What do you think of a weekly ‘Caffeine Diaries’ post by a random writer?
Well, it’s Sunday in my part of the world (I currently live in a lovely beach city in India) and also day 8 of living without having consumed a cup of coffee. I can honestly say I don’t think it’s made any difference in my life so far, except maybe to make me a little more miserable and anxious than before.
For now, the ‘Caffeine Diaries’ idea is to pile on the self-pressure to keep being miserable, although I wouldn’t be exactly ashamed if the next Sunday headline for this weekly post idea reads – ‘Caffeine Diaries – I Couldn’t Get to Week 2, Back to Drinking Coffee.’
Seriously, today we were celebrating a birthday and even though it’s NOT my birthday, I was extremely tempted to make myself a nice big glass of home-made cold coffee. Then, I didn’t.
For some context, I started drinking coffee only after getting my first job as a broadcast journalist, where working minimum 12 hours a day was the norm. On big election days, we were slogging for at least 18 hours. Yes, crazy. While others ran on smoke, I ran on the free coffee cups from the office vending machine. Cheap instant coffee, that was my first introduction to the beverage. For those first few years, my coffee count was anywhere between 4-6 cups a day. And till date, I am still a ‘poor broke trainee journalist’ at heart, preferring cheap premixes over premium freshly brewed stuff. Although I sometimes do pay for fancy over-priced brews too.
In the last two years, it’s been 1-2 cups a day, and (almost) never after 4 pm. At around 4 pm. I do have a cup of tea, which for now I’ve pushed to an earlier time-band. My daily beverage intake the last week: no coffee and one cup of tea (yes, I know it has some caffeine). While I am not a coffee ‘addict’, whenever anybody visits, I ask them for books or coffee.
I stopped drinking alcohol in 2019 (except for a rare toast, like my dad’s 60th birthday) and became the weirdo who orders cold coffee at dinner gatherings. Then I switched to ginger ale. Coffee is probably the few indulgences of my life. For instance, Abstract AF is a daily blog, where I have now written over 3000 articles (click here if you don’t believe me), but I rarely do personal posts. However, the first time I tried ‘egg coffee‘ in Hanoi, the excitement led me to write a little travel post. Just trying to establish my love for it. Maybe ‘Caffeine Diaries’ should’ve been an older thread where I wrote about different types of coffee experiences.
Why am I trying to Quit Coffee?
Maybe it’s just a phase, but it’s been brought upon by a really bad bout of horrid sleep quality. For the last few weeks, I haven’t been sleeping well. And it’s not that I have trouble falling asleep. it’s the ‘deep sleep’ phase which eludes me – until my waking moment, my mind remains troubled. When I wake up, I feel exhausted and shit.
From the last few months, I’ve consistently been reading different novels (reading Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is the fastest way to fall asleep) before going to bed, and not doom-scrolling on a screen. And while the reading definitely helps me fall asleep faster, I still don’t feel rested even after a good eight hour long pause. My eyes are burnt out.
Everything about my day is mostly disciplined – my meal times are fixed, I drink enough water, I walk/exercise every evening, even when it’s raining (it’s monsoon season in India right now), even when I want to just cry and give up (even when Aunt Flo is ruthless). And dinner is consumed at least 5 hours before bed time. Zero snacking post dinner.
Although of course there are some things I am stressed and anxious about, which is obviously a contributing factor for the poor sleep quality. But while I cannot control feeling anxious or stressed, the best approach is to have a sense of power over something, to feel like you are making an effort to fix a problem. Cutting out coffee seemed like one solution. And trying to make a weekly post called ‘Caffeine Diaries’ out of it is instant reward.
I didn’t think I’d even get to day 3 without coffee, so I’ve been slowly telling people about it, just to feel more accountable. For instance, a friend of mine sent me a photo of a book he is reading – How to make the best coffee at home by James Hoffmann. It’s a Sunday Times Bestseller. It was literally the first time this year he sent me something to do with coffee, which felt so ironic, so I told him about how I hadn’t been drinking any the last few days.
Interestingly, I just finished reading a book called ‘Hooked’ by Butter author Asako Yuzuki, which features a woman running a blog called ‘The World’s Worst Housewife’, who starts to turn every little thing in her life into content. Now of course, ‘Caffeine Diaries’ is only going to be about my relationship with coffee and it’s probably not very interesting. But maybe, ultimately, this is just a coping mechanism too – without coffee, I am already struggling to write things. So turn coffee into something to write about.
For a long time, my routine has always been about making myself a nice cup of coffee before I sit down to write for the day. And for quite some time, I have also been suspecting that this relationship between writing and the motivation that comes with a cup of coffee is purely in my head. It’s not real. More often than not, the imagined ‘ah I am going to slowly sip coffee and write’ doesn’t happen. I drink my coffee, stare at my screen, and finally do most of it only in the night. Hours after the last coffee.
It’s like a delusional relationship, where you think you are getting something of out of your lover, but really, it’s all imaginary. You break up with them for good, and yet cannot help but feel loss, pain, and sadness. Habits are hard to break. Damn, this reminds me of the Linkin Park song ‘Breaking the Habit’ (in case you’re wondering, I did go to YouTube to listen to it, while still wrapping this up). I haven’t thought of that song in ages! Maybe if I do write a ‘Caffeine Diaries – Week 2 Without Coffee’, I won’t have so much to say, since I was definitely not thinking this would turn into such a long rambling article.
If you’re interested in whether I am able to keep away from coffee the next week too, follow ‘Caffeine Diaries’, I’ve created a tag and you can bookmark it.
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