Reflecting On What I Learned While Giving Up Coffee

The challenge has ended. The first day after the challenge ended I made me a cup of coffee. I was allowed to have it and yet I felt like I shouldn’t be drinking it. I had positive changes that I noticed during the challenge and didn’t want to undo the progress I had made. I thought about everything I had already overcome. I drank the cup of coffee I made, but I did it mindfully, as I was instructed to do in the ted talk A Simple Way To Break A Bad Habit. When I mindfully drank that cup of coffee I noticed that it made my teeth feel gross like there was in film on them.  In the future I will continue to be mindful when I indulge in coffee. I hope that eventually I won't even want the substance at all. I am not going to completely forbid myself from drinking it. I think anything in moderation is not bad for you.I know that it is not necessary for me to drink coffee every day. If this challenge has taught me anything it’s to be more mindful about what I am doing. I have to start being intentional with my actions. If I want healthy skin and nice teeth I need to train my mind into choosing a healthy choice.

Brighter Smile

The main reason that I wanted to quit consuming coffee was, because of the affect it had on my teeth. I was jealous of other people that had beautiful smiles. I wanted my teeth to be whiter, and I wanted my teeth to appear to be straighter. I have not consumed coffee for almost a month now. After I stopped consuming coffee I didn’t notice a change overnight. The side effects of coffee had already been done. Although, What I did notice was that the longer I went without coffee, the appearance of my teeth became better. My teeth appeared whiter and whiter the longer this challenge went on. The whiter they were the less the imperfections were noticeable to me. I think imperfection are less visible to the eye the whiter your teeth are . I think after noticing the change I have that cheating on this challenge is less likely to happen. I’m happy with the results I’m am getting from the long term effects of living without coffee. Every picture prior to now I have always had a fake smile. I kept my lips together hiding my teeth. I now gladly show off my teeth when I smile. I have a confidence when I smile.

Positive Change

I gave up coffee two weeks ago. Lately I have noticed a positive change. I would consider this change a short term side effect of giving up caffeine. When I first wake up I notice my skin looks better. My skin doesn’t look dull, or lack vitality. My pores are cleaner and smaller. The pores on my nose use to be big pores. I thought that maybe that was just me and there was nothing I could do about that. When I first noticed that my pores had become smaller I really couldn’t believe it. My pores seemed to have shrunk to nothing. My pores were free of toxins. I like to think I’m pretty proactive taking care of my skin. I use to use steam room to help with sweating out toxins even though that is the worst way to rid the body of toxins; though your skin. My pores are now clean with little to no effort, my guess would be my body is not working as hard to rid its self of bad toxins. I will keep looking out for other positive changes that I notice from giving up coffee. Positive changes could encourage me to continue after the thirty day challenge without coffee.

Hot Lemon Water

Cold weather is approaching us! I have stumbled a crossed a simple hot beverage that you might want to know about. I’ve have been on a thirty day challenge to give up coffee. I would only crave something warm to drink in the morning. Autumn is here and the weather is getting cold. I want something warm to drink more frequently without straying away from the challenge that I’m currently doing. I wanted to eliminate coffee from my daily consumption due the fact that it has little to no health benefits to it. I have started indulging in lemon water that has the complete opposite effect that coffee had. I listed some proven benefits for why to start your day with lemon water..

 Prevents Premature Aging:

It has been established that a sufficient amount of water in the body prevents the body from experiencing dehydration. This maintains the vitality of the skin.

Will Start your Metabolism:

Water first thing in the morning aides in weight loss. Drinking water when you first wake up will jump start your metabolism, instead of your body staying in fasting mode.

Healthy Glow:

Lemons are packed with vitamin C. Vitamin C is one of the main ingredients in most skin care cosmetics. Vitamin C is a pore reducer.

Quiting habits

"A lot of the time I felt like I had to exclude myself
from certain situations"

Giving up coffee I can imagine it would be similar to giving up other addictive substances. That’s how I had to treat this experiment. For the first week of giving up coffee I had to have a substitute; I used orange juice. I would usually have a cup of coffee as soon as I woke up. I immediately experienced withdrawals when I stopped consuming coffee. I needed a different substance to lessen the cravings and the feeling of being deprived that I was experiencing. I currently live with two other individuals that are daily coffee consumers. When my roommates made coffee or drank coffee around me  it made me crave coffee. I had to distance myself from them when they were indulging in coffee. I planned out waking up before them to make breakfast, grabbing some orange juice, and going back downstairs. When I heard them up and about I knew that the house would soon be filled with the aroma of coffee. I removed myself from what could possibly be a trigger. I went out to the garage and threw weights around. I hope reading my experience helps someone else that may be trying to do the same or maybe a challenge similar.

Caffeine Withdrawls

The morning of the first day that my thirty day challenge started was hard. When I woke up my mind wasn't convinced that today was the right day to start this. I felt like pushing the challenge off for an extra day. Going about my normal routine and not changing a thing would have been easy. I knew I wasn’t striving for easy but for change. I wanted to make myself a cup of coffee but I didn't. I poured myself a cup of orange juice and continued on with my morning like I would any other day. I regretted the decision to give coffee up. I knew after I left the house that was it. I wasn’t going to get a cup of coffee. I loaded my car with the stuff I needed for class and work that day and left the house with my cup of orange juice.  I felt drowsy in the morning and by the end of the day I had a terrible headache.  I experienced common signs of caffeine withdrawals (A Coffee Withdrawal diagnosis).

6 Top Caffeine Withdrawal Symptoms: I did experience most of these symptoms but it was for a short amount of time.

1.     Headache

2.     Fatigue

3.     Drowsiness

4.     Depressed Mood

5.     Irritability

6.     Difficulty Concentrating