Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by chrisjs96 2179 days ago
I did it a couple months ago. I've been drinking 3 - 5 cups a day(sometimes more) for years. I just slowly went from drinking it throughout the whole day eliminating cups until I had 1 cup in the morning. This was over 2 weeks. Then I slowly reduced that 1 cup until nothing. Then I switched to a single cup of green tea in the morning just for the ritual.

The lack of caffeine hasn't really had any effect on my psoriasis or stress levels, so maybe it was all for nothing.

4 comments

I had a very similar experience. 3+ cups per day minimum for over a decade, phased out over two weeks with no withdrawal at all. Didn't drink coffee for the better part of a year looking for a benefit.

Also noted no improvement with my psoriasis, no increased alertness, sleep felt the same, and actually gained weight over that time period.

I'm happily enjoying coffee daily again.

There is peer reviewed evidence that caffeine increases your metabolism, so it would make sense that you would gain weight after cessation. I’m in a weight loss phase and have upped my caffeine intake for that reason.
> The lack of caffeine

There is a not insignificant amount of caffeine in green tea, but still less than in coffee

There is considerable amount of caffiene in tea as well but it’s absorbed slower by the body than from coffee and most tea has L-Theanine, which is an amino acid which attenuates the caffiene high that is usually present from coffee.
I’ve heard there’s more caffeine in tea. Coffees do feel stronger than tea, I wonder if that’s due to oil in coffee working as a solvent
A cup of coffee has way more caffeine than tea.

Coffee has 163mg per cup, black tea 42mg and green tea 25mg.[0][1][2]

1kg of dry tea does have more caffeine than 1kg of coffee beans, according to Wikipedia[3]

> Tea contains more caffeine than coffee by dry weight. A typical serving, however, contains much less, since less of the product is used as compared to an equivalent serving of coffee. Also contributing to caffeine content are growing conditions, processing techniques, and other variables. Thus, teas contain varying amounts of caffeine

Also kinda interesting: I've often seen people opt for an espresso instead op a cup of coffee, because they say they need the caffeine. But an espresso has only 77mg of caffeine, way less caffeine than a cup of coffee. [4] (Unless you fill a coffee cup with espresso shots, but who does that?)

[0] https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/coffee-bre...

[1] https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/tea-brewed

[2] https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/green-tea

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Beverages

[4] https://www.caffeineinformer.com/caffeine-content/espresso

According to Mayo Clinic, typical caffeine levels are:

Brewed coffee (8 oz): 96 mg Brewed black tea (8 oz): 47 mg Brewed green tea (8 oz): 28 mg

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...

It's worth noting that tea also contains theanine, in addition to caffeine. Theanine binds to glutamate receptors and increases serotonin, dopamine, GABA, and glycine levels in various areas of the brain.

I've heard this too but need to see the numbers. I wonder if it's the caffeine per dry weight or per brewed serve. But don't get me started on what a serving of coffee is.
Every tea is different. Black teas have more caffeine than green, for example.
1-2 cups of coffee are medically fine. It won't likely have much of a significant effect on your health.
Maybe medically fine, but that doesn’t mean it is ideal. And how fine it is varies (drastically, I think) from person to person. I know caffeine is horrible for me, even 150 mg/day - it disrupts my sleep, clouds my thinking, and makes me more irritable (not helpful as a trial attorney). I started drinking it late in life (32 then, 38 now) and every time I quit I feel infinitely healthier. I am 5 days in to (hopefully) quitting caffeine forever. For me, it is a drug worse than alcohol. I have a feeling a lot of people are in this boat and just don’t realize it because they have been consuming caffeine beverages for so long.
I did it because when I was on an elimination diet, it was recommended to quit caffeine too. Hasn't seemed to have much effect. I sleep the same, still grind my teeth, still have psoriasis. I've cut everything from diet except salt, vegetables, fruit and fish.
Caffeine is an excellent hunger surpressent too, I swear by it for losing weight.
I don't need to lose weight though. Diet more for just other health reasons. 5' 11" 165lb. I could probably lose a little belly fat, but nothing crazy right now.
> 1-2 cups of coffee

Cups or mugs? Most of us, when we pour a mug of coffee, pour about 12 ounces, which is a cup (8 oz) and a half. So if you have two mugs of coffee, you're actually drinking about 3 cups.

A "cup" of coffee in US coffee language is 6oz.
well its a stimulant and stimulants increase blood pressure. So... guess it depends.
In hind sight this is how I should have done in. But I was morbidly curious to see how bad the cold turkey would be.

It was quite a while a go now, I might think about doing it again. But do it without the masochistic torture I put myself through last time.

'psoriasis or stress levels' - is there a link to psoriasis and coffee?