How To Stop Drinking So Much Coffee: 4 Effective Tips
Coffee by itself does not usually cause harm to health, even if consumed moderately it has benefits such as keeping us alert, improving physical performance, and provides some essential nutrients such as riboflavin, pantothenic acid, magnesium and niacin among others.
On the contrary, excessive coffee consumption can cause serious damage to your health. Drinking more than three cups a day begins to be considered outside the recommended range. That is why many people would like to eliminate their consumption and begin to wonder how to stop consuming so much coffee Let’s look at several tips.
Caffeine can be addictive, not only because of the sensation it provides by providing energy, but because with high and prolonged consumption, the body gets used to its usual doses of coffee For this reason, eliminating its consumption can produce withdrawal symptoms.
So, let’s see how to stop drinking so much coffee on a daily basis.
1. Make the decision and have an objective
Drinking more than three cups a day is already beginning to be a warning to consider stopping consuming coffee. In theory we should not consume more than 300 milligrams so if your consumption is the same or greater and you are beginning to consider stopping consuming coffee, it is important to make the determination to start a plan and follow it until you have achieved it.
It is important to understand that one goal may be to stop consuming so much coffee, that is, to minimize it, and another may be to completely eliminate coffee consumption. That is why we have to reflect on what we want to establish an action plan.
It may be that if your coffee consumption exceeds 4 cups a day, a goal is to reduce to two cups. Or if the goal is to eliminate it completely, it is advisable have a real and achievable goal about the time in which you hope to achieve it A realistic time frame could be between 3 to 5 months depending on the quantities currently used.
This step to stop drinking so much coffee is the first one that we must be very clear about and then begin to plan the next suggestion to eliminate or reduce excessive consumption of this drink.
2. Gradually decrease cups per day
Stopping drinking coffee brings with it a small inconvenience that you have to know how to solve: there is a withdrawal syndrome Headache, fatigue, anxiety and drowsiness are the most frequent symptoms when eliminating its consumption.
For this reason, stop drinking coffee should be a gradual goal in proportion to the amount currently consumed and what you want to reach.
The exercise could be that if you currently consume 5 cups a day, you start by drinking 4 cups for 3 or 4 weeks, then reduce to 3 cups for 3 or weeks and so on until you reach the goal achieved or no cup of coffee a day..
This way, the caffeine that our body assimilates will be reduced little by little reducing the withdrawal syndrome or even helping to prevent it from being felt. If the high intake of coffee per day has been carried out for a long period of time, the body is already accustomed to caffeine, and between each cup of coffee there has not been the body’s own process to discard it from the body, that It means that it hasn’t worked without caffeine for a long time.
If consumption is reduced gradually, the body will not suddenly suffer from this drop in caffeine and after a while the body will have become accustomed to being without it.
After having made an action plan and gradually reducing consumption, stopping drinking so much coffee will be easier than it initially seemed.
3. Substitute coffee
When caffeine consumption is high, a good way to achieve a gradual decrease in intakes per day is replace it with a tea that contains caffeine and alternate it with one that does not contain
Black or green tea contains caffeine so they could be drunk in the morning to replace coffee. By being hot and containing caffeine, they could help you receive the same feeling of energy that a cup of coffee provides. The following shots can be replaced with a caffeine-free tea such as chamomile, or perhaps one with orange blossoms or relaxing herbs to help reduce the withdrawal syndrome.
Dark chocolate or cola are also good options to replace it. A cola has less caffeine than a cup of coffee, so it can be a great help to stop drinking so much coffee throughout the day.
4. Do relaxing activities
Once we have started with the plan to stop drinking coffee and we begin to feel the first symptoms of withdrawal, we can resort to exercises or activities that allow us to stay at peace and that serve as a palliative to avoid relapse
Walking, swimming, doing yoga, tai chi or meditation are some of the activities that can help perfectly because in addition to helping to release toxins they also serve to become aware of our body and the importance of its health and the benefits of leaving behind a habit that hurts us.
Meditation also works to relieve anxiety that causes stopping an addictive substance and with symptoms such as headache or drowsiness.
