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A little off-balance
Jun. 25th, 2006 05:34 amWide awake at 5 a.m. due to caffeine withdrawal backlash. I hadn't blogged about it yet, but an interesting thing I started doing a week or two ago was to successfully cut my coffee consumption down to one big cup a day (first thing in the morning) and keep myself on an even keel the rest of the day by guzzling green tea. This has actually worked out very well. I still gets my caffeine, but not enough to give me jitters into the afternoon or evening, and without all the gut-churning acid that comes with high coffee consumption. I haven't had any all-day crippling stomachaches since I started this regimen, which is wonderful.
Yes, up until now I've been suffering from occasional all-day crippling stomachaches for, oh, a year or two. I don't think I ever mentioned them here, probably because I didn't want to face up to the fact that this was almost assuredly a decade of massive coffee abuse catching up with me. But then it came to pass that earlier this month I was playing Wario Ware: Touched! on my DS and was messing around with a minigame that involves a cartoon Japanese grandmother drinking green tea and I thought to myself hmm, green tea, what a good idea. True story.
Yesterday, though, I needed to refresh my home tea supply but saw that Shaw's didn't seem to have any of the stuff I liked, so experimentally got an inexpensive mint-flavored green blend. It was dreadful, so today I didn't bother making any tea. And so it came to pass that I became dead tired at 1am, which sounds pretty good, except that I was woken up at 4 by a headache and an arm-ache. Yes, my right forearm hurt on the inside, on the blood or bone level. Or so it seemed, anyway; I theorize that the headache was actually reaching down into my neck and right shoulder, and in sleep-deprived confusion I wasn't sure what was hurting. Once I could think straight I figured I was probably dehydrated and, sigh, suffering from withdrawal, so I used two glasses of water to wash down two Excederins (these being caffeine-and-aspirin pills). And I think I was on the money because I feel fine now, but the pills roused me to full wakefulness, and here I am.
Long and short of it is that I today - well, yesterday - proved by accident that I have reduced my coffee habit, which is great, but my caffeine dependency remains strong. Still, I think I have made a net lifestyle improvement. Just have to be more mindful about it.
Yes, up until now I've been suffering from occasional all-day crippling stomachaches for, oh, a year or two. I don't think I ever mentioned them here, probably because I didn't want to face up to the fact that this was almost assuredly a decade of massive coffee abuse catching up with me. But then it came to pass that earlier this month I was playing Wario Ware: Touched! on my DS and was messing around with a minigame that involves a cartoon Japanese grandmother drinking green tea and I thought to myself hmm, green tea, what a good idea. True story.
Yesterday, though, I needed to refresh my home tea supply but saw that Shaw's didn't seem to have any of the stuff I liked, so experimentally got an inexpensive mint-flavored green blend. It was dreadful, so today I didn't bother making any tea. And so it came to pass that I became dead tired at 1am, which sounds pretty good, except that I was woken up at 4 by a headache and an arm-ache. Yes, my right forearm hurt on the inside, on the blood or bone level. Or so it seemed, anyway; I theorize that the headache was actually reaching down into my neck and right shoulder, and in sleep-deprived confusion I wasn't sure what was hurting. Once I could think straight I figured I was probably dehydrated and, sigh, suffering from withdrawal, so I used two glasses of water to wash down two Excederins (these being caffeine-and-aspirin pills). And I think I was on the money because I feel fine now, but the pills roused me to full wakefulness, and here I am.
Long and short of it is that I today - well, yesterday - proved by accident that I have reduced my coffee habit, which is great, but my caffeine dependency remains strong. Still, I think I have made a net lifestyle improvement. Just have to be more mindful about it.
