Caffeine Withdrawal
At least twice a year, I briefly reduce my caffeine consumption. I do this before the traditional fast days of Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur.
I am a caffeine fiend and have used it as a crutch for my constant sleep deprivation. However, once thing I fear is the pain of a withdrawal headache. To me, it feels like a numb pressure on my forehead, eyes, and neck, and like I’m wearing a tight sweat band made of steel.
I begin to taper off my 10 cups a day habit starting seven days out. The first day, it’s four cups, then three, two, one, half and on to zero. The last two days, I start to get that dull headache, but it is no where as bad just going cold turkey. By the seventh day, I’m already over it. By day eight, I’m off the wagon again.
One year, when being awoken every two hours by our week-old son, I knew I could not forgo caffeine, so I made my own caffeine skin patch, crushing up a caffeine pill, mixing it with vaseline, smearing it on a bandage, and sticking it on the back of my arm. It could have been the placebo effect, but the patch staved off the worse part of the headaches, or, I was just too sleep deprived to actually to commit to memory the pain I experienced at the time.
What I appreciate about the exercise of tapering off is the ability to examine a habit and see how it affects me on a day-to-day level. Not only does this help with awareness of the impacts but also builds resilience. I know what will happen when I’m stranded on a desert island with no coffee. It might be helpful for us to pause and examine our own habits to see if we can either keep the ones we like or discard the ones we don’t particularly like or no longer serve us.
