Hello and welcome in my friend. Much love fam, Trav here. I appreciate you being here with me today, once again. I don’t take your attention for granted, so today I am going to make your time worth it by offering some really interesting ideas for how to improve your life and level up as a person.
Today’s topic….
Should You Quit Drinking Coffee?
In my last blog post about Sobriety in the Information Age we talked about the problem of distraction in the modern age and why sobriety is your best friend in gaining clarity for making good moves amidst these crazy times.
I received this comment from my friend Rodrigo-
”I am interested in spiritual rituals and an explanation of how coffee is a negative part of life. Brewing coffee has become my morning ritual during this non social pandemic.”
So how do we feel about coffee? Do we lump it in with alcohol, tobacco, weed, porn, and refreshing the same app or webpage unconsciously? Can coffee be part of a healthy life? All this and more, if you just keep reading =P
The Science on Coffee and Caffeine
I’m actually not going to dive deep into the science of drinking coffee or caffeine, because the results aren’t very conclusive. I’d rather approach this from life principles. But, let’s spend a little time here.
When you Google studies of coffee and caffeine you’ll find a mixed bag. There are some positives, there are some negatives. It’s not necessarily bad for you. It might be good for you. If it’s bad for you, it’s probably not that bad. It’s not conclusive, so it’s going to depend on the person, and how that person is trying to live their life.
The main positives of drinking coffee is that it feels great, can make you feel more alert, creative, and productive, and can help you function better. There’s evidence that coffee might protect you from some diseases or even help you live longer. Pretty good!
The main negatives to coffee / caffeine would be that it can cause you to be more anxious and jittery, disrupt your sleep, affect your bowels, reduce fertility, and take some of your time and focus. These are some pretty considerable side effects to take into consideration.
Before we go into life principles I’d like to drop one more nugget that I’ve learned from working in agriculture for the past 4 years. And that is that coffee is one of the most highly pesticided crops. Drinking non-organic coffee can come with a lot of poison with it. This poison can disrupt your system, screw up your hormones and more. So when we’re talking about the health effects of drinking coffee it can get complicated.
If you want to avoid as many environmental toxins as possible, you’ll find out that organic coffee can be an expensive habit! And if you find that you feel that you need coffee and go for conventional coffee despite knowing it’s toxic, it could be an alarm bell you have a problem.
How to Use Coffee Responsibly
There are plenty of ways to abuse caffeine. Some people like to drink coffee at night. This disrupts your sleep and causes a host of other problems. This is not responsible coffee drinking.
Some people feel they need coffee to wake up and to function throughout the day, drinking many cups of coffee. Using coffee as a drug to mask poor life choices and lack of self care is not a good sustainable plan. This is also not responsible coffee drinking.
But what if you drink one cup of organic coffee a day in the morning as a ritual? That’s responsible. Is this so bad?
The Fastest Way to a Life of Misery
There’s a Charlie Munger idea I like that the fastest way to a life of misery is to get addicted to chemicals. Think about it. If you wanted to make your life worse as quickly as possible what would you do? You could start drinking heavily, doing other drugs, and engaging in various bad habits. That’s a fast way to deteriorate your health, become irritable, lose money, possibly lose your job and close relationships, and basically fast track yourself to be poor and miserable.
The fastest way to a life of misery is to get addicted to chemicals… any chemicals. Some chemicals are certainly much worse for you. But if you want to be distracted in your life and dependent on forces outside of yourself, any chemical will do.
I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. If you want to continue your cup a day coffee habit, go ahead and continue. Worst case it’s not that bad for you.
But when you start your day ritualizing the service of addiction, how is that going to set up the rest of your day? It could set you down a path of servicing other addictions. They may seem benign- checking your email more than you need to, spending an extra 30 minutes scrolling social media, having a drink after work. But at the end of the day you have robbed yourself of valuable time and energy that could be put to your higher purpose. Consider this.
Why I Quit- Reclaiming Self Mastery and Connecting with God
I drank coffee every single day for 10 years. There was one day I missed drinking coffee in there, and I remember it. I often went well out of my way for coffee. My mornings were not really mine. I had to put my own plans on hold and go find coffee, whether that meant making a pot or heading out the door to a café. In the later years I grew wiser with my time and would prepare my coffee the day before. But in any case, I could only start my own agenda for the day after I had serviced my coffee addiction. Valuable time had been wasted.
Mind you, I was only drinking about 1 cup of coffee a day. It wasn’t disrupting my sleep (or at least I didn’t think so). I wasn’t spending a lot of money. Why quit?
First, I quit smoking weed, tobacco, and drinking alcohol. Coffee naturally was next. I knew it would be difficult, and that made it worth doing. I wanted to see how I felt. Honestly, it was hard. I had headaches for almost a week. The withdrawal process was more noticeable than quitting smoking. That was a sign to me that caffeine really did have a hold of me, and I wanted to let it go.
I welcomed in a life with more time, more focus, less anxiety, and more priority on MY agendas. I am glad to have more of an experience of being my own master, slave to no external chemicals. And I’m glad for a greater connection to God.
The last idea that’s interesting here is the use of coffee as a spiritual ritual. A question I have is why should your spiritual or religious connection be in association with servicing chemical dependence? I understand historically tobacco and other drugs have been used this way. But I invite you to be creative in connecting with God through other ways. It could be sobriety, it could be purity of self, it could be meditation, exercise, church, or direct dialogue. But if coffee is your way of talking with God, I assure you that you won’t hurt your relationship by trying a go without it.
So, Should You Quit Drinking Coffee or No?
Clearly I am a strong proponent of sobriety. I see the value of optimizing time and clarity as way too important to pass up, especially in today’s age where a good decision can set you up for life, and a bad decision can really derail things. Giving up coffee could be a small step towards greater control and better thinking. If you’ve been drinking for many years, I invite you to try life without it. You could start now, or perhaps wait for Sober October. That’s always a good time to change your life.
All that said, if you want to keep drinking coffee, you don’t need to feel bad about it. There’s positive health effects from this habit. Go ahead. I won’t tell you what to do. If you live in a cold, dark place, the happiness it brings to you might be worth way more than any negatives you could experience. Do whatever you need to do to live your best life. But however you choose, make sure that you are mastering coffee and not the other way around.
Reach Me
Much love fam,
Trav
Thanks Trav, I love your hard work!
Did you replace morning coffee with sth else such as morning lemon water or herbal tea?