October 12, 2021 2:45 PM
A ‘coffee black’ from the vending machine at the office. The very last one, because from October 13, caffeine will be banned for a month. Experiment for the NRC podcast Hairless Monkeys. Black tea also disappears, but that is not the problem. Coffee, that’s what the engine runs on. Four, okay, maybe six cups a day on weekdays. A little more if you count the double shots for two. Certainly more than the four per day of the average Dutch person. But to put it another way: addicted… If you rob your mother for use, then you are addicted. Coffee is not addictive. However?
Although Jellinek refers to caffeine as “moderately addictive,” at least the addiction agency does not have a caffeine self-help program. The DSM-5 psychiatry manual does not consider use as a disorder either, but does include withdrawal symptoms; a long list of symptoms ranging from headaches to flu-like symptoms. Treatment: gradually taper.
A prevention officer of Jellinek who thinks along, suggests microdosing, and gives a tip to keep a diary, after an example with hallucinating truffles. But phasing out or microdosing was not the plan. Cold turkey, that’s how we agreed.
October 13 12:30 pm
During the morning, which started with a cup of ginger tea, the headache sets in, throbbing more and more. Heavy head, heavy eyelids, heavy heart. In other words: grumpy. Thoughts that are difficult to form into words, words that you have to pull out of greasy clay before they become sentences. And tired! Floored to bed at 10pm and woke up in the middle of the night with a headache.
After three days it is clear that the withdrawal takes place exactly by the book: headache, fatigue, irritability, reduced concentration. Or is it really a flu? And is it stupid to cancel a party because of withdrawal symptoms? The only way to find out if the general malaise is due to the caffeine withdrawal syndrome is to take a shot. Just a little one.
October 15 17:05
A 375 milliliter bottle of Coke, 41 milligrams of caffeine, drink it very slowly and see what happens. Is it imagination or does the headache go away? Pale eyelids, as if the curtains are opening, the fog is lifting and a leaf blower is blowing away the damp foliage beneath my skull. After fifteen minutes bending over and shaking your head well: nothing, empty, fresh. After half an hour: euphoria, a crackling feeling, energy, want to party! Why take drugs when you have caffeine?
After this cheating evening I pick up the experiment again. No caffeine for the rest of the month. The most severe withdrawal symptoms do not return. What remains for a few more weeks: as if everything has been put on the back burner: thinking, reacting, working. Everything just a little slower. Is this my true brain? Or have I dropped below my energy level without caffeine? Has coffee kept me on my toes since high school?
Nov 17 9:15 am
Now that the weather is allowed, the caffeine is now physically superfluous, my head seems to be normal again – although it is impossible to determine exactly what normal is. But coffee is more than caffeine. The smell, the ritual of making coffee, that first sip from the morning paper. Why would you want to miss all that? The first cup of coffee, in the studio of Hairless Apen, does not give the euphoria and relief of the cheat shot, it mainly tastes good and familiar (think the tune of Douwe Egberts: ‘…you are at home…‘).
The experiment was in no way scientific. But it did get you thinking: what does caffeine do to our bodies and brains? What is it good for and what would it be bad for?
Tremors and ringing in the ears
Ever since people have been drinking it, there have been warnings about the dangers of coffee. You would become impotent or infertile. You could get cancer from it, heart arrhythmias, nervous breakdowns, tremors, ringing in the ears and even suicidal tendencies, describes the American Mark Pendergrast, who wrote for his book Uncommon Grounds (1999) investigated how coffee conquered the world.
From the long list of more or less serious threats, only unfiltered coffee with an excess of the cafestol substance, such as from a cafetière, increases the bad LDL cholesterol. And too many Caffeine – as with anything – is never good. For the rest, the scientific basis proved shaky and in recent decades moderate coffee drinking, up to four cups or 400 milligrams per day, has been associated with all kinds of positive health effects. In 2015, the Dutch Health Council found the benefits to be sufficiently proven to include coffee in the Wheel of Five. Coffee drinkers are less likely to have cardiovascular disease, liver disease, various cancers, type 2 diabetes and depression. Even Parkinson’s and dementia would be less common.
Coffee drinkers live longer. Nice. But especially for the long term. And those findings only say something at the population level. Whether it is the antioxidants or other substances in the coffee, or the special living habits of coffee drinkers: much is still unclear. It says nothing about the individual user – whether you grow old in a healthy way.
No, then caffeine as a stimulant. As a psychoactive substance. The only drug that is legally available to anyone anywhere in the world. Who gets us going in the morning, keeps us going all day and can let us sleep through the night if needed. The substance that, once coffee could be obtained in bulk from the colonies, came at the right time. The biological clock was no longer in control. Night workers could keep the factories running 24 hours a day with the help of coffee, while office clerks kept the books up to date. As VOF De Kunst sang: ‘when the coffee lady wants it, everything comes to a halt’. Or Dolly Parton, that one a cup of ambition poured in to it from 9 to 5 to keep up.
It has now been shown in countless experiments: caffeine increases concentration, alertness and reaction speed. And where you start to associate free from many other psychoactive substances, caffeine actually helps to think focused. Chess players think faster. Tired drivers drive more safely. Athletes know how to boost their performance – not only because caffeine makes muscles burn energy faster, but also because athletes with a shot are sharper. Even if they are used to drinking coffee every day.
Opponent in disguise
Just reasons to keep drinking coffee. Although, it might be good to know what exactly provides that cognitive boost. What caffeine does in the brain.
First of all, it ensures the production of adrenaline and cortisol, which already make you awake and alert. But caffeine has another special property: it resembles another chemical, while acting like an enemy in disguise. It works like this: during the day you burn energy and in the process adenosine is released. In people who do not drink coffee, the adenosine molecules attach themselves to receptors in the brain that provide sleep pressure. More and more adenosine, more and more desire to sleep. Caffeine holds the key to attaching itself to those same receptors, creating a blockage for adenosine. Your body gets just as tired, but the signals don’t come through. Until the caffeine is broken down. For some after a few hours, for others only after half a day, that differs per person. But once the blockage breaks down and the built-up adenosine reservoir reaches the receptors, fatigue sets in at once. Something British neuroscientist Matthew Walker in his book why we sleep (2017) describes it as the ‘coffee crash’.
Also, not all caffeine is broken down when you fall asleep. You sleep, but less deeply – and therefore of lower quality – than without caffeine.
The friend of the awake brain is the enemy of sleep, according to Michael Pollan, the American author who wrote about caffeine in This is your Mind on Plants (2021). He did it for three months, living without coffee. He also noticed how sluggish and fuzzy he felt for the first few days without caffeine. You think coffee gives you a kick, but it’s the other way around: it prevents you from feeling lousy. We drink coffee to combat its negative effects, he says. Pollan’s conclusion: caffeine energizes credit, there will inevitably come a time when you have to repay your debt.
Not after lunch
What lingered after a month without caffeine: Coffee is okay. Not too much and not after lunch. That’s how it should be from now on. One cup at breakfast, then up to three more cups until noon. And really enjoy it, with full attention. No more mindlessly trudging to that vending machine and pressing ‘black coffee’.
February 2022
What about coffee consumption? It’s four, okay, maybe six cups a day on weekdays. A little more if you count the double shots for two. But to say the least: addicted…