[WindyCityBrew]

Do you drink a lot of coffee or other caffeinated drinks, especially later in the day? I used to think caffeine didn't have much affect on my sleep, until I cut it out. Old habits die hard, but I just drink decaf coffee now and am getting better sleep then I can remember.

[intergalplan]

~2 cups of coffee probably 5-6 days a week, sometimes tea instead, rarely past noon and never past ~2:00PM (I only drink it as late as, say, 1:00PM if I happen not to realize how late it is). Maybe one soda per month, tops, don't really pay attention to when I have those, though. I'd guess afternoon/evening mostly, but it's rare enough that I doubt it's doing anything meaningful to my overall sleep-trends.

I could try cutting it out, but I've had trouble falling asleep my entire life, and my average annual caffeine intake was very low until my mid-teens. I'm actually much better about sleep now than I used to be, even without meds. Worth a shot, though, I guess. I'd been thinking about dropping my intake to one cup per day, alternating coffee and green tea (which would represent a large increase in my consumption of green tea) anyway. Hell, at lower volume I could justify buying the expensive, low-package-weight, really, really good beans, so the flavor of the coffee I'm drinking would improve, though I might have to group coffee-days rather than alternate them, to avoid issues with beans going stale. Seems like ~halving my caffeine would be an OK start.

Sigh. Guess I'm going to be spending a lot of money on sparkling water, just like when I kicked my soda habit :-)