When I quit I searched this subreddit for advice and best practices, but it was all over the place so here's a what worked for me:

The most important thing no one told me: I wasn't addicted to caffeine, I was addicted to the routine. Usual kettle, warm mug (iced in the summer), and ten minutes of quiet time.

But when I tried to QUIT, I forgot the most important part.. replacing it with something, to not lose the routine. So I was left with.. just nothing, which made it even worse, I felt like I was always reaching for the kettle and mug.

So, the entire story is about replacing, not forgetting:

1. taper down, don't cut out. 25% less each week. Because the withdrawal headache is the #1 relapse trigger.

2. replace the routine with something, even hot water & lemon so your hands aren't empty.

3. add L-theanine or functional mushrooms to take the edge off

4. sort your sleep, because the afternoon slump you're blaming the lack of coffee on is often lost sleep.

Two years on and I don't miss it a single bit. I get zero 3pm crashes. Happy to answer anything if you're in it, this sub got me through it too.

I’m 33 and I’ve been working for almost 8 yrs. When I first started working, I didn’t even drink coffee. I can’t remember when this changed. I needed to drink at least one cup of coffee on workdays just became normal.

If I had coffee after 3pm, I already knew that I wasn’t falling asleep before midnight. Then I’d wake up exhausted, I had to take another cup of coffee to keep awake. Then sleep badly again. Sometimes because I slept too late, I can clearly feel my heart beating very fast when I wake up. I also had random sharp pain in my chest a couple of times. No idea if it was the coffee, the lack of sleep, stress or all three together, but it definitely got my attention and I started to quit drinking coffee.

The first two weeks were sucked. Even though I knew that I can’t drink coffee anymore, but I’d just automatically walk towards the coffee shop every morning. So instead of trying to replace caffeine, I started to replacing the habit.

I tried herbal teas, caffeine free green tea, sparkling water and so on. Eventually I started trying different kinds of ginseng tea as well. As you can see in the picture, that’s what I have in my office. Honestly, most of ginseng teas have kind of earthy and bitter taste. But if it with jasmine, chrysanthemums and goji berries will taste better.

It seems that I have been caffeine free for nearly one year. I can fall asleep around 11pm, no more acne on my face, and my energy is steadier.

I’m curious if anyone else found that replacing the ritual was actually harder than quitting caffeine itself. If you did, what becoming your new daily drink?

Today marks day 39 without caffeine, and it's made me reflect on something bigger than just my own experience. Stepping away from caffeine has made me realize how dependent so many of us have become on substances to feel "normal" or to get through the day. Whether it's caffeine, alcohol, cannabis, or something else, it seems like so much of our society relies on external things to regulate energy, mood, or stress. It has even brought me to think about how birth control affects hormones and the impact that can have on a person's wellbeing.

I started drinking coffee daily in college (34 years old now). Around 25, my friend who also had terrible trouble waking up in the morning, turned me on to caffeine pills. I would wake up at 7 am, drink water and take 100mg, and go back to sleep only to have the caffeine wake me up against my will 15 minutes later. It actually cured my sleeping in and was the best thing ever. I felt super productive. This went on for many years, and eventually I just felt tired ALL the time. I could only feel good for a few hours a day when the caffeine balance was right. I had no trouble sleeping though, and would sleep through the night 8 hours, but I was just tired all the time, drinking 3 cups a day plus a caffeine pill in the morning.

I figured if I was tired all the time anyway, I might as well quit caffeine. I read tons of stories on this sub about how long it takes to get back to normal and how worth it it is. I decided to try it, so I quit cold turkey 2 years ago. The first month was weird - I didn't get headaches actually, but it felt like I stepped outside of my life. Everything slowed down and I felt some sort of peace but also a lack of motivation. Not in a depressed way, but I was just questioning everything in my life - like do I really enjoy this job that I have? I felt like a monk or something. The mental barrier to do intense work (I'm a researcher) was huge. I was super unproductive, and would drink a single cup of coffee once a week to just be able to get over the barrier.

I did that for about a month before going real cold turkey. It was about 2 months before I felt an innate surge of energy and motivation where I felt like I could just do things. At that point I knew I didn't need coffee anymore. I would think about it a lot though, and would experiment with half a shot of espresso maybe once a month or so. By 9 months or so I finally stopped that as well.

The change to my mind has been incredible. I feel like there is no barrier to starting work or doing tasks, I can just easily slide into whatever work I want, whereas I used to NEED a hit of caffeine to start intense tasks. I basically never feel tired anymore. Everything is just steady, I can work long hours if necessary and it's smooth sailing. The constant caffeine buzz is just gone and I feel at peace.

A few times over the last couple years I drank a cup just to see what happens and I'm extremely sensitive. It's wild, if I drink a single espresso or cup of coffee even at 7am, I won't sleep that night. During the day I feel an intense buzz, and I can barely fall asleep by 4 AM and i feel terrible the next day due to sleep deprivation. I don't even think it makes me more productive since I can work the same amount without it. It's just an intense buzz I can't get rid of. I can still feel the caffeine buzz 24 hours later. And the sleep is miserable its like a fever dream. It takes me 3-4 days to recover. I now sometimes get a decaf coffee while I work at a coffee shop and depending on the type of decaf, I end up getting bad sleep. So i just stick to herbal tea.

It's crazy to think how much I was drinking every day, given what my baseline sensitivity is. It's so obvious that the caffeine was the single root cause of my constant tiredness and lack of innate motivation. I can't imagine how different the chemical regulation in my brain was to accommodate a constant high level of caffeine. If you look at the math - say 8 hours half-life. 100mg cup of caffeine at 8AM --> 50mg at 4PM --> 25mg at Midnight. And with zero sensitivity 25mg is VERY noticeable. Then 12.5mg the next morning at 8AM (still noticeable) --> 6.25mg at 4PM the next day (still barely noticeable). And then finally by the next evening i'm at ~3mg. And this is assuming 8 hours half-life - as a hypersensitive person it might be 10+ hours. Now imagine I'm drinking 300+ mg / day, my baseline was probably at 100mg at all times. insane

Hi,

I suffer from severe anxiety (GAD) and have been struggling for years to recover.

About a year ago I gave up alcohol while still drinking 3–4 coffees (with cream and sugar) a day. After about 5–6 months I started to feel much better. My motivation, drive and overall mood gradually returned.

Unfortunately, I started drinking again about two months ago. It wasn't much at first, but it ended with me drinking every day on a recent 14-day holiday.

When I got home, I decided to quit both alcohol and coffee because I know they both seem to play a role in my anxiety, and I'd read a lot of posts here about caffeine making anxiety a lot worse for lots of people.

Today I'm 12 days off alcohol and 9 days off coffee, and it's been brutal. My anxiety has been through the roof, the depression has been severe, and I've even had some intrusive suicidal thoughts (which are unwanted and seem to come with the anxiety but not looking to act on them). Mornings are by far the worst, then things gradually improve from around 4 pm onwards until the evenings are relatively calm.

This morning I just couldn't take it anymore, so I had a double espresso with cream and a little sugar to see what would happen.

Lo and behold, within about 30 minutes my anxiety dropped dramatically and the depression eased as well. It honestly shocked me.

Now I'm wondering whether trying to quit alcohol and caffeine at the same time was too much for my system. I'm considering focusing on staying alcohol-free first for several months, then, once I'm more stable, gradually tapering off coffee instead of stopping everything at once.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Did quitting alcohol and caffeine together make things much harder, or did you find it settled after a few weeks?

Any advice or shared experiences appreciated. I'm just trying to understand why reintroducing it made such a dramatic difference after 9 days without it.

Thanks.

T

Hi all,

I quit caffeine cold turkey 4 days ago from a 600mg+ daily consumption. Wanted to check in about one of the withdrawal symptoms I have which is sciatica-like pain. I never had lower back issues. No pain, no soreness, nothing. But at day 2, I felt this burning sensation in my lower back and there is literally nothing I can do in terms of massaging or changing my posture that alleviates the pain. Sometimes it shoots up my left leg, but I don't feel any different in terms of strength during working out. When I have a flare-up, the only thing that completely eliminates the pain is an ibuprofen.

Just wanted to check in because this type of pain is not really listed as a classic withdrawal symptom as far as I know. In terms of other withdrawal symptoms I was quite lucky. My headache only lasted a day or so and my mood is quite good, no real difference there. My mornings are only a bit flat but I'll get used to that.

Anyone else experienced this type of pain? Did it subside? Tips?

Thanks!

Edit: I did a caffeine free period back in 2018, too and had the exact same issue. Back then I didn't push through so I don't know if it subsides by itself.

Far from the cold-turkey brutality of what some people are enduring on here, but right now I'm striving to switching all 2-3 cups a day to green tea, steeped for 4 minutes or less (to avoid extracting too much caffeine from the leaves).

Many people on here seem to have benefited from first grading down from coffee to tea, and I've been hitting my double espressos hard for the past couple of years. I've quit cold turkey in the past, but that always seems to drive me into months of depression, so this is my attempt to avoid that as much as possible. I'm bad at tapering (if I do that I'll just relapse), so I figure anchoring my habits and sensory attachments to an entirely different beverage is a good first step.

Lately it feels like caffeine has been destroying my whole life; even if this isn't entirely true (there are definitely other factors at play), the fact that I believe it to be true makes it true for me, I guess. So here we go.

Fairly banal post, but this is about all the creative energy I can summon right now. Wishing y'all an excellent, lower-caffeine day.

My body is screaming out due to my caffeine addiction, I feel like a raisin lol

Tl;dr tingling and numbness in whole body, full body muscle seizing in a way where not even my tongue would move during speech, vertigo and vomiting, extremely laborious breathing. Do any of these extend past expected symptoms?

Edit: symptom + clarification

Not sure how to start this, but "scares" should paint a picture of where I'm at. Potentially undiagnosed for the spectrum, and I consider myself a heavy "dopamine seeker" in my habits. Big on energy drinks since I was in middle school, ramped up to multiple a day up til now when I find myself roughly 30 years old. Pain in my left side (roughly kidney area) prompted me to make the change and drink more water.

I started cutting back the 1~3 daily Monster Javas around two weeks ago, letting myself have one each week in addition to pop/soda with lunch and dinner. I have been hit by a physically crippling flurry of symptoms that I wanted to inquire about (for peace of mind/solidarity). I thought this would help stave off withdrawal symptoms. I'll list what I'm experiencing and I also recognize no suggestions are "medical advice" or what not. Planning on stopping entirely, but the muscle tensing portion specifically was so bad that had I been driving, I would have lost control. Thankfully my partner was taking me somewhere to get checked out, but still very scary.

1. Tingling in hands, feet, and the muscles of my throat that wraps around the back of my head to my earlobes.

2. Entire body "seized" or tightened up. It felt like my hand was clenched in a fist, but when I looked down at it, it was open as if to "high-five," while being nearly impossible to close into said fist. Also affected my tongue and speech.

3. Extreme dizziness in any position, except perhaps laying down. Following by vomiting.

4. Chest pains and labored breathing, made especially worse in anything other than a colder environment.

5. Hot/cold flashes

Do any of these go beyond what would be expected?

Just found this subreddit a week ago or so. Quit coffee & caffeine cold turkey. Was probably drinking the equivalent of 3-6 coffees a day.

Stress was worse than ever 1-3 after quitting. At day 7 I’m basically completely fine and stress free.

TLDR: quit caffeine; stress went away. Took a week.

today i was trying to relax with my bf and realized I couldn’t calm down. it had been a long day and , despite me being tired , my heart and mind were racing. I had two iced coffees today and im very sensitive to caffeine. I almost had a meltdown and my bf suggested that I try to get some support since this has been an addiction/issue of mine for years.

caffeine is really normalized and there aren’t really “support groups” I can attend every week. But I wanted to share my progress with people here going through the same situation. Tomorrow will be my first day without caffeine in a very long time , and I’m pretty scared. We’ll see how it goes !

I quit caffeine 6 months ago almost by accident. After a heavy night out, I told myself "no coffee this Sunday." Then it became a week. And here I am, 6 months later.

My background

For over 20 years I was drinking 3 coffees a day, sometimes with a soda on top, ever since I started working in an office. Before that, I grew up drinking green tea — it's part of my culture. I never thought coffee was a problem for me. No severe anxiety, no dramatic symptoms like you read about. I genuinely believed I was fine.

The contrast only hit me when I stopped.

I'm also quite active, working out 5 times a week, cycling, hiking, and playing soccer regularly. I thought my lifestyle was healthy overall.

The first weeks

Week 1 : headaches and sleep issues, nothing surprising. Week 2 : headaches gone but focus was off, and I had this strange feeling of calm ,almost like a deep relaxation I hadn't felt in years. That's when I realized coffee had been messing with my cortisol more than I thought. and I did'nt stop anything I keep hting the gym and cycling, even It was bad I show up

The sleep chapter, the hardest part for me

This is what nobody prepares you for. After the first 2 weeks everything felt normal , but then for the next 2 months I struggled badly with sleep. I was falling asleep at 9:30pm, waking up at 3 or 4am unable to go back to sleep. I had enough energy during the day but those early wake-ups were rough.

Around month 2 I started falling back asleep 1–2 hours after waking. By month 3 I could sleep through the night from 10–11pm to 7–8am. Then suddenly I couldn't fall asleep until 2am for 2 weeks straight. By month 4 my sleep finally regulated consistently every night.

The timeline was nothing like the "3–5 days and you're fine" myth.

The 3pm crash

For the first 3 months I had a reliable energy crash every afternoon. After month 3 it simply stopp even after heavy meals. That one surprised me.

Learning to live without it

The real challenge wasn't the physical symptoms — it was relearning situations where coffee was automatic. DIY project at home? It was always coffee before, coffee during. First project without it felt like something was missing. I replaced it with caffeine-free tonic water. Coffee shop with friends or family? Had to make a new default choice. Family gatherings where green tea is the tradition? Switched to herbal tea — and interestingly several family members joined me because they enjoyed it too.

Every social situation that was wired to coffee had to be consciously rewired. It takes time but it becomes natural.

What actually improved 6 months in

The improvements came gradually and kept coming further than I expected :

• Digestion noticeably better, much less bloating
• Less sweating
• Calmer and less reactive under stress
• Better skin
• Feel more comfortable and open around people
• Morning freshness I genuinely never experienced as an adult — this one was unexpected and hard to describe

What I want people to know

I thought stopping coffee meant 3 to 5 days of headaches. The reality was 60 days to sleep properly, 3 months to stabilize, and I'm still seeing improvements at 6 months.

If you're on day 10 wondering why it's not over yet , it's not supposed to be. You're not doing it wrong. The timeline is just longer than the internet tells you and we have all different reaction to substance

My challenge now is to never go back, because I believe that once you become addicted to something, it is no longer possible to moderate your consumption. I experienced this with cigarettes I was addicted and the only way out was to stop completely 10 years now. Whereas with alcohol I can moderate my consumption because I was never addicted to it.

Worth it though. Completely.

I have tried quitting dozens of times. Like a lot of people here, I've had some good runs, I'll go for some days or even weeks, then fall back into it...

I tried pretty much all the common tricks. Tapering, meditation, exercise, diet tweaks. They all work to some extent but I'm too dumb to let them work and I end up waking up wanting a coffee.

What actually worked?

I would wake up and have the equivalent of a Tylenol PM in my country, a pretty mild sleeping aid.
I knew that once I had one there would be no point of having caffeine because I was starting to feel sleepy anyway and I'd nap at lunch. If I had coffee and a sleeping pill I'd just feel so gross.

Anyway, I got a good 3 days out of this and finally managed to quit (without the pills anymore obviously). It was a good way to trip my system and finally quit. I also obviously acknowledge that this wouldn't work for 95% of people because of work, family and life commitments. It just so happens that I tried this on an extended paid holiday I took with saved up leave (once again, something that is possible in my country and not really common in the US).

Just thought I'd share it because it was kind of funny and it worked

Proud to say that after 25+ years of drinking caffeinated drinks I'm quitting today.

Posting this for accountability.

I've tried to stop in the past, but each time I feel lethargic and slow without the brown liquid, but it gives me 30-60 minutes of clarity, then all the other issues follow - anxiety, depression, increased blood pressure.. no more.

In conjunction with quitting alcohol, improving my diet and exercise, I'm hoping for better results this time.

So, day 1, here goes.

Hey everyone! I am almost on day 40 of decaf. My anxiety has definitely lowered, but in going decaf I've noticed mild depressive symptoms. This is especially uncomfortable when I've been used to feeling anxious, not depressed. Luckily with the passing days, I have felt it's gotten better. Has anyone else experienced this?

I’ve quit for a few months in the past and it was amazing, but fell into the addiction hole again as many of us do because we are human. I am digging myself out again right now because of the anxiety and panic attacks I was facing constantly. Here’s a few benefits I’ve noticed from being off caffeine for just a week:

- lower body temp / better temp regulation: I no longer have to crank the AC at night to sleep well and I don’t wake up sweating
- less urination frequency / urgency
- better hydration
- less jaw clenching: I find myself not grinding my teeth all the time, and my top and bottom jaw are always open slightly
- way lower blood pressure
- less worrying about the future
- more thankful for what I have
- less rashes from leaky gut syndrome and fewer food intolerances
- never needing to nap, sustainable energy all day
- less angry… my goodness I was frustrated all the time
- less road rage (driving in Tennessee sucks)
- loving my partner more and appreciating slow time together
- greater appreciation of boredom
- better curiosity about everything
- less cravings of unhealthy foods and sugar
- less workout injuries: I would often train way too aggressively and would strain muscles
- saving money $$$
- not needing anything in the morning to feel good
- no panic attacks and significantly less anxiety altogether
- appreciating nature and my surroundings more
- better focus and improved ADHD
- improved neurological symptoms: I’m a 5 year sober alcoholic who did a lot of damage to my nervous system and caffeine would trigger nerve spasms and dizziness, this has greatly improved

If you’re in the early stages of quitting I encourage you to workout or go for at least a walk every day. Trust me, it will help. The hardest part is finding the motivation to get out the door but once you do, you will be able to gain energy from the exercise. Also, eat healthy and try to eliminate sugar… it will help with the depression you might face. You got this!

I quit coffee cold turkey and now I'm on day 2 of 0 caffeine (3 days ago I had my last coffee) and honestly it is super easy. This is supposed to be the peak withdrawal where I have bad headaches and feel exhausted and all that, yet I feel perfectly fine. Perhaps a little more sleepy but I slept that off already. No headaches. Just slightly lethargic. I was having 3-4 French press coffee cups a day for weeks, like 6-8 TBSP ground coffee. Now I'm having nothing at all.

Here's the thing...if you tell yourself that quitting coffee is going to be some terribly difficult ordeal you have to overcome, then you manifest that reality, psychosomatically. The mind is extremely powerful. And if you believe you will go through intense withdrawals, or that you need months to slowly taper off and quit, then you're only making it harder on yourself.

Now it isn't that your physiological symptoms aren't real (well, technically nothing is real because life is a dream, but I'm not denying you can have an experience the mind ordinarily identifies as physical withdrawal). It's that the physical and the mental are not two separate processes, as scientific common sense would assume. Those are only conceptual categories thought has created. The mental is the physical and vice versa. The world is a dream which is one movement of energy and thought calls this "reality".

So if you believe all the scientific propaganda about chemicals in your brain having a certain cause and effect (which can't be proven by the way since the hard problem of consciousness has not been solved by scientists), you will experience those effects as really happening to you. But if you see that all of that is just a construct of thought you have inherited from your culture, a compelling narrative, and that none of it is ultimately real, then you basically hack the matrix. You can quit cold turkey and feel fine. It's analogous to the Matrix movie where Neo bleeds in the "real" world because his mind is convinced that it is actually happening.

Now a big reason why people experience a harsh withdrawal is that they hold on to the same behavioral patterns they were using coffee to sustain. They try to push through boring, hard, mechanical work (which is inherently self-destructive) when their body is signaling to sleep and rest. They do this primarily due to a perception of social pressure, since modern culture emphasizes productivity to the point of making oneself sick. So this inner conflict creates pain and discomfort because you aren't listening to the body's natural intelligence. You are trying to force yourself to stay the same as you were while consuming a large dose of a stimulant and doing tedious work. The trick is to "get with it", to go with whatever you would normally call "withdrawal". Now the mind and body are no longer in conflict and this actually heals you. You wake when you are wakeful, you sleep when you are sleepy. If you feel pain, you feel pain, but now the mind doesn't interpret the sensations as pain because you are no longer at odds with your own nature.

Moral of the story: don't make a big deal out of caffeine, and it will not be a big deal for you.

This is by far the longest I’ve gone with trying to cut back on caffeine, and I’m really feeling the withdrawal now lol, but funnily enough not as much as I’ve had before.

I finally decided that this would finally be the time I’d quit drinking my soda so often, because it was affecting my heart rate really badly with my recent Focalin prescription (in addition to me having a mild heart issue) and the acidity was making all medications for me barely work, or end shortly. The Focalin has worked really well for me, so I decided this would be a good time to ultimately cut down on my consumption.

So far I’m mostly just feeling extremely aching, like I had fallen down multiple stairs lol. My arms, neck, and upper back are really cramping up, but not too terribly. I interestingly haven’t had any headaches today, and I only had a mild one yesterday, but maybe it’s because I’ve been chugging so much water to try and distract myself from the soda lol

Despite that I’m feeling pretty good mood wise, and in a sort of baseline way unlike how my Focalin improves my mood. Might partly be because of me getting back on my Zoloft, but I started it around the same time as I started cutting back on caffeine, so idk. My fatigue and motivation haven’t changed much yet, but we’ll see.

I’m surprised my cravings for soda have decreased so much, drinking water still feels like somewhat of a chore and I still drink the occasional sip so I’m not going full cold turkey, but overall I’m really quite hopeful and optimistic about this time. I’ll try and update how I’m doing sometime in the future.

Every time I try to quit coffee I either cave in 2 days or get a brutal headache and give up. Cold turkey clearly doesn’t work for me. Has anyone tried actually stepping down their caffeine gradually like a real schedule, not just “drink less” and had it stick? What did you use, and did it actually stop the withdrawal symptoms? Trying to figure out if a structured approach is worth building for myself or if it’s a lost cause.

Hey everyone I'm 18M and I have been consuming about 200-300mg caffeine average pretty much everyday the last 1.5 years. I've had the strong urge to watch p*rn everyday sometimes multiple times per day and I wanted to stop because I think that amount is bad for my mental health. But when I stopped drinking caffeine, my urge to watch p*rn is way down, and I don't have a partner or anything so I don't really feel very much sexual desire. I really like this feeling because I used to feel like a sexual deviant. Caffeine increasing libido makes sense as it increases dopamine and noradrenaline, which indiscriminately increases motivation. There is this phenomenon called "stimfapping" where people taking stimulants like cocaine, meth, Adderall, etc. will watch p*rn for long periods of time, like upwards of 24 hours. I think caffeine may also do this to a smaller extent as it works on the same dopamine mechanism just to a lesser extent. The main reason I quit was because of higher chronic anxiety but this is also a welcome effect!

Hey everyone, has anyone used the liver enzyme testing online to see if they’re a fast or slow metaboliser of caffeine?

Most online don’t seem legit and I’m wondering if they’re worth doing?

Currently on a caffeine free journey, nearing 90 days.

Has anyone got any recommendations?

Every time I try to quit caffeine I get these negative effects; increased anxiety, lower confidence, low motivation, moody.

Especially the increased anxiety is hard for me as I struggle with panic attacks. When I quit caffeine I tend to get more frequent panic attacks.

Anyone else have experienced this?

I basically don't feel like myself when i am off caffeine.

I quit caffeine five months ago, and I just don’t buy that FIVE CUPS of coffee is in any way good for a person. The increased anxiety, worse sleep, heart palpitations, fluctuating energy levels made for a poorer quality of life in my case. To say nothing of the weeks of brain fog that came from the withdrawal of trying to quit.

I have friends that point to these studies and won’t listen to a word I say, unless it‘s “backed by the science,“ to try and discredit my lived experience. They act like I made a mistake quitting.

What do you guys make of today’s research and the scientific studies favoring coffee overall ?