Ok, so I know there are a LOT of coffee lovers out there. You may be one of them. I was one of them. I had my first cappuccino when I was 15. And I quickly took a liking to my weekly cuppa coffee, which then became a morning cuppa coffee or two, once I began working in radio, writing and reading the breakfast news, where I had to start work at 4am.
But when I hit 34, I realised that coffee was no longer for me. Not even an occasional one. In this week’s episode on I Love Me The Podcast, I share why I gave up coffee, and why you may like to do the same….
I remember the exact moment I gave up coffee.
It was when I was 34.
I’d just bought a really good organic coffee from my favourite organic cafe, and I was walking home with my now husband drinking it.
I got through half the cup, and I just felt done.
I didn’t want the rest.
So I put my half finished coffee in the bin.
And I never went back for more.
That’s almost 10 years ago now, and I haven’t had a coffee since.
And in all honesty, I don’t miss it at all.
Now I wasn’t trying to give up coffee that day.
By that time in my life I was only having a coffee, maybe once a week.
It wasn’t a regular thing for me anymore, because in my 20s, I’d suffered with suicidal depression – like I share in Episode 32 – and one of the things I realised, was that coffee made the depression worse.
In fact, coffee not only made the depression worse, it made me anxious.
And this is because, even if you don’t have any mental health issues…
Coffee puts the body into a low level state of anxiety.
And that’s because coffee is a stimulant.
Maybe you’ve noticed after a coffee or three you feel a bit jittery?
Or perhaps it only happens when you have a really strong coffee.
Or maybe coffee has become such a regular in your life, that you don’t even notice the jittery effect it has on your body anymore.
Even if you’re totally unaware of how coffee effects your body – even if you’re numb to that feeling – it’s still putting the body into a state of anxiety.
You don’t notice it, because that low-level state of anxiety has become your norm.
Your base-level for existing.
Why is this a problem?
Because caffeine stimulates our ‘fight or flight’ response, and studies now show that this can trigger anxiety and even an anxiety attack.
Anxiety itself comes about from our subconscious conditioning; our beliefs and subsequent thought patterns.
We believe things about ourself and our life that cause us to worry about what might or might not happen next.
You can learn more about our subconscious programming in Episode 2, Programmed for Love.
So while coffee is not responsible for creating the type of anxiety most people experience – our subconscious programming is – coffee can trigger it or make it worse in people who are prone to experiencing anxiety.
Coffee can also make you feel anxious even when you have nothing to feel anxious about!
Now this is a quite a problem, because when the body’s in an anxious state – whether you’re consciously aware of it or not – it doesn’t work properly.
Your body is too busy pouring its energy into firing up your adrenal system – your ‘flight or fight’ mode – that there’s little energy to keep your immune system firing.
And because the body’s on alert, quality sleep – the type that keeps the body in pristine condition – that sleep goes out the window, and is replaced by either a lack of sleep, or a lack of quality sleep.
What’s worse, is lack of quality sleep makes us feel tired, and a tired person is likely to drink more coffee to help pick them up.
Sure, it’ll give you a little kick, but that little kick is the flight-or-fight response being activated, at the expense of the immune system.
Thus, keeping your body in ‘survival’ mode.
I don’t know about you, but I kinda want my immune system working as it’s meant to!
Now the more we live from this anxious state, the more the body tenses up to reflect this.
The more tension we store in the body, the less blood flow there is, and the more our organs become constricted.
We essentially suffocate our body into illness and disease.
The hard truth is…
Anxiety hurts the body.
A very rare or even occasional bout of anxiety in a resilient body is fine.
Our body has built-in mechanisms to support this, and help us bounce back.
But when anxiety is your base-line state or you dip into anxiety on a regular basis, you’re building up holding patterns in your body that will likely cause other issues further down the track.
Ok, so we know coffee wreaks havoc on the physical body.
Enough said!
But it’s not just the physical body that is negatively effected by drinking coffee.
The spiritual body cops it too!
When we drink coffee – because it puts us into a low-level state of anxiety – it disconnects us from our inner voice; or as I like to call it, our True Self.
What this means, is that when you’re drinking coffee it’s far more difficult to tap into your intuitive all-knowing inner voice, meaning that you’ll be guided not from a place of love, but from a place of fear.
Yes, your ego will be the one running the show, helping you make all sorts of unhelpful decisions for yourself.
Decisions that don’t serve you or your loved ones.
I’ll talk more about the ego next week.
In my courses The Way of Self-Love and Remarkable Relationships – where I teach people how to to access this inner voice of wisdom, I encourage the participants to get off coffee, because if they don’t, they find it a lot harder to get a clear line of communication with their True Self.
And because of this, clearing limiting beliefs and gaining insight into their lives, generally becomes foggy and more complicated.
You can make it easy to listen to your inner voice, or you can make it hard by drinking caffeine-rich substances, that disconnect you.
And this is why when I work with people one-on-one, coffee is the first thing to go.
Because it stops us from being able to listen to our bodies signals – like when our body tells us we need sleep, having a coffee blanks out that feeling of fatigue.
AND because it stops us from being able to listen to our inner guidance system.
Now… I’ll be honest…
There is ALWAYS resistance to giving up coffee to begin with.
Like a LOT of resistance.
You’re probably thinking right now – I love what Tamra shares, but you know what, ‘I might stick with my coffee.’
Yet, every person I work with, who is willing to try giving up coffee – even though they initially resist it – is sooo grateful afterwards.
Because they feel such a big difference.
What’s super interesting is, when a person comes off coffee, if they do have one – after being coffee-free for at least a month – they notice the effects immediately!
It’s really common for one of my clients – who has stopped drinking coffee – so say to me:
‘I’ve been feeling so good, and then on the weekend I started to feel really anxious again’.
I always ask:
‘What were you doing half an hour before you started to feel anxious?’
And 99% of the time the answer is:
‘Oh I met up with my friend for a coffee!’
When I point this out, immediately, they get it.
The proof really is in the experience.
Once you get off coffee, because anxiety is no longer your base-line state, as soon as the coffee enters your system, you feel its effects instantly.
You become more sensitive to how things affect you.
Which is a good thing, because that extra sensitivity helps you know how to treat your body better.
To treat your body with more love and kindness.
So instead of always feeling a little anxious, and a little tired, and using coffee to keep picking you up, you start to experience what it’s like to feel alive and energised and, shall we say, ‘normal’!!
But you may say: Tamra, I need my coffee to wake me up of a morning!
Really?
If this is the case, it means that you’re not giving your body the sleep or nutrients or love it needs, because you should NEVER need anything to wake you up.
A healthy functioning body wakes up feeling vitally alive and energised.
And if that’s NOT how you feel most mornings, then that’s an indication that things in your life need to shift to support your body in functioning as it was designed.
OK… so HOW do you get off coffee?
Firstly, you need to decide that giving up coffee is worth it!
Without that initial decision – for it is a decision – you won’t commit to going coffee-free for any length of time.
Once you make that decision, then you need to do it gradually, otherwise you’re likely to be met with some uncomfortable side-effects like headaches.
When I guide my clients off coffee, I get them to start by halving the amount they’re currently having.
So if you’re drinking two cups a day, take it down to one, and do that for a couple of weeks.
If you’re only having one coffee per day, either have half a coffee a day, or one coffee every second day.
Whichever feels better for you.
After a couple of weeks – once you find your groove, once that new amount of coffee feels manageable – halve it again.
Then a couple of weeks later halve it again, and keep doing this until you’re not having any coffee at all.
The other thing you need to do, as you go through this ‘halving’ process, is substitute the other coffee’s you would usually have, with something else.
It’s not just the caffeine addiction we need to overcome, it’s the habit or ritual of drinking coffee.
Maybe you switch your coffee for a green or herbal tea.
That would be the best approach.
But if that’s just too far of a reach for you, switch it for a black tea or a chai.
Yes, black tea has caffeine in it, although it’s less and it interacts with the body slightly differently, so in most cases it won’t have the same effect on your body.
That said…
Once you get off coffee, you’ll become far more sensitive to what you put in your body, and with time you may find that black tea also has a more subtle effect on your body.
That was certainly the case for me.
I went for many years where I had a black tea, maybe once a week or once a fortnight.
But now, I rarely have a black tea.
Like once a month, at most.
And if I do have a couple on consecutive days, I feel that in my body.
Either way, black tea is far better than coffee.
And this is because tea-leaves contain built-in relaxants and antioxidants that work in harmony with caffeine to give you energy, as well as provide relaxing effects that benefit health.
So do what you need to get off the coffee!
If you move onto black tea, and that becomes your beverage of choice, it’s a much more loving beverage to consume.
But just remember, that herbal teas, are even better!
Ok… over to you.
Are you willing to sit with the idea of giving up coffee?
Ponder it.
Feel into it.
And if you’re willing to make that decision to get off the coffee…
Please know this….
There is life after coffee!!!
Whether you decide to ease off coffee or not, next week I have a special episode for you: We’ll be learning how to love away our ego.
For, if you had resistance to the whole idea of giving up coffee, you can bet that was thanks to your ego.
Our ego loves to lead us off Self-Love Lane, and onto Self-Sabotage Road, in ALL areas of our life.
But if you know how to spot when you’re egos in the driver’s seat, then you can take back the wheel, and steer yourself back onto the path of self-love.
That’s what we’ll be exploring next week, so be sure to tune in for that one.
Loving what I’m sharing here on I Love Me The Podcast, and want to dive deeper into self-love…
Simply take a peek at my online school Gettingnaked.com.au where I teach you how to strip off the layers of childhood conditioning, keeping you from falling in love with you.
Sign up for your FREE Self-Love Starter’s Kit there, and if you do enrol in any of my programs, know that a percentage of profits go to planting trees, so together we can re-robe Mother Earth.