A Therapeutic Shot

Although it's been several weeks now since I've imbibed coffee, I decided today to indulge in a cup again in an effort to reestablish a more regular sleep pattern. For some time now I've fallen into the habit of sleeping for about four hours during the day and another four hours at night. The two periods are widely separated. 

The problem has become more acute of late as I seemed to be sleeping far more than I should be. I woke up today about 1am and normally I would have slept or still be sleeping now at 2pm. Instead I decided to drink a cup of coffee in an effort to stimulate myself to stay awake until after dark. By the time the caffeine wears off, it will hopefully be around 7pm to 8pm and I can sleep for eight or so hours and get up around 3pm to 4pm.

Balzac's work habits were legendary. He wrote from 1 am to 8 am every morning and sometimes even longer. Balzac could write very rapidly; some of his novels, written with a quill, were composed at a pace equal to thirty words per minute on a modern typewriter. His preferred method was to eat a light meal at five or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerable cups of black coffee. He often worked for fifteen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once worked for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in the middle. Source.

That's the plan anyway. I can only wait and see what happens. So far the caffeine is kicking in and I'm feeling "stimulated". I'm ready to write that novel that everyone has inside of them. I can understand what propelled Balzac, an inveterate coffee addict, to write as prodigiously as he did. The danger is that I'll revert to my previous addiction, a problem with every addict. While I'm tempted to indulge in an early morning cup of coffee on a regular basis, I certainly won't go back to drinking tea for the remainder of the day as I used to do. I'll stick to water.

Health-wise I seem to be OK but I find myself thinking that every twinge or pang is the harbinger of my demise. It's remarkable that my body has held up for this long (almost 74 years). I was watching a video of a young woman living in a van who a couple of years before suffered some health crisis that required the removal of her entire large intestine. She needs to use a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. It made me realise how fortunate I was to have enjoyed good health for so long. My only health crisis occurred in late July of 2016 when I needed to have my gall bladder removed. Hopefully my next health crisis will be far off and will be my last. 

Post Caffeine

It's been more than a couple of weeks now then I quit caffeine and I can say that I haven't felt this good in a long time. I'm sleeping better, my head is clearer and I have more energy. With our maid gone, I'm finding that just doing chores around the house is sufficient exercise for me. Fortunately, our house has many steps and this is what makes the difference. I'm not roaming around on the one level but constanty climbing or descending. 

It was only a couple of days ago that I resumed my leg exercises after a break of a couple of months. I want to continue these. It was last night that I resumed my faux sit-ups but paid the price today with discomfort in my solar plexus area. Prior to this I'd been feeling very little discomfort. I'm debating whether to continue these or not. As usual I launched into the faux sit-ups at my pre-break levels, ignoring common sense that would have warned too much too quickly.

Normally I weigh myself before breakfast but today, even after eating a breakfast of two pieces of toast and two cups of water, I weighed just 72.5 kg which I'm happy about. Overall though, the increased feeling of well-being is more than adequate compensation for foregoing the stimulation of caffeine via tea and coffee. The world may still run on coffee but not my world. I'm finally free of it. 

Illness

It was on August 24th that felt unwell after having breakfast of avocado on toast with a cup of coffee. The symptoms that followed over that day and the next two were identical to those that I'd suffered some months before when I suddenly stopped my consumption of caffeine: aching hip joints, general malaise and acute brain fog.

I can only assume that my symptoms this time were also a product of caffeine withdrawal. Despite giving up caffeine, I had slowly returned to my old ways and by the time of the morning in question I was really back to where I'd started. My body is telling me quite firmly to give caffeine up again and this time forever. 

It's unfortunate but, like alcohol, I know that as my body ages it becomes more sensitive to toxins that I was able to tolerate in my youth and it's saying it can't cope with caffeine anymore. I need to listen. I've also stopped drinking the goat's milk that I was prescribed. I don't think that was helping me either.

So now, instead of tea and coffee, it's just clear water and, fortunately here in Indonesia, it's not fluoridated. My weight is back down in 72.8 kg which is good and hopefully I can shed a couple of more kilograms. I still get fatigued easily and there's no denying that I'm not the man I once was but all I can do is carry on.

Caffeine Addition: Progress Report

On 20th September, I made a post titled Caffeine Addiction in which I discussed my then very recent withdrawal from tea and coffee and their replacement with warm water and nothing else. I'm happy to report that for nearly two months I was able to maintain my "sobriety". Apart from an occasional fruit juice and one cup of hibiscus tea, water has been all I've imbibed.

Today however, I was "forced" into drinking a small cup of Americano at a restaurant. The reason for doing so has to do with my sleeping pattern. Over the past weeks, I'd fallen into the habit of sleeping around 9am, waking up in the afternoon and then snoozing again some time in the evening. Overall I was still getting seven to eight hours of sleep but divided into two quite separate parts. 

Circumstances conspired so that today I was still awake at midday having foregone my morning nap. Together with my family, I was in a restaurant and found myself in a severe sleep-deprived state. In order to keep functioning, I ordered an Americano to accompany my meal. The potency of its effect really surprised me. I was instantly alert and able to function more or less as I could have with my morning sleep behind. Furthermore, I was able to remain awake until almost 10pm of that same day.

For the first few hours after the drink, I was quite "high" and come down slowly over the remaining hours. I was reminded yet again of how potent coffee really is. I don't intend to return to my caffeine-drinking days and am happy to maintain my water only liquid intake. Upon waking up at 1am of the next day (having slept for about three hours), I noticed that I had drooled a little onto my pillowslip and that the smell of the saliva had the same slightly unpleasant smell that it used to have in my coffee and tea drinking days.

Figure 1

Since drinking only water, I drool less and when I do, it has a neutral odour. Presumably the caffeine is being excreted via my saliva when I sleep. Overall my health is good. I've managed to go for a brisk, twenty minute morning walk on most days combined with some light exercises throughout the rest of the day. My weight remains constant at around 71.5 kilograms. My thymoma has not been causing me any significant problems. Lying here, typing this blog post, my resting place rate is about 65 which is "good" (see Figure 1).

Caffeine Addiction

My thymoma, that I've mentioned in earlier posts, was causing problems again and so psychic help was sought. During a tele-healing session, I was advised to refrain from tea or coffee consumption for a period of about four days while my condition was monitored (remotely). In the meantime, I was to drink nothing but warm water. This came as something of a surprise but I nonetheless agreed to abide by the recommended restrictions. 

I'm somewhat unusual in that I seldom consume straight water. All of my fluid intake comes normally from the consumption of coffee in the morning and tea for the rest of the day. Both coffee and tea contain caffeine and I didn't realise the drastic effect that the changeover would entail. Yesterday was the first day and I spent most of it sleeping, having been overcome by a profound lethargy. 

Having missed my morning cup of coffee, I never really woke up. When I was not sleeping, I was in a very irritable mood and had a thick head. Later in the day, a dull pain in my hip joints set in and refused to abate. It persisted throughout the second day during which I decided to take a pain killer in order to obtain some relief. I checked on the Internet to find out if caffeine withdrawal could induce such suffering. Indeed it could. This one site titled HOW I BROKE UP WITH CAFFEINE (AND WHY I DESPERATELY NEEDED TO) said:

“The cessation of daily caffeine consumption produces a well-established withdrawal syndrome comprised of subjective symptoms and functional impairment, including headache, tiredness/fatigue, decreased alertness, decreased energy and difficulty concentrating,” he said. “These effects are likely to be more severe depending on the habitual caffeine intake (i.e. a larger or longer addiction results in greater withdrawal effects).

“Caffeine is an adenosine receptor antagonist, so when caffeine is removed, the effects of adenosine are magnified. For example, cerebral blood flow is increased when caffeine is withdrawn (acute caffeine administration decreases cerebral blood flow velocity) resulting in headaches. Aside from vascular effects, we also know that caffeine withdrawal can alter central nervous system activity.

“Given the spread of adenosine receptors throughout the body, and the importance of adenosine for the functioning of most cells, the consequence of withdrawal from large habitual doses of caffeine (i.e. >600mg/day!) will result in a broad array of symptoms.”

Like the author of the previous article, I had no idea what a grip the drug had on me. He wrote:

As Associate Professor Desbrow assured me: “The good news is that even in the most severely affected, symptoms typically subside within a week.” He was spot on. A week had now passed since Matt’s unintentional gauntlet-throw. I was waking up fresh (not drinking alcohol probably played a part there), I felt normal again, I’d discovered an excellent organic, caffeine-free tea that more than resembled my usual go-to, and most importantly I felt like I had my brain back again.

In fact, not only did I have it back, but I felt as if I was able to operate at a higher level than usual. Most notable was being able to stick to one task through completion, and my productivity (particularly at night – again, hello whisky) was remarkably better.

I’m still quite uncertain about whether I can recommend quitting caffeine. Without embellishing in the slightest, the withdrawal was one of the most rubbish experiences I’ve put my body through. I’ve experienced plenty of post-ride fatigue, but this happily took the worst of it and factored it by five. The very marrow of my bones hurt, and that’s without beginning on the crushing headaches.

I have been highly critical of people who take antidepressant medication (as over three million Australians do) but I now realise it was a case of the kettle calling the pot black. I was no better. It's taught me to get my own house in order before criticising others.

The following video does a good job of explaining the effects of caffeine:

The commentator in the video makes the important point that giving up tea and coffee can be damaging to health because of the risk of decreased hydration. People just don't drink enough to replace the water that was in the coffee and tea that they drank.