I took a break from coffee last week! I want to share with you what I learned and how this is changing my relationship and routine with coffee moving forward.
I am a fan of these types of experiments, particularly those that involve the removal of something for the sake of new insight (i.e. a raw foods cleanse which revealed a gluten sensitivity, a social media detox that revealed 6 lessons learned).
I started this coffee detox on a Sunday and broke the detox the following Sunday. The most noteworthy days were the second and third days. I didn’t experience any withdrawal symptoms (in past detoxes, I would get a withdrawal headache), which was good. I did feel physical detox symptoms for a few days (eliminating toxins through bowel movements, sweat/low-grade fever). What was most noticeable was all the mental chatter around coffee (Should I have a cup? Do I need a cup? Omg, I’m tired I need a coffee.). After those first few days, it really became a non-factor in my mental process. This means I had mental space for new insight to come through…
These are some of the insights I received in this detox:
I started to see parallels between alcohol and coffee.
After my spiritual awakening, alcohol started to affect me differently. I was more sensitive to it and more disgusted by it. In a desire to keep my spiritual channel clear, I stopped drinking alcohol (one of many reasons you can read about here). I wondered if I would experience this with coffee as well. I feel like in these last few months of being out in California, I went through another spiritual awakening. Naturally, coffee started to impact me differently than it did before. I started to mitigate this by switching to a half-caf option. That is definitely my preferred level of caffeine because anything more than that and I simply do not function (physically or how I want to mentally/spiritually). I want to experiment with lower caffeine options like green or black tea. I like the pep of the caffeine, but I don’t want to feel out of control/out of body.
My dream state is strong - with and without coffee.
I had a hypothesis that coffee was impacting my dream life (which I correlate to my intuitive life/intuition), but I was wrong. My dreams are strong and clear with or without coffee, which makes me feel good. If at any time that changes, I’ll make a more drastic change in relation to coffee (p.s. I feel this way about anything impacting my menstrual cycle, if it messes with it, it’s got to go.).
The positive benefits off of coffee are equal to the positive benefits of coffee.
Benefits with coffee: productivity, efficiency (felt more aligned to Projector efficiency energy), pep in the ol’ step
Benefits without coffee: opened up space for other habits (i.e. lemon water first thing in the AM), fun to see use mental space on something else, better hydration
Coffee doesn’t actually wake me up; sleep is a better supplement.
If I’m tired, coffee doesn’t do anything. I simply need more sleep. I love a good power nap, and at this point, I can successfully do that whether I have or haven’t had coffee!
To wrap up the last seven days simply, I thought I’d share something I’m going to start, stop and continue with coffee.
Start: Create a new morning ritual around it. Less doing it on autopilot and more focusing on intentional consumption.
Stop: Making coffee first thing in the morning. Dane started a new role a few months ago that gets him up early in the morning. I started making coffee for him in the morning, which resulted in me having my coffee earlier than I usually would. I typically like to take about an hour in the morning to wake up naturally. This also gives me time to do my morning pages as a clear channel uninterrupted by caffeine.
Continue: Listening to what my body needs. Making space for detoxes. Questioning all of my habits and determining if they are serving me or taking my autonomy away from me.
Finally, I found some interesting resources I thought you might like during my detox too.
What Happens When You Detox From Coffee
6 Ways Coffee Helped Transform the World
Is it Time To Quit Coffee For Good?: This one was particularly interesting!
What do you think? Is this something you would try? Let me know!
Love,
Kelsey