I love my new espresso maker:
I make mostly decaf espresso drinks (to the horror of my peers) but this is because I had a full-blown caffeine addiction in college. I was up to 12-shots of espresso a day just to keep from going into withdrawal. You know things are bad when baristas gasp at your order…
Caffeine intake was a running joke, a stamina-test of sorts. My withdrawal symptoms got so bad after finals that I got migraines and sinus infections. I needed a change.
At first I stopped drinking caffeine during finals and I eventually gave up caffeine entirely except for the random drive-thru diet coke.
I encourage my 1L and undergrad readers to sever the caffeine ties too. Regular caffeine use doesn’t help you stay alert (see this article) and doesn’t make more you productive (see here). So why bother?
“The take home is that regular use of caffeine produces no benefit to alertness, energy, or function.
Regular caffeine users are simply staving off caffeine withdrawal with every dose – using caffeine just to return them to their baseline.
This makes caffeine a net negative for alertness, or neutral at best if use is regular enough to avoid any withdrawal.” – Dr. Steven Novella
No thank you mam. I’ll just enjoy my decaf, unsweetened almond-milk-latte. I’m not a hippie at all…
4 Comments
Tree Hugging 3L
December 7, 2010 at 11:46 pmyou know, recent health issues have made caffeine a no-go for me – and your hippie drink sounds like a DELICIOUS idea. just saying.
Jansen
December 8, 2010 at 11:46 amAlmond milk tis the business. And it really doesn’t taste too much different than a regular latte with an almond shot.
tj
February 17, 2011 at 7:19 pmi am a junior at the university of illinois. after a couple years of drinking a highly-caffeinated drink before i work out (5x/week) and more caffeine when i needed to get some studying done at night, it hit me two days ago that i was dependent on it. i could no longer hit the gym without my drink and i couldn’t stay up late studying without some caffeine.. well, attempting to give it up, around 48 hours in, and it SUCKS. i took a 3 hour nap at 4pm after getting 9 hours of sleep and not having to wake up until 10am. to those that say caffeine addiction is a joke, it’s not.
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