Without caffeine ➞ me ⩶ useless
With caffeine ➞ anxiety++

Btw I don't drink 10 liters / 2.6 gallons of coffee everyday or anything, just a small latte does the trick ..

Shit, should have been under 'random', sorry.

I do

I had headaches every week or so for years; thought I was having migraines.
Then during the first WFH lockdown in 2020, I suddenly realized my headaches where gone. What did I do differently at home and not in the office? Then it hit me: it must be coffee!

I tested that hunch with multiple self-experiments and it turns out it was caffeine withdrawal headaches!
I used to drink up to 2.5 liters a day. Now I can't even drink one (1) glass of regular iced tea (about measly 5mg of caffeine) or I will have a headache the next day.

Kinda sucks but I'm really happy for not having any more headaches. "thx covid for helping me realize" I guess??

I have been off coffee for almost 2 months now and my productivity is starting to come back to normal. What hurts me most is if I smoke too much weed because then coding is boring.

@horus I guess the dosage is key~

@horus

It's dependent on few factors.

You can find dozens of tables for caffeine content on the internet - but it depends on type of coffee, way of brewing and how much.

Tea has usually less caffeine than coffee - though some tea sorts are high in caffeine (e.g. green tea). Brewing / how much affects it too, of course.

Number of max caffeine in beverages is usually strictly regulated, so it doesn't exceed a regular cup of coffee if I remember correctly in US and EU.

So red bull doesn't have much more caffeine than a strong pot of caffeine - though there are of course loop holes.

https://fda.gov/consumers/...

The trouble starts usually with the way of consumption...

... Red bull and other energy drinks are cold. You can gulp them if you just ignore the awful taste and they have additional stimulants, like taurine.

Coffee with milk has a high sugar content - dependent on how much milk, it makes a large difference. Same for e.g. espresso mixed with milk.

Some people who mix milk and sugar might get more hammered by the insulin rush of gulping down excessive quantities of sugar than caffeine....

Some people also have in general problems with hot beverages.

Not a pledoyer pro caffeine, just a reminder that it isn't sometimes that simple.

I e.g. can drink coffee all day long, just when I'm weather sensitive it might hit me differently. Thx to @netikras whom I forgot to thank you for a likely explanation in an completely different thread.

I've trained myself out of too-much-coffee by learning how to use the moka (that weird Italian pressure cooker hourglass-shaped metal teapot) and drinking just a cup of that superstrong brew per day.
Then slowly watering it down until I can spend a couple days without it and still not get withdraw migraines.
A week off might kill me, though.

P.S. that "mate" tea thing is also a good replacement