A passing thought:
If you're trying to cut down on stress, reduce the amount of daily caffeine you consume. Drinking more than 2 to 3 cups of hot chocolate, tea or coffee a day may produce noticeable mood changes, as well as affecting our emotional and physical health.
Did you know that on average a cup of tea contains around 50 mg of caffeine; an average cup of instant coffee contains between 70 – 100mg of caffeine; a can of cola contains around 40mg of caffeine and a cup of hot chocolate contains between 10-15mg of caffeine?
Not only is caffeine addictive, it can also make us hyper. Something we could do with avoiding, particularly around bedtime. Perhaps, it's time to change to decaffeinated coffee and cocoa instead of hot chocolate?
I hate coffee.
It's good that you hate coffee for all the right reasons!
I love my coffee in the morning, my little diet coke during the day and my energy drink in the afternoon. But I am one of the few that caffeine has the opposite affect on. That may be why I get sleepy during the day.
The coffee and diet cokes may make me sleepy but the energy drinks I drink (which is very low carbohydrates by the way and only 3 grams of sugar) give me a boost that I need, but I have no problem getting to sleep; it's staying asleep that is my problem.
I'll sleep for about 5 hours, then I'm awake for a few minutes at a time usually each hour, until I'm ready to get up. I get severe headaches when I try to come off the caffeine too.
The forum is a brighter place thanks to your posts. Thank you!
Thank you.
I find if I have more than two cups I get very hyper. I rarely drink coffee in the afternoon or evening. Only in the morning. Usually only two cups.
As for hot chocolate I enjoy it in the winter months when it is cold. I only have one cup of that. I find I am more sensitive to coffee than hot chocolate. Hot Chocolate never bothers me.
I don't drink either tea, coffee or hot chocolate, apart from Camomile tea, but I know caffeine although it doesn't seem like a drug can have one or two of the symptoms we hear about like sleep problems and hyper-activity, which makes it very much a drug.
You are of course right for not drinking coffee too late into the evening. It's probably the main reason why people don't sleep so well.
Lisa your headaches are probably a consequence of you trying to come off coffee as caffeine is a drug.
I would think it would be worth continuing to try to come off caffeine if you can, or at least try and reduce the amount you drink.
I tried switching to decaf coffee, because I'm definitely a coffee person even though I scorn soda, but unfortunately, decaf coffee tastes awful. There's just something about it where it works for the first ten minutes and then it turns to mud.
Of course, I try to remedy the problem with more cream and sugar and I'm sure that's not good for me either.
Mike you're definitely right, cream and sugar aren't good for us! I know what you mean about the coffee turns to mud, that tends to happen with filtered coffee. Thank you for posting.
I honestly can't tell the difference between regular and decaf instant coffee, so I always have decaf on the rare occasions that I drink coffee.
I once remember having a strong cup of filter coffee with a client a few years ago and getting the shakes and a cold sweat about an hour later. I had to stop driving and buy some food before I felt better.
That was enough to convince me not to try that again.
I'm sure it convinced you, it would have convinced me too!