Day 1 of cold turkey caffeine withdrawal

[craigb]

7 hours ago, bitflipper said:

I am on day 5 of a no-caffeine regimen.

One day last week I experienced what I can only assume was a panic attack. Heart pounding, shaking hands and an illogical feeling of being in imminent danger, you know the old fight-or-flight response. I'd never felt that before, and it just arrived out of the blue. Could have been at least partly psychological, as I have been under unusually high levels of stress lately.

Stopping the coffee was easy. Just switched to mint tea and Lorazepam.

Find a good breathing exercise Dave!  Those help tremendously with panic attacks.

[bitflipper]

On 10/22/2022 at 7:07 AM, abacab said:

Have you tried Celestial Seasoning's Sleepytime "Extra"? It has calming Valerian Root, along with Spearmint Leaf, Lemongrass Leaf and Hawthorn Berry.

Last time I tried Valerian root (in isolation, via capsules), it had the opposite effect and got me wired. That was probably 30 years ago, though. Back then pretty much everything got me wired, e.g. Melatonin, which is supposed to encourage sleep but had no effect on my overactive nighttime brain.

High-CBD cannabis is the only thing I've found that truly lets my brain wind down long enough to sleep solidly. Now, if only my bladder would get onboard with the plan.

[jesse g]

I just realized something, this forum is full of folks who are jacked UP!! ??

It is 11:15 am and I am sipping on my 5th cup of coffee while thinking about where  to go  for the closet coffee shop to read a book and get a fresh cup of coffee.

Edited October 23, 2022 by jesse g

[InstrEd]

10 minutes ago, jesse g said:

I just realized something, this forum is full of folks who are jacked UP!! ??

It is 11:15 am and I am sipping on my 5th cup of coffee while thinking about where  to go  for the closet coffee shop to read a book and get a fresh cup of coffee.

I was like that to until health issues had me change my caffeine addiction.  Amazing what healthy smoothies can do.

[InstrEd]

1 hour ago, bitflipper said:

High-CBD cannabis is the only thing I've found that truly lets my brain wind down long enough to sleep solidly. Now, if only my bladder would get onboard with the plan.

Have you seen a doc about this.  Might be a medical issue and not just getting older Dave. 

[jesse g]

50 minutes ago, InstrEd said:

I was like that to until health issues had me change my caffeine addiction.  Amazing what healthy smoothies can do.

Ed,

Really,  you mean smoothies actually help, how?

[InstrEd]

10 hours ago, jesse g said:

Ed,

Really,  you mean smoothies actually help, how?

More sustained energy for me at least.   I mix it up with all sorts of natural ingredients.   Health issues forced me to have more vegetables and fruits etc. Smoothies makes it really easy for me to get them.   Caffeine fix was burst of energy and then if I didn't keep drinking high octane coffee I would crash plus if I didn't have my caffeine, headache. It took me several weeks to slowly get down my caffeine intake down to only in the morning.  I make the smoothie to take to work in a 26oz insulated cup. I usually finish it in the morning before lunch.  I have only filtered water in the afternoon and I'm fine now for the rest of the day. 

 

[Rain]

14 hours ago, bitflipper said:

Last time I tried Valerian root (in isolation, via capsules), it had the opposite effect and got me wired. That was probably 30 years ago, though. Back then pretty much everything got me wired, e.g. Melatonin, which is supposed to encourage sleep but had no effect on my overactive nighttime brain.

High-CBD cannabis is the only thing I've found that truly lets my brain wind down long enough to sleep solidly. Now, if only my bladder would get onboard with the plan.

I have suffered from insomnia pretty much for my entire adult life. I'd rarely sleep more than 3 or 4 hours a night. 5 or 6 when I managed to sleep in - usually because I was hungover.

One thing I already knew was that in order to be able to even get those 3 or 4 hours, I needed to go to bed at the same time every night. And also that if I slipped off for even just a day or two, my internal clock would be out of wack. It could take me days, sometimes a full week to get back on track.

2 years ago I started a new job, working 7pm to 4 am.  At first I attempted to live a normal "human" life. I'd go to bed shortly after my shift, at around 5, hoping to sleep until 10 or 11 if I was lucky. But I kept waking up after an hour or two and then crashing in the afternoon. So I was tired all the time. Story of my adult life.

But only a few weeks into the new gig, my wife and I broke up, and I realized I had no reason to be up and about during daytime, so I embraced my "vampire" schedule - I started staying up til 10 in the morning and realized that I had no problem sleeping till 6 pm.

And for the first time in my adult life, I've been sleeping 7 and 8 hours every night ever since.

I had started taking melatonin as a helper at first, because sleeping during the day can be tricky - for one thing it's usually noisier. Leaf blowers typically start to go off in the neighborhood when I start getting ready for bed. 

I am not sure it makes any diference but I keep taking it, as part of my morning ritual. I suspect that keeping that same ritual every morning has helped me train my brain, so who cares if the melatonin is placebo? 

So typically, once I am done with my chores and language lessons, I take a quick shower, poor myself a big mug of milk, retire to my bedroom, sit in bed with a guitar, and watch some Japanese anime or one or two periods of a hockey game, then I am off to sleep. And I rarely have any problem falling asleep.

I've also blocked out every bit of daylight - the blinds weren't doing a good enough job, so I nailed a tick curtain over them AND installed black out curtains on top. I also place a towel at the bottom of the door because some daylight was creeping in from there. And I installed an amp and speakers with a bluetooth receiver to stream white noise (actually brown noise) from an app on my phone. That set up works marvels at cancelling the outside world noises, even when the neighbors are re-roofing their house, like this week. 

When I look back at all those years behind, it strikes me how many of the errors and poor calls I have made in my life were the direct result of sleep deprivation. I was in that fog almost constantly. 

Sometimes, people who stop drinking (even people who only drink on weekends) will tell you how much clearer their thoughts are after a few months. Me I never noticed much difference when I cut off alcohol. But I feel the same about sleep. How much clearer are my thoughts since I started getting enough sleep. And it's so great to be able to go through an entire shift without feeling like you're about to collapse, shivering and hurting all over.

 

EDIT - Oh, yeah. My bladder will typically wake me up after a couple of hours (from that huge mug of milk) and sometimes again at around 4. I just turned 50 so full nights without bathroom breaks will only get even more rare. But I have no problem going back to sleep - and that is a HUGE difference from before. I would have typically been unable to fall asleep again before an hour or three of tossing and turning around in bed.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Rain

[bitflipper]

No doubt, the best defense against insomnia and daytime sleepiness is maintaining a regular sleep schedule. My normal routine, or at least the one that feels most natural,  might seem better suited to a farmer: retire at 9:00 PM, read for half an hour and asleep by 9:30, then up around 4:30-5:00 AM.

That works great until gig night, when I might not get to bed until 2:00 or 3:00 AM. That's where the Starbucks Iced Mochas come into play. Fortunately, the exertion from moving gear and performing rapidly metabolizes the caffeine so that it doesn't prevent sleep. Amplifiers seem to gain about 20 lbs by the end of the night. Plus speaker stands seem to magically increase in altitude, such that lifting a PA speaker off becomes more back-breaking at the end of the night. My setup has six powered speakers on stands.

What's saved me is that gigs these days are typically over earlier than they were in the past. Where 1:30 to 2:00 AM used to be the norm, nowadays most gigs end around 10-11 PM. This past Saturday our hours were 6:00 to 9:00, so I was in bed before midnight despite a long drive.

We've even got a New Year's Eve gig scheduled that'll wrap up at 10:00 PM, due to being on an island and needing to catch a ferry afterward. Perfect. The roads will be largely free of drunk drivers and I'll watch fireworks on TV.

[Sheens]

I like a mug of nice fresh decaf coffee after a lovely artichoke based vegan meal.

Ideally I would light up an E cigar too.

then sit down and listen to my hi-end Dolby Surround system at full volume for a few hours checking the latest neuro dubstep tracks.

 

[InstrEd]

6 hours ago, bitflipper said:

The roads will be largely free of drunk drivers

Have a friend who was a Police Officer would volunteer Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to avoid working overnight New Years Eve. He saw multiple car wrecks after midnight and was like nope not doing it again.

[bitflipper]

On 10/24/2022 at 1:44 PM, InstrEd said:

Have a friend who was a Police Officer would volunteer Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to avoid working overnight New Years Eve. He saw multiple car wrecks after midnight and was like nope not doing it again.

My brother in law works for DOT, and often arrives at accident scenes before the cops. Working NYE means you drew the short straw.

On 10/24/2022 at 1:38 PM, Sheens said:

...then sit down and listen to my hi-end Dolby Surround system at full volume for a few hours checking the latest neuro dubstep tracks.

I don't even know what "neuro dubstep " is, but it sounds like something that's prohibited by the Geneva Convention.

[Sheens]

On 10/24/2022 at 7:08 AM, Rain said:

When I look back at all those years behind, it strikes me how many of the errors and poor calls I have made in my life were the direct result of sleep deprivation. I was in that fog almost constantly. 

I need no insomnia or constant fog to pull that off..

Edited October 27, 2022 by Sheens

[craigb]

31 minutes ago, Sheens said:

I need no insomnia or constant fog to pull that off..

Wait... Sheens is a politician??! ?

 

?

[Doc H]

On 10/21/2022 at 1:55 PM, craigb said:

As a side-note, if you get a boost from drinking caffeinated coffee, that means you were actually below the energy baseline you should be at!  In other words, you are not getting enough decent sleep and/or have other life-issues (like a poor diet or lack of exercise) that are draining your energy.  I drink coffee because I enjoy it, but can easily do without if necessary and can even go directly to sleep after having a mug.

On top it all I was starting have issues with insomnia, which coincided with the bouts of migraines. Since having dropped the caffeine that seems to be leveling out. 

On 10/22/2022 at 8:26 AM, bitflipper said:

I am on day 5 of a no-caffeine regimen.

One day last week I experienced what I can only assume was a panic attack. Heart pounding, shaking hands and an illogical feeling of being in imminent danger, you know the old fight-or-flight response. I'd never felt that before, and it just arrived out of the blue. Could have been at least partly psychological, as I have been under unusually high levels of stress lately.

Stopping the coffee was easy. Just switched to mint tea and Lorazepam.

The no caffeine has had me one edge for the last week. I've had episodes where I have been irritable (ok, very prone to anger outbursts). This is effectively day 9 and I still find myself wanting to smack the shiznit out of people. I had a problem with a gear purchase this week and the poor sales guy on the other end of the phone  noticed I was pretty wound up. Not exactly the way I want to be remembered. I think the next time I have to call in on a problem I'm gonna priced the call with, "Hi, I'm Doc. AKA Karen."  

[Sheens]

blabla whatever

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Sheens

[bitflipper]

8 hours ago, Doc H said:

The no caffeine has had me one edge for the last week.

Be patient, it'll pass. The first time I quit, I was on the road with a band and it was often just too much of a hassle to get coffee in the morning (we weren't staying at the kind of hotels that have in-room coffee makers). After a couple weeks, I'd forgotten that I ever needed coffee to get going, either in the A.M. or during gigs. 

In the pursuit of tranquility, I also find it helpful to avoid the news as much as possible.