September Challenge: Kick the Caffeine Habit!

What would life be like without Starbucks, Dr. Pepper, and chocolate?   Come taste and see at our next Health Revolution kickoff on Tuesday, September 11th at 6:30 pm in our community center! 

Following is a useful article for those desiring to kick the caffeine habit:

How to Quit Caffeine

Agatha M. Thrash, M.D.
Preventive Medicine

When well-known food expert Dr. Jean Mayer of Harvard University looks at coffee, he says, “I wish there was something I could say in defense of coffee, but aside from the taste I’m afraid there is really no good news.”

This lack of “good news” is persuading many users of caffeine drinks to look around for a way out.
Caffeine is a member of the same alkaloid group of chemicals as morphine, nicotine, cocaine, purines, and strychnine. These alkaloids are characterized by addictive properties.

There are some simple measures to use to help make the break from caffeine more pleasant.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking it will be easy to quit using caffeine. These suggestions for quitting are simple and can be followed by anybody, but there is some effort required.
Follow these steps. Do not omit a single one. Your success or failure may hinge on the one you decide to leave out.

1. Make good use of any leisure time in your daily program. Idleness may produce the opportunity for self-indulgence. It tends to make bad habits harder to break. It may give one a distorted image of his worth.

2. Keep a diary in a notebook, recording your rating on each of these items. Often the very act of writing will have a helpful influence. Do not become discouraged by failure nor overconfident by immediate success. This is a serious matter.

3. Caffeine has the pharmacologic effect of stimulating the central nervous system. Further, it has the ability to cause addiction. Both of these features give caffeine withdrawal the characteristics of inducing cravings. Diet can be a major factor in handling cravings. For five days after beginning your program to quit caffeine, follow carefully these suggestions in diet:

First, overeating, even of the best diet, can cause a continuation of cravings, not only for caffeine, but also for many other harmful substances.

Second, nicotine in tobacco, and purines in meat are in the same family of chemicals with caffeine. Using any of these chemicals tends to prolong a craving for any other member of this group.

Third, vinegar, spices, a lot of liquid at mealtime, and hot pepper are irritating to the stomach. An irritable stomach leads to poor digestion, which can cause lack of self-control indirectly from the resulting altered metabolism.

Fourth, alcohol is not only a stomach irritant, but it also directly reduces self-control.

Fifth, high-quality nutrients produce a calming effect on the nervous system.

4. Caffeine use is often tied in with a sugar addiction. For five days all sugar must be strictly avoided. Since shifts in water balance may cause dehydration with the discontinuance of both caffeine and sugar, be sure to get 8 to 10 glasses of water daily. This practice will prevent the all-gone feeling and part of the sensation of hunger and fatigue that results from dehydration.

5. Almost everybody who stops using caffeine will experience drowsiness for a few days. Use a large, fairly stiff brush for a “brush massage” for natural stimulation. Start at the fingertips, then at the toes and take long slow strokes, brushing always toward the heart. Cover as much of your skin as you can reach, avoiding any skin lesions that might be irritated by the brush. Follow the massage with a cool shower.

6. It’s rare, but occasionally a person feels stimulation when stopping caffeine. For these persons the advice is to lie for 20 to 60 minutes in a bathtub full of water at neutral temperature, neither hot nor cold. Test it with a drop on the wrist. It should feel neither warm nor cool when the temperature is right. Be very careful to get the temperature correct. Both cool and warm baths are stimulating.

7. Drinking beverages or lots of liquid food with meals dilutes the digestive juice. It is well to learn to take meals without any kind of drink. If one eats fruit or the succulent vegetables in abundance, the stomach inflammation that calls for so much liquid with meals will gradually subside.

8. The person who uses caffeine often has a well-ingrained neuromuscular habit. He will feel uncomfortable without a glass or cup nearby. Such a person can best replace his dependency with a glass of cool water. An occasional herb tea is all right, if one does not overdo it.

9. Some of the most annoying symptoms are because of the alteration of the chemistry of the forebrain. Perhaps for years the nervous system has responded to the familiar presence of caffeine. In its absence several unpleasant sensations may develop, such as dizziness, backache, visual disturbances, etc. Time is the best remedy for these. As soon as the biochemistry returns to normal, these symptoms will disappear.

10. The most common withdrawal symptom of caffeine is that of headache. It may have different patterns in different individuals, but will almost always be relieved with a hot foot bath or a deep breathing exercise or both. For people who do not have diabetes or known reduction of arterial blood flow to the legs and feet, the 30 minute hot foot bath is a good treatment for headache. Keep a cold cloth on the forehead, face, or throat. The deep breathing exercise is simple. Just take a long, deep breath and hold it to the count of 20, release it, hold it out to the count of 10. Repeat up to 50 times.
It would be helpful for a person going through these steps to have a “buddy” to back him up. If you know somebody in the health professions who has had experience in assisting others to change their lifestyle, perhaps you would want to make that person your “buddy,” at least during the first five days of your program.