Are you a coffee junkie? Joseph Rupo, spokesman for the U.S. National Coffee Association, says that coffee is not an addictive substance,as defined by the American Psychiatric Association. So, if coffee is not addictive, you can’t be a coffee junkie.
And if you are not a junkie, you don’t need to worry about withdrawal symptoms when you skip your brew for a day. But research from Johns Hopkins University, which correlated data from fifty-seven experimental studies and nine survey studies, draws a different picture. There are, it seems, a variety of symptoms associated with coffee or caffeine withdrawal.
They include fatigue, depression or irritability, an inability to focus, and in some cases, muscle stiffness and nausea which resembled flu symptoms. The research indicated that one or more of these symptoms appeared within twelve to twenty-four hours and increased in intensity for up to two days; in some instances they lasted for as long as nine days. The severity of symptoms depended on the amount of caffeine the subjects were used to ingesting, but people who consumed as little as one cup of coffee a day reported experiencing at least one of them. And, like those suffering from hangovers who indulge in a wakeup swig of the hair of the dog that bit them, people who use their morning coffee as a pick-me-up may not really be experiencing any benefits other than its alleviating the symptoms of their not having had caffeine overnight. And those people who are heavy-duty coffee drinkers need to keep drinking or face serious withdrawal. But, because of their coffee intake, they are less likely to be consuming water or nutritional drinks. And because coffee is a mild diuretic, the more they drink, the more they are dehydrating themselves and losing essential minerals.
So, if coffee is beginning to sound less appealing, don’t force yourself to stop cold. Cut back gradually, reducing your intake by, say, 20% per day. Educate yourself on the caffeine content of the other beverages you consume. Replace them with sports drinks to overcome any dehydration you may have experienced. And don’t forget about decaf.
