My Life Without Coffee
A few months ago, I quit drinking coffee.
I have been drinking coffee since I was a teenager. I remember getting in trouble for skipping school to go get a frappuccino with friends.
I thought the second I stopped drinking coffee, I would turn into a migraine headache grump monster.
I had been using coffee to get me through many things in life.
Mornings with sleep deprivation due to having infants
12+ hour long work days
Difficult days as a parent of young kids - when I was exhausted and trying not to pick fights with my partner or lash out at my kids
Grad school
Working in difficult work environments
PMS
What happened to my body was actually the opposite of what I thought and have been trained to believe might happen.
My mood actually stabilized.
And when I look back, I realize that drinking coffee was just another way I was bypassing my body’s messages. That I was treating a symptom rather than healing the deeper issue.
I have told so many of my clients that coffee/caffeine has been used to activate anxiety in psychological studies. That the mechanism of coffee/caffeine is in fact to create an elevated nervous system response so that you have more energy moving through your body. This also means, you are more activated than you normally would be in your body - you are choosing to place yourself in a heightened and likely more anxious and irritable state.
Actually, I had been choosing to activate my nervous system twice daily in order to bypass the fatigue of trying to keep up with our culture’s impossible standards. And while it did boost my energy and give me almost a manic high for a few hours, it also caused me to crash hard later on. The crashes weren’t as much energetic as they were mood crashes.
I had become so used to it, that I didn’t even realize that the crashes and mood issues were from the coffee and not just my natural baseline.
When I stopped drinking coffee, I began to notice when I was tired. Like so tired that what my body really needed was for me to slow down, work less or get more sleep. I noticed that I actually had a lot of energy that felt stable throughout the day, rather than ups and downs when drinking coffee. I really began to understand my natural energy flow and mood patterns. And I began getting along so much better with my partner and myself, as my mood is more stable and I am responding more effectively to what my body needs from me.
Looking back, I can see that my stopping drinking coffee was just another step towards listening to my body and choosing myself over the expectations of our culture.
There are so many little things we do on a daily basis to bypass the wellness of our bodies in order to keep up with unhealthy and reasonable standards in our lifestyle and/or to try to break out of the oppression of capitalism.
For me, this simple act of choosing not to buy into the consumerism of coffee and to break the habit of bypassing my body to hustle, was a huge one. I have been surprised at just how positively it has impacted me.
I hope this sparks some curiosity in you as well - what are the ways you are buying into our toxic societal norms and bypassing your body and health?
Please share this with friends who may be interested! I write simply to share my expertise and experiences with you, so that we may work together, in community, to create positive change for our community. Friends can sign up for the newsletter here! Thank you for supporting me and lifting the women in our lives.