waste recycling, and clothing, as well as some building material. Also many medicines can be grown in the garden.

If you mine lime, etc., you can make aircrete and that accounts for a tremendous amount of shelter. You also grow wood and bamboo for construction purposes.

If you integrate alcohol fuel production with your food forest you have a carbon-neutral fuel source. That accounts for electric power (along with renewables, solar, wind, hydro, etc.) and your much of your transportation costs. (You still have to mine metal and stuff for the vehicles themselves, of course.) ( [http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/sitemap](http://alcoholcanbeagas.com/sitemap) )

To sum up, if we "reboot" agriculture using what we now know about ecology (the science) we can provide for our needs in a way that is ecologically harmonious (and can therefore continue long enough that maybe we can sort out the other problems too, eventually.) Also, it's fun! And you can make money at it. (The Syntropic agriculture founder grows the best cocoa beans in the world, and gets 3x per acre as conventional cocoa farms, with no inputs. He mimics the natural forest.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If someone could produce a book of his writings, I would buy it. Not sure for how much.

<comment><USER17> Good news. There are free ebooks, one per year: [https://github.com/georgjaehnig/webpages-to- ebook/blob/maste...](https://github.com/georgjaehnig/webpages-to- ebook/blob/master/README.md#examples)

Also looks like someone combined them into one ebook: [https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/hkbfj4/all_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/hkbfj4/all_articles_20132020_in_one_ebook_epub_mobi_pdf/)

<comment><USER18> I'm very pleased to see this. I hadn't thought about Slate Star Codex still being available on the Internet Archive. After seeing this post I was thinking about going through my bookmarks and finding copies of my favorite SSC posts in the Archive. Downloading an ebook is so much easier.

Thank you for posting these links, and thank you to the people who created these ebooks.

P. S. Fuck New York Times for fucking with Slate Star Codex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > As outside civilizations compete against you, your conditions will become > more and more constrained.

This explains why I think China is currently "winning at economy" and will do so even more in the future, simply because they can see long term since the removal of the two-term limit of their president[1], and other[2] tactics[3].

From a "god's-eye-view", countries should not withdraw democracy & freedom from the hands of their citizens. But logically, I think this gives an incentive for all other countries to also take this unfair advantage (become capitalist dictatorships) in order to compete with China. But I'm not sure how _logically_ this will play out in the next few decades.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/26/xi-jinping- chi...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/26/xi-jinping-china- presidential-limit-scrap-dictator-for-life)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road#Railway_(1990)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road#Railway_\(1990\))

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_extradition_bil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_extradition_bill)

<comment><USER20> _This explains why I think China is currently "winning at economy" and will do so even more in the future, simply because they can see long term since the removal of the two-term limit of their president[1], and other[2] tactics[3].

From a "god's-eye-view", countries should not withdraw democracy & freedom from the hands of their citizens. But logically, I think this gives an incentive for all other countries to also take this unfair advantage (become capitalist dictatorships) in order to compete with China. But I'm not sure how logically this will play out in the next few decades._

And yet I see articles positing strategic mistakes and unforced errors on the behalf of the Chinese.

Mostly, I am of the opinion that outsiders don't know what's really going on in the country because the truth of China is distorted by propaganda and censorship regime they built up over generations and lack of independent abilities to verify anything.

Maybe even the government don't know what's going on either.

<comment><USER21> [https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/21/nobody-knows- anything-a...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/21/nobody-knows-anything- about-china/)

At least everyone is equally in the dark.</comment></comment></comment>


You don't always know what you're saying - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/you-don-t-always-know-what-you-re-saying-1.15136 <comment><USER2> "Everyone carries a room about inside them. This fact can be proved by means of the sense of hearing. If someone walks fast, and one pricks up one's ears, and listens, say in the night, when everything round about is quiet, one hears for instance the rattling of a mirror not quite firmly fastened to the wall."

I repeated this to myself, out loud, 100 times. The goal was to simultaneously maintain another persistent stream of thought as I recited, religiously.

The next day I converted my left control key to Backspace, months after asking myself in earnest the question of what I should do with my left control key now that I had already delegated that role to my caps lock. Days later I learned that a co-worker has worked on a keyboard missing its Backspace for years now.

As a practicing psychonaut one must, in order to ascend the order of skills, learn to master speech in a way that is disorderly from other cognitive functions. But first, what is speech must be recognized.

I think with keyboards, we experience much of them same thing: where Backspace becomes a word or a character of one's textual lexicon. It's just a matter of where you put it (let's say, "in your mind"). It's like the paralanguage of "uhms" and "wells" which litter everyday academic to grocery language, cheerily grows in programmers' circles, and then those pauses to reset the conversation of their weed like proliferation.

We do not always know what we are saying because most of the time the meanings are quantifiably outside of the grammar with which our brains have adapted for the purposes of internally efficient speech. Each of us constructs an idiolect for our use, and the semantic edifice wrapping our words which we use to exercise thought often bears signs of the issues we have dealt with, not necessarily in _learning_ the language, but also _building_ it for our individual purposes. Sometimes the constructs we internally put together are resistant to forms of complexity that are outside of the cowpaths we have paved for ourselves.

<comment><USER3> Very true, you are very aware how we think. But I am hesitant to say it since I may be encouraging your behavior, depending on how it is manifested. Be careful, because as you look in, the abyss stares into you. So depending on how you see your behavior, you may want to discourage thinking in this manner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like the title is overstated. These researchers showed that feedback wasn't important in one small experiment. The title _seems_ to imply something much broader.

For example, when I'm talking about a deeply technical subject I'm well versed in, I use the correct vocal and syntax to express my ideas: I know what I'm saying. When I'm doing a small quick exercise like shown, I might say something inadvertently.

<comment><AUTHOR>
      > When I'm doing a small quick exercise like
      > shown, I might say something inadvertently.

So that would mean you don't always know what you're saying, just as the title explicitly says. If the title was:

        You never know what you're saying.

... then it would be wrong. As it is your comment seems to say that it's right.

What have I missed?

<comment><USER4> > you don't _always_ know what you're saying

> You _never_ know what you're saying.

(emphasis added)

There we go. You clarified why I felt this was off -- it's making a global statement. There's almost always a condition that goes with a scientific (or even mathematical) finding. Nature overstated their results.

<comment><AUTHOR> It appears to me that you're saying that

      > you don't *always* know what you're saying

is logically the same as:

      > You *never* know what you're saying.

That's not at all how I read it. To say:

      > you don't *always* know what you're saying

is to say:

      > There are some occasions when you
      > don't know what you're saying.

We can see that in mathematical logic wherein moving a negation across a "For all" changes it to a "There exists", and _vice versa._ In this case the natural language formulation matches the mathematical logic one. In particular, "never" is not the negation of "always."

So that's exactly what you agreed with when you said:

      > When I'm doing a small quick exercise like
      > shown, I might say something inadvertently.

That shows that there are times when you don't know what you're saying, confirming that you don't always know what you're saying.

So it still seems to me like you are confirming the title, not refuting it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A really funny related affect is had using the SpeechJammer app, or similar. It plays back a slightly delayed feed of your voice. Other than the delay it's not altering the speech. If you get the timing right it's almost impossible to talk.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjWzQEBGCMo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjWzQEBGCMo)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icechen1.s...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.icechen1.speechjammer)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd guess this is especially true if you're drunk or speaking in front of a large audience.

</comment><comment><USER7> I rarely do in fact.</comment>


How Startups Are Working On a Decades-Old Problem in Education - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/09/how-startups-are-solving-a-decades-old-problem-in-education/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 <comment><USER2> It definitely seems true, in my experience, that one-on-one tutoring achieves educational outcomes far superior to traditional classroom learning. However, I am wary about the ability of technology to scale this up. One-on-one tutoring is more than just providing a customized curriculum and the expertise to answer any questions the student has.

A huge part of learning effectively is developing the right habits. The startups in the article are not really focusing on that, probably because it's the type of thing that people usually learn indirectly through social interactions (e.g. a child emulating their parent). I also believe much of the value of a tutor lies in the social connection with the student, providing them with someone to model their learning habits after as well as someone to keep them focused and motivated.

I think this social aspect of teaching is very hard to capture with technology, sort of like how it's hard to learn a language without living in a country where everyone speaks it. Technology can help, but I feel it will be more like a 0.2 sigma improvement rather than 2 sigma.

<comment><USER3> I agree that learning habits are important for effective education, but online programs can help students develop those habits better and more consistently than in-person programs can. For example, online programs are much more conducive to gamification. Gamification is essentially a method of shaping user habits into something productive -- it's awkward to do offline but feels natural in an online program.

Our program includes screencasts/videos and pair programming sessions over screenshare, and while it's not exactly the same as pairing in person it does a reasonable job of surfacing how an instructor/mentor thinks to provide queues for social modeling to students. Most people haven't met Richard Feynman, but if you watch enough of his YouTube videos you certainly get a sense for how he thinks and approaches problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting insights. I can see something like this working for consulting possibly. I find clients that get one-to-one coaching benefit better than those in a group setting, but on the flipside it's difficult to scale the business if all you're doing is coaching one to one (excl price increase variables)

</comment><comment><USER5> This issue affects every industry in america. Recently read a good article that talks about this exact same issue [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven- shehori/post_10628_b_88...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven- shehori/post_10628_b_8818164.html)

Im honestly not sure who to blame more, the system or apathetic parents.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi all, I'm the author of this contributed article. TechCrunch wouldn't let us discuss our own company in the article, but at Bloc ([https://bloc.io](https://bloc.io)) we've been working on this category of problems for the last four years. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.</comment>


Show HN: Review Your Product Cycle - <AUTHOR> Thanks to the feedback provided by HN and the Startup School community I iterated ShipIT.
So, both communities get a Product Cycle review for Free!
This review is often based on your GitHub repository or profile, but if you want; I can review other cycles (not automated yet).
Feel free to request a review or connect ShiptIT with your github repo. https://ship-it-app.herokuapp.com/ <comment><USER2> This looks interesting. I was confused about what the product does until I read this line under Suggestions:

"ShipIT takes a GitHub repository of your choice and creates a virtual profile that sends alerts about your Product Development cycle."

Is that the main function? If so, I'd personally move it to the main description under the title.

As a side note, this could be useful for a small project I have in the future. There is a competition that I'm participating in located within Kern County, CA called 59 Days of Code[0] — a tool like this may prove useful for basic organization. I'll suggest it to the team members.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly what I'm aiming. A tool to empower small, focused teams to create, measure and gather feedback in small loops. ShipIT now has different MVPs to test different hypothesis, but for the moment the "Suggestions" feature seems to be the one that I'm going for. And, it's the one that I use in my day to day work.

Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks for the reply. Fede.</comment></comment>