How I finally kicked my caffeine habit

Those of you who know me well are aware that I've had an unhealthy coffee-chugging habit since high school. Many of you have even attempted to convince me that I should stop this and switch to tea. Those people will now be pleased to hear that I have taken this advice. How did I manage to go from 5-6 cups of coffee a day (at least 8 in the days of Organic Chemistry tests) to 1 at the most, and only on weekdays? Read on to hear the gruesome tale...

I went home to New York for two weeks at the end of January (perhaps there will be a post devoted to that visit later). I guess the adrenaline, excitement and happiness of finally getting to go home was enough to keep jetlag at bay on the way over there, but on the way back...I'm pretty sure I got hit with the equivalent of two servings.

I arrived back in Korea on a Saturday night and spent the whole of Sunday relaxing and resting, trying to be in good enough shape to work the next morning. That evening, I went to bed at 11 PM. I thought to myself, great! This will kick my jetlag in the nuts. I will sleep soundly through the night and feel great tomorrow. Screw you, jetlag. You are full of crap.

Advice: be nice to your jetlag. Don't piss it off.

I woke up at 4:30 AM. 

NOOOOO! DO NOT WANT!!!!!!! 

Unable to go back to sleep, I lay there with my eyes wide open until it was time to get ready for work, and of course, still managed to be late. 

After settling into my chair for an hour or so, I started to feel vaguely nauseous. I tried getting up and walking around, drinking lots of water, and taking deep breaths - nothing helped. I started to sweat and salivate profusely, which are the tell-tale signs that I'm going to vomit. No. You are not sick. Stop it. I managed to keep this at bay, and finally the feeling subsided right around lunchtime. Ah, that's it. I must just be hungry. 

My co-worker and I decided to go to the little cafeteria down the hall and I ordered noodles. I was hungry. I ate the whole thing, and was feeling much better as we walked back to our office.

Did I mention that this whole time I was downing cup after cup of coffee to stay awake? Well I was. And this is important to the story.

I sat down to the second half of my workday with a fresh cup o' joe and a tall glass of water, ready to do whatever it took to get through the day and go home and sleep immediately. But at around 2 PM the nausea came back, this time more suddenly. Apparently, my tummy was NOT having those noodles. When the salivating started this time, I knew there was no turning back. I ran to the bathroom and promptly lost my entire lunch. 

Somehow, this made me feel 100% better. I cleaned up my face, brushed my teeth and returned to my desk to finish up the day.

How does all this connect to caffeine, you might wonder? Well, something in my brain that day decided that the culprit in this nasty nausea bout was not my faulty immune system or my reversed body clock, but coffee. I couldn't think about coffee without feeling my stomach turn.

I decided then and there that I would not drink any coffee for the rest of the week, while I was getting over my jetlag. I figured that I would be miserable anyway, so I might as well double my malaise and profit from it. And that's what I did. I may have taken more work chair naps than usual and relied on an unhealthy amount of Advil to keep away the caffeine withdrawal headaches, but I had no more bouts of nausea and was over both my jetlag and my caffeine addiction in about a week and a half.

Since then, I've allowed coffee to be reintroduced to my life. I no longer crave or need it like I used to - I drink tea instead, and limit myself to one cup of coffee per day. Success!

The end, hopefully.

...Ah yes. I forgot to mention that this epiphany (and the connected sickness and misery) came to me on Valentine's Day. Yay for romance!