A year ago I went to my doctor to get meds for my anxiety. One thing he told me to do was to cut all caffeine out of my life. At the time I thought he was insane. I didnt think that I drank too much caffeine but I would have maybe 2 to 4 cups of coffee a day. Sometimes, I would even have coffee after work for the drive home.
After a few months of convincing I gave it a go. The first 3 weeks were rough. I had serious withdrawals and headaches. But after that it really seemed to help. My anxiety is not gone by any means but the caffeine seemed like it was helping to trigger it,
Just wanted to add that here in case someone wanted to give it a go.
Hi Jimmy, I used to drink a lot of caffeine too and never associated it with my anxiety at all until a friend told me about how she gave up caffeine because it would fuel her anxiety. It was tough at first but once I did it made a huge difference. Also, I can now actually feel how tired my body truly feels without fueling it with caffeine. I had a habit of going non-stop and that wasn't good for my health. So now I have slowed down and rest when I need to rather than just add caffeine to fuel my energy. Probably over exhausting my body didn't help my anxiety in and of itself so I think that this is good for not only my anxiety but my long-term health.
i can't drink caffeine if i do my heart races out of my body and i can't handle it. not too long ago i got a decaf coffee and i was accidentally given caffeine and i thought that i was going to be ill. felt like i could run a marathon two times over. it was awful. and couldn't even sleep that night, 12 hours later. it was crazy. so now i stay away from ordering decaf anywhere and only have it at home where i'm sure to get decaf. also it makes my anxiety unbearable to the point that i want to crawl out of my skin. so yeah, no caffeine for me either.
oh caffeine is my nemesis. if i have even a drop of it it's game over for me. my heart will race uncontrollably and my anxiety will be awful. i can't go anywhere near it and my psychiatrist has told me time and time again how bad it is for anxiety. i used to be that girl that would drink a latter in the morning and another one in the afternoon. sometimes late afternoon if i was going out that evening. at night i would drink vodka redbulls which is soooooo bad for you. that when my anxiety was out of control. then i started seeing my psychiatrist and she did everything short of beg me to cut caffeine out of my life. it was so hard. such a struggle for a while but then i went cold turkey and i've never looked back again. its made a massive difference.
This is good advice. Thanks.