Originally Posted by
WaterOx 
I quit drinking caffeine 2 years ago and my life has changed dramatically.
Most notably was I felt a LOT less anxiety than before. I used to assume all that background anxiety and rumination was normal until I quit drinking caffeine. I'm not talking about being stressed out over big things- I'm talking about things like someone cuts you off in traffic and you stew over it for the next 5 hours, trying desperately to get it out of your head because you know it's so stupid. Or you said something really dumb and now you're thinking about it all day. That sort of thing has dropped by like 90% !!!
Plus, with decaf coffee you don't even have to give up your morning ritual. So I will never ever go back and highly recommend people try it.
Reading this while drinking my 2nd cup of dark roast.
I've been thinking about this a bit since quitting alcohol 7 weeks ago. What is my baseline anxiety level vs the caffeine effect? I can have a panic attack in the car after 2 cups of coffee but less chance with one cup. Zero could make a huge difference. I've been thinking more about the physical benefits of quitting caffeine but WaterOx describing the mental changes is extremely interesting. I'm very prone to rumination, fixations. You are selling me here.
I think I will aim for weaning off and begin switching to decaf and green tea. Thanks for the conversation here.
