I read an article about the link between coffee and Anxiety, and it changed my life.

As kids, we weren’t allowed to have caffeine. I started drinking coffee during my undergrad, up to 4 cups/day.

In my twenties, I went through some years of trauma. My memory became like a sieve, my thoughts whizzing at the speed of light, and my sleep restless (waking up every hour). I often had foggy brain and dissociation, my attention span in tatters.

Once I removed myself from the source of trauma, I hoped the symptoms would fade over time.

Yet, the restless nights and whizzing thoughts carried into my thirties. I was down to just one cup of coffee in the morning, and some tea later. At some point, I realized the whizzing, “tumbling over each other” thoughts and constant shame/guilt at not accomplishing enough every day, was Anxiety.

And then I came across the article linking Anxiety and coffee/caffeine. And something clicked. I’d already discovered that if I didn’t have caffeine after 12 noon, I could sleep like a baby through the night.

So I wondered if my racing thoughts and overwhelming feelings of shame/guilt were also linked to coffee, like the article said. I decided to try it. The article warned about caffeine withdrawal headaches, so I decided to switch my morning coffee to tea, rather than stop caffeine cold turkey.

The next day, I had chai instead of coffee. And then a mid-morning and afternoon chai. Luckily, there was no withdrawal headache as tea has caffeine.

And, lo and behold, I woke up the next day, and my thoughts had slowed down. The shame, guilt and extremely vocal Inner Critic had quietened. “I haven’t done this”, “I haven’t done that”, “Oh, that also needs to be done”, all tumbling over each other, not letting me focus, all those thoughts had vanished.

In just one day.

All I did was remove my one and only cup of coffee.

As days passed, I realized I no longer needed caffeine to wake me up before I was capable of doing anything productive in the morning. I could wake up and work a few hours without feeling an urge for even tea. And although I was having tea at 3pm, my sleep was much better than before.

The funniest thing is that for years I thought the racing thoughts was me, my personality. That maybe it was a sign of intelligence, the reason I went to MIT. 🙂 But no, they were neither a sign of intelligence, nor part of what made me me.

But tea also has caffeine. So were my previous symptoms linked to coffee, or to caffeine? Well, although coffee and tea both have caffeine, tea also has L-theanine. L-theanine helps reduce anxiety and stress, calms our mind, etc. That’s why, even just switching from coffee to tea, helped me instantaneously.

Ideally, I’d like to give up my afternoon tea. I know it’ll make my sleep amazing. I could switch to rooibos or decaf coffee in the afternoon for my tea break. But, I haven’t been able to make the switch yet.

I’m just so relieved to be free from the prison of my overwhelming and torturous thoughts. To finally have my mind in a calm and “chill” state. And now that I’m a few years into this “Caffeine and Anxiety” experiment, I am sharing the results with you. Maybe it’ll help some of you.

What about you? Do you face overwhelming anxiety? Rushing, tumbling thoughts? A propensity for over-thinking? Feelings of shame/guilt at not doing enough, not being enough? Thoughts that torture you all the time, not letting you take a moment of rest without feeling guilty? Have you ever wondered if coffee could be to blame?