Four Steps to Figure Out Caffeine

Shereen M via Compfight

You cannot sleep at night, and you suspect caffeine might be the culprit.

You understand that you could just eliminate it from your life and see how it goes, but you love that coffee in the morning, and don’t want to give that up.

Here is a simple four step process to figure out how you can manage caffeine:

1. Your first inclination was correct. To see if caffeine is really affecting your sleep, you have to stop it entirely.  That means going cold turkey off the stuff for about two weeks (two weeks will typically see you through any withdrawal symptoms you might experience – headaches, sleepiness, irritability, constipation, lethargy, etc).
2. If you find that you are sleeping better with no caffeine, but still want it in you life, then start back slowly. If it’s made no difference at all to you, and you really have gone without it for two weeks, then caffeine isn’t the problem.
3. After the two weeks, limit your daily intake to maybe one cup of coffee before 9am. See how that goes. If you still sleep well after a few nights, then you can either increase the amount you’re consuming or have it an hour later in the day. Either way, do one thing – not both. You can’t really track two variables at one time. Write down what you did and what the reaction was in a journal.
4. Keep experimenting with Step 3 until you find that point where you know how much and when you have to curtail caffeine for the day. It will take quite a while, but in the end you’ll have a pretty good rule that you can follow. You’ll know you can say something like “I can have three cups of coffee a day, as long as they’re all before noon”.

Be aware of hidden caffeine all over the place. In addition to it occurring naturally in drinks like coffee and tea, it is also added to food and drink in the most unsuspecting places. Learn to read labels.

Caffeine In Common Places