I need a bomb

[andrewducker]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that 80-90% of people in the USA drink caffeine every day.

I mostly cut it out of my diet a while back, and find that I sleep better and am happier since then, but I haven't been a major user since I realised it was taking three cups of coffee to get me going in the morning and quit overnight (the headache lasted about four days).

[Poll #1379482]

Comments

[andrewducker]

I do still drink it occasionally - if it's getting towards midnight and I'm flagging and the club is open for another two hours, for instance...

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

It's in the drinks I like (mostly tea, occasionally coffee), and the drinks I like keep me going during the day - so a bit of both.

[yalovetz]

I usually have a cup of coffee in the mornings because I like the taste and am not aware of using it to wake me up. I wake up just fine on mornings when I choose not to drink coffee, and generally use either exercise or a shower as my definite wake up techniques.

I try to avoid changing my caffeine intake (having more than one caffeinated drink a day, or missing my daily caffeinated drink) as that can trigger migraines.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

I use it (in the form of diet cola, appallingly enough) because the kids sleep badly and I simply can't get through the day without it. I know it's an unhealthy substance dependence, but I feel it's necessary right now. I'll quit (or cut back to non-dependent levels) when I'm getting more and better sleep.

[princealbert.livejournal.com]

I was a heavy coffee drinker, then after working for a couple of years running internet cafes inside Costas* my body rejected the caffiene.
So I stopped drinking 'full fat' coffee in 2001 and stuck to decafs. Unfortunatly it wasn't the caffiene. The decaf coffee was dropped a few years later.

Now I'm on normal tea for my first cup, decaf tea the rest of the day, unless I'm in a cafe/pub then normal tea is restored.

*(One Costa manager banned us from unlimited free coffees: "I didn't realise you computer geeks dranks so much coffee")

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

I avoid it almost entirely. I really like coke, so sometimes I have a sip of someone else's.

It does Bad Things to me.

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

I generally don't drink tea or coffee, but I start the day with Coke, and often have it at lunch-time too. Also, there's caffeine in chocolate, and I eat rather a lot of that :-)

[andrewducker]

I assume that diet/caffeine free coke still does Bad Things to you? Or that such abominations are not to be tolerated?

[cybik.livejournal.com]

I drink tea almost every day - but the way I have tea it's barely got any tea in it, let alone caffeine, so I really can't count that. I rarely drink coffee (usually only while bored in Dumfries, which happens maybe a couple of times a month) and seem to have massively cut down on caffeinated soft drinks (partly on purpose, partly because it's just worked out that way..).

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

I drink diet coke, coke zero and pepsi max at a rate of 1, possibly 2 cans a day. I drink coffee approximately once a week. I occasionally get caffeine headaches if I cut it out, but it doesn't actually do anything to me in terms of sleepiness/wakefulness. If I "overdose" on it then I get twitches, which are a symptom of stress or over-tiredness for me. I'd happily drink the caffeine free versions of cola if they were easier to come by. I prefer the taste slightly to other fizzy drinks, and I tend not to like the full sugar versions of pop, so the easily accessible stuff pretty much defaults to those I listed.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

I have a cup of tea every morning and a can of coke about once a month. Anything more than that wrecks me. I love the taste of coffee but I just can't drink it.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to be allergic to it.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

I try to only have one coffee a day - but only Real coffee and a very large one as I like it strong and black. I do however drink a wad of Dit Coke which is heavily caffeinated, but it doesn't seem to affect my sleeping patterns

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Actually, I needed an option you didn't have - "once or twice a day" - I try to limit myself to two cups of coffee, though often back-to-back after lunch.

[kashandara.livejournal.com]

See, I had exactly the same reaction, a can of irn bru or coke with my lunch that missing triggered a migraine, and my solution was to give up caffeine as close to completely as I could. It's interesting how different folks can have exactly the opposite solutions to the same problem. =)

[laserboy.livejournal.com]

Tea and lots of it. I'm not a daily coffee drinker (weird allergy) although I'll sometimes have a special one every few weeks.

I used to drink a lot of diet coke, but now it's an occasional thing and in certain circumstances.

[sageautumn.livejournal.com]

Same here.

I like tea (iced, sweet) and I'll also have a cup of coffee some mornings.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

Diet tastes bad. Diet, caffeine-free tastes utterly foul!

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

Asides from the occassional medicinal irn bru, cups of tea (once in a blue moon) and whatever trace amounts there are in chocolate and the like. None, nada, zip.

Cigarettes and alcohol are enough vice for me. (and I've quit the fags)

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Coffee. One cup first-thing in the morning as a perk-me-up, and usually one or two at my desk at work.

-- Steve overdid it yesterday, though, and didn't nod off until about six hours ago. (Grump.)

[avatar.livejournal.com]

If you'd asked me 3 months ago, I'd be a Never/I avoid caffeine.

[ias.livejournal.com]

I drink three,sometimes four, mugs of tea a day. Once or twice a week I might have a coffee instead of one of the teas but usually if I have coffee at home it is (weak) decaf, or have decaf, half caf.

I did overdo my caffeine intake when an au pair in Italy and had what can only be describes as the shakes for a couple of days. Ever since I have been rather sensitive to coffee so can't really have more than a couple of cups at day at the very most.

During pregnancy I tend to be very sensitive to caffeine (both tea and coffee) which is why I discovered Dowe Egberts decaff isn't bad. however I have yet to find a decaf tea which tastes at all nice.

As for whether I use caffeine to wake up: rarely. Sometimes on long journeys I want to stop for tea/coffee and chocolate but I think it is the break and chocolate which work better than the caffeine alone. I'll even have a cup of tea at bedtime sometimes and it never affects my sleep. But mostly caffeine is just another mechanism for sugar delivery: when the garklet was v. small and I was still on mat leave, nmg would bring me a cup of tea in bed and would always be able to gauge how bad a night I'd had depending on whether I asked for a spoon, spoon and a half or two spoons of sugar in my tea.

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

I like tea.

[dreema.livejournal.com]

it's strange, i used to think the same thing, but being diabetic meant i had to switch to diet drinks. Now if I drink 'full fat' drinks (coke, bru, etc) I find they taste excessively syrupy.

I agree with the caffiene free diet stuff though - no point at all in drinking that.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Caffeine doesn't seem to wake me up, and in fact if I drink strong coffee early in the morning my stomach dislikes it. But I do like the taste, and I tend to have 3 or 4 cups a day, although if I go without for a few days I don't get headaches or anything.