Feeling Off Without Coffee! Am I Addicted to Caffeine?

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"Hey... if I don't drink a cup of coffee every day now, my brain can just stay on standby"

"Hey... if I don't have a cup of coffee after lunch, my brain will crash even during the lunch break"

Compared to other beverages (except herbal tea), coffee can be said to be not very tasty! When many people drink coffee for the first time, their expression or inner thoughts must be like this:

Although it doesn't taste good, things always happen either zero times or countless times. Perhaps after this cup of coffee, you'll have a significant coffee expense every month, and the amount of coffee you drink daily will increase. Finally, you'll find that if you don't drink coffee for a day, your soul will remain offline...

Am I Addicted to Caffeine?

Regarding your dependence on coffee, I believe many people have wondered if they are addicted to caffeine. Regarding this topic, we need to divide it into two parts: psychological addiction and physiological addiction. The former belongs to mental addiction, which is relatively easier to quit, while the latter is true addiction, and quitting requires overcoming the "opposition" of bodily functions.

In the words of psychologists and neuroscientists, coffee might be the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world, and it's also legal and available everywhere. A book titled "The Story of Caffeine" also elaborates on a core viewpoint: caffeine is a drug.

Gary L. Wenk, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Ohio State University, believes that coffee makes us so addicted because it simulates the reactions that cocaine and marijuana produce in our brains. When we drink a cup of coffee, it stimulates the abnormal secretion of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the synaptic cleft, triggering a feeling of euphoria, similar to the effects of amphetamine-type drugs.

However, as long as it's consumed reasonably daily, caffeine doesn't easily cause physiological addiction. Small daily intake of caffeine (equivalent to 1-2 cups of coffee) can affect the nervous system, bringing physiological stimulation and sensory enjoyment, briefly altering the state of conscious awareness.

If you just think about coffee every day, feeling like your soul isn't in place without it, or you always feel like something is missing if you don't drink a cup of coffee daily, then it's just psychological addiction, also known as ritualized inebriation. This state is like "drinking alcohol for courage," needing coffee to give yourself a certain sense of ritual, providing yourself with an "opportunity" to get things done.

But if you need to consume large amounts of caffeine daily, otherwise you'll experience drowsiness, low mood, restlessness, nervousness, adverse reactions in the gastrointestinal/urinary/cardiovascular systems, etc., then you might really be addicted to caffeine. After becoming addicted to caffeine, you'll face abstinence reactions, which refer to the specific psychological syndromes that appear after stopping or reducing caffeine intake.

When Does Real Caffeine Addiction Occur?

Everyone's tolerance for caffeine is different! According to the safety intake standards provided by the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration), as long as you don't continuously consume more than 400mg of caffeine daily (a 225ml pour-over coffee extracted with 15g at a 1:15 coffee-to-water ratio contains about 60-90mg of caffeine, equivalent to 4-5 cups of pour-over coffee), generally, caffeine addiction won't occur.

Of course, different coffee brewing methods result in different caffeine content in each cup. If we calculate based on coffee beverages made from regular Arabica coffee beans:

A cup of cold brew coffee (200ml/20g beans) contains about 200mg of caffeine; a cup of French press coffee (225ml/15g beans) contains about 120mg of caffeine; a cup of pour-over coffee (225ml/15g beans) contains about 60-90mg of caffeine; a shot of espresso (30ml/15g beans) contains about 85mg of caffeine.

(When espresso is diluted, its caffeine content doesn't decrease unless the recipe uses different types of espresso)

What to Do If You're Addicted to Caffeine?

If you're really addicted to caffeine, we can't suddenly stop caffeine intake because suddenly stopping will truly put you in an "offline" state, and you'll often have headaches leading to poor mental state, affecting your daily life.

Quitting coffee itself requires great willpower, and immediate cessation is impossible, so what we can do is try to gradually reduce daily caffeine intake, not just from coffee. In daily life, functional drinks, cola, tea, and carbonated beverages all contain caffeine.

Before you start reducing caffeine intake, prepare your caffeine log and record how much caffeine you consume from food and beverages. The log helps you clearly know your daily caffeine intake and makes you more aware of when you unconsciously consume more caffeine during the day.

If your daily caffeine intake comes only from coffee, then start by reducing your coffee amount by 25% weekly. For example, if we drink 4 cups daily, then starting this week, we only drink three cups daily, then next week only two cups daily, then the following week only one cup daily, after which we try drinking one day and not drinking the next, and so on.

If you really can't quit on your own and excessive caffeine intake is affecting your daily state, then you need to seek medical help through more scientific and professional methods.

Image source: Internet

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