Skip to main content

Tips and Tricks When Going Caffeine Free

Recently I spent about 2 or 3 months without caffeine, which was no small feat for someone who has lived on coffee and tea since about 6th grade. Also college just works better when drinking insane amounts of coffee. I am going to divide my tips into energy tips and drink tips because these are the two challenges I faced.

Energy Tips
As a college student who's first class starts at 9AM most day and whose last class does not end till 8PM I have a really long day. Throw in already reduced energy levels because of chronic illness, pre going caffeine free that stuff was my life line. Here is how I managed not to fall asleep in class-

  • Naps, naps, and more naps. Every afternoon I took a nap without question. It was all about timing. I never took naps past 5 and always had at least a half hour between waking up and class.
  • Snacks that gave me energy, like nuts (although sometimes supplemented with twizzlers on occasion), this was especially important if I was trying to stay up late to finish a paper.
  • Sugary juices, actually I only really drank cranberry juice since I couldn't have anything acid and hate apple juice. I found the sugar gave me an energy boost and the crash wasn't as bad as most sugary things.
My Sans Caffeine Study Kit

Drink Tips
I am about the whitest white girl ever and look forward to enjoy millions of pumpkin spice lattes every fall (maybe not quite millions but you get the point). I did not want to give up my favorite drinks that easily.
  • The first lesson I learned was decaf does not mean caffeine free. So if you are just trying to cut back on caffeine decaf is great but if you want to cut it out of your diet altogether I am sorry to tell you the bad news.
  • Most places will work with you to make you a caffeine free beverage, once I had a barrister that was really excited and asked me if I could try his new fall creation that was caffeine free. This is probably the hardest tip to follow because I don't know about you but I am not good at speaking up for myself.
  • Use this as an opportunity to expand your horizons. Herbal teas are pretty great. I also learned the Starbuck's peppermint hot chocolate is pretty awesome even if it isn't quite a PSL.
Rocking the Peppermint Hot Cocoa

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Preparing to Fly with Complex Medical Issues

One of the most stressful things to do is travelling, now add some needles, medical liquids, and a suppressed immune system to that and flying goes from stressful to down right scary. As I prepare to fly to the rare patient advocacy summit taking place this week in California I  figured I would share what I have found works the best for me when traveling. Before my first flight with a feeding tube I looked up the TSA policies on medical liquids. Basically as long as you notify them while going through security and separate them from the rest of your things you should be allowed to take them through without issue. No doctor's note required. Same goes for needles and syringes and inject-able medications. You may want to print this policy out or have easy access to it on your phone in case you encounter any issues although I have yet to have a problem. A few days before your flight call up TSA cares. They will set you up with a TSA specialist to help you through security. Th...
1 comment
Read more

30 Things You May Not Know About My Invisible Illness

I am doing this post for invisible illness week which is this week.  1. The illness I live with is: Enthesitis, Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain(AMP), and Uveitis 2. I was diagnosed with it in the year: Uveitis-2012, Enthesitis and AMP-2013 3. But I had symptoms since: 2006 4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is: I have had to learn I can't do everything I want or everything that other people my age are doing. 5. Most people assume: I am perfectly fine or I just have osteoarthritis and not an autoimmune disease. 6. The hardest part about mornings are: Getting out of bed, doing my hair, and figuring out what outfit will be the most comfortable for the day (and accommodate any swelling I may have) 7. My favorite medical TV show is: Grey's Anatomy (and Scrubs even if it is no longer on) 8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is: My Freezer 9. The hardest part about nights are: Not being able to fall asleep in a comfortable pos...
5 comments
Read more

The Perfect Body?

Today I am going to write about a taboo subject- body image, and how living with chronic illness/pain has affected it. I get told how great my body is a lot, I am tall and fairly skinny. Not to be egotistic but I look pretty good in a bikini. I should love how I look. I should be confident of my body, after all I just bought a pair of size 2 jeans. Yet I still struggle with loving my body. My New Jeans! In middle school I thought my legs were fat, that was when I had muscles from horseback riding, today I miss my muscular legs. My thighs tend to be two different sizes, the left one is almost always smaller. The reason for this is simple, my left quad has atrophied from months of limping and being on crutches when I was 15/16, at one point it was so bad my doctor measured it and the difference was a good 2 cm in circumference. Today they are almost the same size, and probably look the same to anyone else, but to me they still look different. If you haven't guessed it yet, ...
4 comments
Read more