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How to Get More Energy Part 3: Caffeine is NOT the Answer!

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This is Part 3 in my Series on How to Get More Energy. Today’s topic is Caffeine is NOT the Answer! Here is a video of me providing a live presentation on Facebook, but I did also include a summary below as well.

 

 

For whatever reason you didn’t sleep good last night so all you want this morning is a few cups of coffee or a big glass of soda. You drink that down and you then feel like you can tackle the world. But….by noon you feel more tired than you did when you woke up. Can you relate to that scenario? Probably many times! When that caffeine starts to wear off so does your body and you just want to crash.

After you have been doing this for a long time you may not even notice it anymore, because you start to develop a tolerance to caffeine and for it to make a big enough difference you will have to consume even more.

Caffeine interferes with sleep. It lasts half life in your system for up to six hours. So if you had a cup at dinner your body still has 1/2 of that at midnight. No wonder you can’t fall asleep! Then begins the vicious cycle of waking up tired and having more caffeine. There has even been research conducted that shows there is an increase of both prescription and over the counter sleep aids tied to the increase of caffeine usage. I will be spending a whole other day on sleep, but you can see how important decreasing caffeine will be on getting enough rest.

Stopping cold turkey is not usually the answer. You will go through withdrawal symptoms like severe headaches, anxiety, and be a bit cranky! I suggest gradually decreasing over time. I have found that 4 days is enough time for most teeny tiny changes. So for the first 4 days only concentrate on those 4 hours before bed. If the following example is too hard create something similar with parameters that you can handle. Here is an example:

Day 1 No caffeine 1 hour before sleep

Day 2 No caffeine 2 hours before sleep

Day 3 No caffeine 3 hours before sleep

Days 4-7  No caffeine 4 hours before sleep

Days 7-10 No caffeine 5 hours before sleep

Days 11-14 No caffeine 6 hours before sleep

Now it will get harder in those middle hours of the day so you may want to decrease the amount of caffeine for 4 days in a row rather than eliminate it all together. Just work on what step you can do for 4 days before removing more.

Try replacing your high caffeine drinks with lower alternatives such as decaf coffee, soda with no caffeine, green tea or another lower caffeinated tea, or flavored carbonated water.

Ask someone to do this with you, having a buddy to stay accountable to will help.

Most importantly if you mess up don’t quit! It is harder to start back at square one then to just get back up and pick up where you left off.