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The good thing is that coffee withdrawals are over quite quickly and don’t have long-term effects.
But getting peer pressured into an addiction by one’s mom of all people is ironic.
There are coffee withdrawals? I drink 2 (weak) coffees a day sometimes 3 and I have multiple times had a week or two without coffee because I forgot. I just drink it for the taste and warmth.
The way caffeine works is that it allows the body to release energy reserves that it usually “locks” away from you. It allows you to tap into these reserves for concentration and makes you feel less tired.
That’s helpful for short-term use, giving you more energy and concentration.
But if you use too much caffeine for too long (“too much” depends on your body and “too long” is a few days), the body adjusts to the caffeine levels and now you have the same energy reserves and concentration that you had without caffeine before. Caffeine thus loses its effect on you and your baseline shifts, so that you need caffeine to be on the same level as before.
If you now stop your caffeine intake, this swings back. Your body thinks you are really tired and you get headaches, bad mood, low concentration and so on, until you either take in more caffeine or you abstain long enough for your baseline to shift back.
That’s why there are people who say they can’t work before they had their first coffee/energy drink. They literally can’t, because if they aren’t on the level of caffeine they are used to, their body tells them that they are super exhausted. This is the caffeine dependency/withdrawal effect.
The way caffeine works is that it allows the body to release energy reserves that it usually “locks” away from you.
I thought it just blocked the receptors for the chemicals that made us feel sleepy, not tapped into some hidden energy.
That’s basically the same thing. When you feel sleepy, you aren’t at the end of your reserves. Your body tells you that you are sleepy at a time when you still have reserves.
Blocking these receptors doesn’t tap into any magic hidden energy, it just stops your body from telling you that you are running on fumes. Thus it allows you to go farther into your reserves. In extreme cases to the point where you collapse, because you really don’t have any reserves left.
Edit: Just to be clear, going into your reserves is not a good or healthy thing. It’s not some magical potential unlocker or something, but it’s running your body under circumstances it’s not made for. If you use caffeine when you really should be sleeping, that’s short-term ok, but can lead to some serious consequences in the long term.
Your last sentence is spot on, and I’m paying for it now.
Once I’ve weaned off of real coffee, it’ll be one instant a day, maximum. Sick of the cycle. It’s caused chronic fatigue - like symptoms and they’re horrible.
If you want best effects, do no more than 2x per week, only when you actually urgently need a boost. Otherwise the one instant per day won’t have an effect either.
