I think it's safe to say that coffee is the saving grace of the modern day world. Just when you're ready to raise your white flag and surrender, there's never a reason to fear! Coffee is always here to pick you up from the dumps!
Being a noble citizen of the caffeine-addicted community, I started to wonder what the others do. By "the others" I'm referring to those who don't enjoy life by consuming coffee on a daily basis. (Seriously, how do you people get up in the morning?)
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I drink about an average of 1-2 cups of coffee a day, however depending on how stressed or busy I am, that can graduate to 3-4. The average coffee drinker consumes about 2 cups of coffee daily, which puts me right around average. Looking into this, I pondered if I could ever wean myself off of coffee. 1-2 cups of day isn't an extensive amount, so why not challenge myself and see if I could do it?
For a seven day period, I vowed to not have a single drop of coffee and see how much it affected me. Each day will be represented by an emoji to convey the overall feeling of the day, followed by a short description of the events that occurred.
This is how my week played out:
Sunday:
All in all, I didn't notice much of a change; everything remained as normal. Although people did become slightly more irritating.
Monday:
Okay, now I know why I grab a coffee before my classes. It took every ounce of strength to not only stop myself from falling asleep, but to stay focused for more than two minutes. I've also had massive headaches blaring all day long. I suppose it could be due to the caffeine withdrawals, but I'm going to blame it on the morning people who tried to talk to me.
Tuesday:
The headaches were real today, and not to mention I had a significantly difficult time falling asleep last night. I tossed and turned for a couple of hours, and when I figured I could just grab some coffee later that morning to get me through class, reality smacked me across the face and made everything worse.
When I did manage to fall asleep however, I had some strange dreams. After telling my roommate about them, she looked at me with an endearing look and said "Maybe you should go back to drinking coffee..."
Wednesday:
While driving today I passed four, I repeat, four different coffee shops, all of which I wasn't allowed to enter. On top of that, Dunkin Donuts came out with three new coffee flavors that were advertised in my every direction.
I never noticed how much coffee truly occupied my life until someone asked me how I was doing with my challenge and I started crying.
Thursday:
I seriously don't know how much longer I can take this. My sleeping schedule is all out of sorts; I woke up extremely early for my class. As I waited to kill time, I could feel my Keurig glaring at me from across the room. Once I managed to get to my class, at the right time, we were let out early and I couldn't even grab a cup of coffee to fill the gap before my next class.
I'm exhausted, I'm cranky and I have the attention span of an eggplant. This week needs to be over immediately.
Friday:
Fridays are supposed to be fun. Fridays are supposed to allow you to relax, let loose and get excited because hey, it's the weekend. But you can't have fun or let loose when you have a blaring headache because you decided it would be a grand idea to go a week without coffee or any caffeine!
It's fine, I'm okay, I swear.
Saturday:
Mood:
Thank goodness that this is the last day, I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. I can't concentrate and all I think about is coffee. I do have to thank my peers for supporting me throughout this however; they easily could've waved coffee in my face and tempted me at my lowest point, but luckily they didn't. I probably would've cried anyways.
Overall Consensus:
I have to say, this was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. For someone who has a relatively small amount of coffee every day, or so I thought, I figured it wouldn't have controlled that much of what I do. However, I always thought that a high coffee/caffeine intake was really harmful to the body, it turns out that those who drink coffee regularly have a significant decrease in cardiovascular diseases and other illnesses, who knew?
Over the course of my week from hell, I made a list of the benefits and consequences I experienced in my coffee-free adventure:
Pros:
- I saved a lot of money, around $40! (About $5/day x 7 days/week)
- I stayed asleep throughout the night.
Cons:
- Massive headaches
- Trouble concentrating
- Makes you easily irritable
- Difficulty waking up
- Difficulty staying awake throughout the day
Overall, this definitely is a challenge for the average coffee drinker, and I'm sure that people who don't normally drink it are probably on the safe side. Shifting from having caffeine everyday to suddenly having none at all put my body out of whack; once I was used to constantly having the same thing, my body seemed to forget how to function without it.
So for you non-coffee drinkers out there, I salute you. But let's call it a truce; you continue living your dull, coffee-free life while I curl up next to a piping hot cup of peace and serenity.
Think you can take on the challenge? Try it out! Just be sure to warn the people around you ahead of time.
