6 Things I Learned When I Gave Up Coffee For 10 Days
It was definitely an eye-opener.
Unsplash By Emma Spear
For my 2019 resolution, I decided that I was going to stop drinking coffee.
Mind you, I am someone who loves her coffee. Anyone who has met me has seen me with a coffee cup in my hand at least once.
I walk into Dunkin and the cashier knows my order and hands it to me as I walk up to the register.
All of my friends give me Dunkin Donuts gift cards for my birthday and Christmas (if you’re a coffee drinker you know how amazing this is).
I always jokingly say that I need it to live. But I’m serious, if I don’t have my coffee, I can’t function.
I’m not myself without coffee.
I decided to cut back on coffee for 2019 because I was too reliant on it.
Let’s face it, your pocket becomes pretty empty when you’re spending $3.79 on an iced coffee every morning. So, I decided to cut back and stopped drinking it for 10 days and let me tell you it was an experience.
Here are 6 things I found out when I stopped drinking coffee:
1. Headaches feel like death
I’m someone who gets very, very painful headaches. I get so many that I keep Advil with me at all times.
I am such an avid coffee drinker, it usually is helpful if I get one during the day.
By cutting back on coffee, it made my painful headaches unbearable to the point where I couldn’t focus on what I was doing.
2. Sleepy? More like exhausted
This is probably the main reason as to why I went to back to drinking coffee.
I didn’t realize how much I relied on it to keep me awake during the day.
I work in a classroom of first graders, and when you get home, naturally, you’d think I would be tired, but I was exhausted.
I’d nearly fall asleep on the car ride home type of exhausted. I’d come home and just collapse on my couch from being so tired.
3. “Wait, what did I do with my lunch bag?”
I like to think of myself as someone who has a pretty good memory, with or without coffee.
When I stopped drinking coffee, I forgot everything.
I forgot my lunch bag for work, and I even forgot to actually pack my lunch, so I ended up having to eat pretzels that I had in my bag from another day.
4. Hello everyone, cranky Emma is here!
I am a very nice person. I’m very easygoing. I’m willing to laugh at myself and I have a good sense of humor.
If l trip over my own two feet, I’ll be the first person to burst out laughing.
However, without coffee it’s as if that personality goes away and I become this mean cranky person who, frankly, I’m afraid of.
Without my morning coffee, I would find myself rolling my eyes at things, making really snippy remarks, and one time I actually yelled at a couple of coworkers for really dumb reasons. (For those people. I’m sorry! I don’t know what came over me.)
5. I wasn’t “there”
This sort of ties back into point three: without my coffee, I didn’t pay attention to anything around me, people would ask me something and I wouldn’t be paying attention to what they had said.
I was in the car with my dad, and it wasn’t until probably a good 20 minutes into the conversation when he asked me a question and I realized that he was talking to me.
6. I realized that I’m someone who really needs coffee to function
But I did also realize that I actually am ok if I don’t have it.
I’ve cut down from getting a medium iced coffee every day to getting one large one once a week.
Maybe you can try it out and see how it goes, who knows? Maybe you’ll surprise yourself!
Emma Spear is a writer who focuses on self-care and self-love. For more of her lifestyle content, visit her author profile on Unwritten.