Thought Shrapnel

Author, academic, and regular Thought Shrapnel reader Bryan Alexander used to drink a lot of caffeine. And I mean a lot. A post of his resurfaced on Hacker News recently about how he went cold turkey back in 2011 for health reasons. I let him know about this, and he said he’d write an update.

The excerpt below is taken from that update. I have to say that, although I’ve never been a huge coffee drinker, coming off it entirely this year as part of my experiments and investigations into my medical condition has shown that I’m actually better off without it. If you’re in a position where you’re in control of your calendar and schedule, perhaps it’s just not necessary?

Readers might be interested to know that my physical health is fine, according to all medical tests. I’m closing in on 60 years old and all indicators are good. It helps that I am very physically active, between walking a lot, biking regularly, and lifting weights every two days. I’m very professionally active, with a big research agenda, teaching classes, traveling to give talks, writing books, making videos, creating newsletters, etc. The lack of caffeine in my body hasn’t slowed me down a bit.

Mental changes might be more interesting. For years I’ve felt zero temptation to fall off the wagon, despite having plenty of opportunities. When grocery shopping for the house I see vast amounts of caffeine, from the coffee and tea aisle in shops to many coffee vendors hawking their wares at farmers’ markets to omnipresent soda, yet I simply pass them by. It’s a bit like seeing baby products (baby food, diapers, etc), which I mentally process as part of a previous stage of my life (our children are adults now) and therefore not germane to me presently. Every morning I make coffee for my wife but feel no desire to sip any of it. Back when I went cold turkey I longed for it, then trained myself to associate caffeine with sickness, which worked. Nowadays caffeine just not a factor in my thought or feeling. Thirteen years is a long time.

My days are different. When I was on coffee etc. my daily routine included a major caffeination roller coaster. I woke up groggy and badly needed the jolt (or Jolt). I would lose energy, badly, at certain times of the day or in certain situations (boring meeting, long plane flight) and craved the chemical boost. I fear that as a result I wasn’t just hyper when caffeine worked in my veins, but also impatient with non-overclocking people. I think I had a hard time listening and am very sorry for that.

Source: Bryan Alexander

Image: Sahand Hoseini