I’m a body nerd which means I’m endlessly inquisitive about how my body feels and why and how things affect me. I’ve been running an experiment questioning my caffeine intake and my anxiety/energy. I gave it up for many months after I got Covid really badly in Oct 2022.

Well, it seems like caffeine might be the drug of choice for the apocalypse. Meaning, since I started re-introduced drinking my one little black tea bag every morning (steeped in one liter of water.. so also pretty watered down if I don't finish the pot) things have been remarkably better. WEIRD! Here's what I've experienced and my extreme anecdotal theory (born from many years of observational experience).

Ever since Covid in October, I was feeling that my energy was a horizon unchanged no matter what. It wasn't low, it was just unaffected like a cool kid leaning against a wall no matter what song comes on - it was a disconcertingly flat feeling. I also became very curious that maybe what I was experiencing was the absence of anxiety which might be SO unfamiliar that it felt like I was suddenly the 'basic' version of an otherwise colorful set of spatulas?

Since Covid I really dug deep and made several lifestyle changes to help my notoriously (ie LIFELONG) terrible sleep and also address the nagging anxious mind that has also been a lifelong sidekick (did I mention my family is challenging..?)

Was basic chromatic life really just what 'normal' feels like? Were my energy bursts just cortisol gone wild? Am I actually depressed? These thoughts and more... are still pretty unanswered🙃... but as soon as I started drinking caffeine in the AM my energy started to have variation again. Like normal peaks and valleys, AND what I was really hoping for; I am affected by things. Brain chemicals are flowing!

I think what is happening is that the caffeine is doing what it does - opening receptors in the brain to uptake available energy in the body, dilating the circulatory system and giving me that artificial boost towards clarity. This in turn, nudges my brain, which critically affects my mood, onto a different rail road track. Instead of staying in a dreamy-er non caffeinated state, I get hot wired to be more 'alert' 'directed' and 'energetic'. This then starts a domino effect where I start thinking and behaving like an alert, directed, energetic person. Doing things with energy makes me energized because I like doing things, and doing things I like affects my mood! Cascade effect!

To make this a true-er experiment, my boo (semi-unhelpfully 🧐) pointed out that I need to go back off caffeine because it's possible that at the exact moment I started brewing my tea, my body healed in some way, eliciting this new energetic response. Annoyingly, he's right. I will try this. I also want to try this because my biggest question was whether anxiety would come back with caffeine's anxiety provoking stimulation, and amazingly, it hasn't. WOW. Those lifestyle changes worked! But I do feel the squirrely feeling of someone who suddenly has the ability to push beyond my limits again, which I really wanted to stop doing. hm! It's like caffeine is a powerful and highly addictive drug that quickly latches to our brains!

As we all do, I am flip flopping from one extreme to the other in my pursuit of change. Clearly the answer is to find balance, where caffeine is supportive but not my master and commander. I will go back to my fancy decaf but tastes exactly like full caffeine tea and start the painstaking task of figuring out whether every other day, every three days? Is enough to bring color back to my lens without turning everything into a laser show I can't leave.

I'm sharing all this because my job is to listen to people who want to make changes to feel better, and then help guide them towards what those changes could be. (I don't know what those changes should be, those get discovered as we work together.) Making changes towards our growth is pretty much the point of life from what I can tell, and because of that, is the hardest thing to do.

My caffeine study did not start two weeks ago. It started in October when I was super sick and the thought of drinking anything caffeinated made me viscerally cringe. I chose to listen to that intuition and go from there. From October till now I added all sorts of supplements and herbs, changed my sleeping behavior (also my partner moved in - big change to sleeping arrangement), made changes to my schedule, created different boundaries, interrogated why I do different things and for what outcome, adopted a puppy, shifted my nutrition (a lifelong process), started seeing more friends...this is why change is challenging and circuitous. It's really not a pill. It's really not a diet. It's not a 6am run every morning. It's not extreme. It's just not.

Maybe the outcome can look extreme..maybe all the changes add up to you one day being a vegan power lifter... but for most of us, it just looks like you generally doing better, slowly, over time. One thing I have noticed reading about high level athletes, is that the more 'advanced' they are, the more relaxed they are about their training. It seems like the more advanced you become, the more you can trust yourself, your intuition and the feedback from your body and the less you need to rely on an outside prescription.

I hope you can do one small thing that helps you and three things that are not helpful and slowly make that two and two.

I hope in this season of rebirth you can look at all the ways you are slowly changing and enjoy the path you've been on and the one you continue to seed. I know it is my joy to see you all make those changes and show up for yourself each week.

I promise to keep you posted on my upcoming decaf days.