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[Mayor Monday]

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[Corrie]

My sister is on caffeine a lot as iced coffees are her drink of choice. That said, she also has anxiety and after drinking coffee, she gets restless and can't sleep, therefore making her tired the next day.
I've noticed that on days where she doesn't have one or as many, she's more calm and focused.

I think if she'd stop or drink it less it would help her relax.

 

[TheBawdyBard]

Cutting down on your caffiene intake could help with anxiety, since it is a stimulant. Howerver you won't truly know until you try. The best way would be just cutting down on the amount of caffiene you drink bit by bit. Opting for different non-caffinated drinks, or decaf coffee definately helps.

Because you are a teenager, this is the time anxiety can start to surface. If it's possible, and you feel comfortable, talk with your parents and see if anxiety runs in your family. Cutting down on caffiene could help, but it might not make it go away. If it continues to impact your daily life talk to your doctor about ways to manage it.

 

[beemayor]

i dont know enough about the topic to say whether it will help or not (though i’ve heard it does) but what i can say is each time i’ve tried to cut out caffeine i have had awful headaches. i would say if your body is dependent on caffeine to function smoothly maybe talk to your general doctor when you can. obviously the state of things makes that tricky right now but you can always cut back a little if you want!

 

[cIementine]

as someone who suffers with anxiety, i would recommend this. i don't drink coffee so that isn't an issue for me, and for years now the soda i drink has been zero sugar/zero caffeine even though i drink lots of it a day. the rare times i drink soda that has full sugar/caffeine content or buy a coffee, my body does not react well and a lot of my anxiety stems from me worrying about the repercussions of physical symptoms and fixating on them until i worry myself into a mess - e.g coffee makes me stomach hurt so i worry about being sick if i'm out with people, and the jitters/buzz from too much sugar make me feel panicky. so i can't say cutting it out has helped me since that's been my norm, but i can say that having it makes me feel anxious.

i think if you drink that much caffeine your body is probably somewhat desensitised, and your post makes it seem as though your anxiety is a lot more recent than your caffeine consumption. i think you should take not of situations and events that trigger your panic and worry - being able to track what sets you off might help you isolate the cause, but i think slowly decreasing your caffeine intake and drinking more water instead might help. maybe i should take my own advice too, haha!

 

[Midoriya]

I quit drinking coffee more than a year ago (I’ve had it a few times since then when I really need it), but I also had social anxiety for my classes start up in January of 2019, and it hasn’t gone away even without drinking coffee. I don’t know why, but I feel tired during the day sometimes too. Though this may be related more to the medicine I take than anything else (I probably need to talk to my psychiatrist and get my medicine changed). Just thought this would be useful to know.

 

[Mayor Monday]

maybe i should take my own advice too, haha!

Thanks for the advice- though I see what you mean- your profile's bio gives it away! lol

 

[Flyffel]

You can slowly quit caffeine intake if you want. Reduce your intake by a little bit every day. Regarding withdrawal symptoms, it should be quittable in one to two weeks. I have quit a few times just to try but I keep "coming back" not because of withdrawal symptoms but because it's just useful to power me up in general.

I don't know about links to anxiety, but maybe your worry about a possible link is causing extra anxiety.

 

[Chris]

There is a known link between caffeine and increased anxiety, struggling/inability to sleep, and also gastric distress.

 

[cIementine]

Thanks for the advice- though I see what you mean- your profile's bio gives it away! lol

uh oh - maybe i should update my bio!

 

[VillageDuck]

I have overall good health for a teenager- except panic and worry. It's beginning to keep me from doing everyday activities, such as going for a walk down my road.

Hi there! I'm really sorry to hear about your growing panic and anxiety. Would you mind sharing how long ago you began to experience this? Has it only just recently become so bad as to prevent you doing everyday activities?

I was wondering if quitting caffeine altogether can help alleviate or get rid of most of my symptoms. I tried quitting at one point in my life, but I passed out due to a situation caused by withdrawal, and it scared me back into drinking soda. Quitting cold turkey wasn't very healthy, especially since I've been drinking soda every day as a main drink for 8+ years. So...

Quitting anything cold turkey isn't advisable, from simple stuff to candy all the way up to hard drugs. The human body - both biologically and psychologically - isn't wired to just stop activities it has become habituated to doing regularly.

Whether it's a genuine addiction or just a habit (e.g. biting nails) that you want to stop, always have a sensible and sustainable reduction plan that takes place over many weeks.

I'm going to address your three questions, but first I think it would be helpful for you to watch this video on coffee. I know it's soda in your case, but the caffeine bit applies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTVE5iPMKLg

I'd also recommend taking a look at the NHS (UK national health service) webpage on drinks and caffeine:
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/water-drinks-nutrition/
and on generalised anxiety disorder:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/generalised-anxiety-disorder/self-help/

In principle, having a mild caffeine addiction is both extremely common and harmless. It can lead to headaches from withdrawal, and can also disturb sleep if you have it too late in the day, and there's a lot of reported evidence of it aggravating (but not causing) symptoms of anxiety in higher doses, but otherwise shouldn't be harmful.

But the way you're worried about it - and symptoms and passing out - suggest yours is anything but mild.

Could you also clarify on the soda? Is it diet soda or regular? If regular, the difficulties of quitting might actually be from the high amounts of sugar you'd be intaking every day. I probably don't need to explain why that's a bad thing for both short and long-term health.

I haven't quit caffeine, but I do keep my consumption in check. While there isn't a medical consensus on what a "safe" amount to drink each day is (unless you're a pregnant woman, in which case keep it under 200mg a day!), 300-400mg a day (about four cups of coffee) seems to be somewhat common advice.

1. Has anyone else quit caffeine?
2. How did it help?
3. Do you have anxiety/panic? Did it help to quit?

So a quick background on me and why I wanted to reduce my caffeine intake:
I have a job that if I let it can keep me up until stupid-o-clock at night working. That means late-night caffeine intake to keep going, which in turn means absolutely dreadful sleep by the time I get to it.

Remember: caffeine has a half-life of about six hours, so even if you're too tired to stay awake anymore, if you've had caffeine recently your sleep is going to be disturbed, leading you to feel dreadful the next day and reach for more caffeine.

Rather than trying to limit my absolute consumption, the change I made was to restrict when I consumed caffeine. I initially made 6pm my cut-off, and slowly worked that down to 3pm, save for unusual occasions. This massively reduced the amount of caffeine I intake, and it meant I got decent sleep at night so I'm less reliant on coffee the next day, etc.

The pressures of my job lead to a lot of imposter syndrome and low-level anxiety anyway. Caffeine, with its heart-rate-increasing effects, aggravate that. When I keep my caffeine consumption in check, I'm able to handle work and life stress a lot better.

So if you want to reduce your intake, this is what I'd recommend for you:

1. Reduce your intake gradually. A minimum of four weeks. Don't quit cold turkey.
2. I'd suggest cutting your caffeine intake off by somewhere from 6 to 8pm. Then, every week, make the cut off point an hour earlier. 3pm is a good final target to work towards as an initial goal.
3. Once you've managed not drinking caffeine past 3pm and sustained it for a few days, look at how much you're drinking before 3pm and try to slowly reduce this number, again going week-by-week.
4. Make sure you're replacing the soda you're not longer drinking with simple water. Reducing your soda intake will also reduce your fluid intake, so you need to account for this. (and in general nobody drinks enough water anyway so do this step regardless)

For your general feelings of anxiety, make sure you're getting a decent amount of sleep each night (aim for 8 hours) and that you're also exercising regularly. Real-life (not internet/social media) socialising is also important - it's very difficult when you're suffering from anxiety, but it has also shown to be a very important factor for maintaining good mental health.

If following your successful reduction of caffeine and getting enough sleep, etc., your anxiety still persists and prevents you from doing everyday activities, please seek professional advice.

...

I've lived on caffeine almost my entire life. I can confidently say that I got addicted when I was young. This is bad, I know.

Less serious aside - if you have a lot of caffeine now, you're in for a rude awakening once you hit around age 25. Anecdotally, this is when a lot of people start to up their caffeine intake as it's when the the youth-given ability to always be awake and energetic starts to slide.

 

[Mayor Monday]

snip

First off, thank you for all of this information. It was an excellent read and I really appreciate it.

Second, to answer your questions:

1. I began experiencing actual 'panic' this around 4 years ago.
2. Over the course of the 4 years, it went from being triggered only when I felt 'trapped' (e.g. in a car on a highway) to having to be away from my home as a whole. Some days it's worse than others. I can still make myself leave- which I often do- but I have at least one panic attack or onset of one. I can only describe it as a flight or fight response because that's how it feels.
3. The soda I often drink is regular coke.

Third, all of this seems like it will take a while, but I feel it will be worth it. Even though I don't expect it to solve my panic attacks I can feel that on a certain level it will help. It seems like the healthiest route anyway.

I'm checking out the links now. Thank you again for going to all this trouble!

 

[Kalle]

Reducing caffeine intake some years ago has since helped me: reduce my anxiety, focus more on tasks, feel less drowsy, and lose weight.

 

[Minto]

I have extremely severe anxiety and I recently cut out caffeine. It was a pain, but after cutting down soda consumption over time and replacing it with mainly water, I was down to drinking soda only when I felt like I needed sugar or the headaches started coming on. Eventually I was only drinking soda once a week. In January, I fully stopped and I did feel sick with headaches for about a week. During that time, I made sure I was drinking lots of water and staying hydrated. Also it's good to make sure you're still getting some kind of sugar, because that too can make you feel sick and dizzy when cutting down on sugary sodas. Juices and fruits are a great way to go about getting sugar if you do start feeling like that. I still have anxiety after all this, but I feel much better without it. I only drink small amounts of caffeine now, because I end up feeling sick from it and giving myself a panic attack from being afraid that it's gonna make me sick or make me have more anxiety lol. Good luck, it's definitely possible to do!

 

[Acruoxil]

I have a similar situation, except with nicotine instead of caffeine. But I'd say any addiction takes a lot, LOT of effort and pain to wean off.

Try taking in less and less caffeine every week. For example if you had 5 sodas per day this week, have 4 the next one. Then 3. Eventually your body won't need ut as nuch anymore and you won't have ti deal with the symptoms as strongly as from when you quit altogether.

 

[John Wick]

I've had chronic anxiety for decades, and coffee does make it worse.

I can only drink that Jarrah coffee that has barely any real coffee in the mix, and I only have one cup for breakfast.

I would cut down, or change to something with less caffeine.

 

[Romaki]

Are you undiagnosed? As a teenager getting therapy without medicine might help you as well, there's loads of techniques that can help you find a balance without cutting things off that you like.

As for my personal experience, I have been diagnosed with GAD and have consumed a moderate amount of caffeine for as long as I can remember. I love iced coffee and drink soda regularly. Not very healthy, but my anxiety isn't better on days I don't drink them. I'm helped with my medicine on a regular basis and breathing excerices in stressful situations. Maybe pick something up that can relax you if you feel anxious?

Reducing your caffeine intake can only be good for you, but I wouldn't think that caffeine alone can make you feel panicked. But you should ask someone with credentials.

 

[Mary]

I have anxiety, but I also love caffeine. Most days it’s ok for me to drink however much coffee I want. However, on high-anxiety days I try to avoid it, because if I drink it when I’m already feeling anxious, it definitely ramps it up a bit. But if I’m not feeling anxious already, I don’t notice much of a difference.

Reducing your caffeine intake isn’t a bad idea, so long as you do it gradually, like others have said. However, I really doubt that it’s the main cause of your anxiety. I would try to address the anxiety itself, and see if you can get an appointment to go see a psychiatrist who could talk about options to maybe help you with your anxiety.

 

[rubyrubert]

Hey, I have anxiety issues as well, and I really enjoy drinking coffee. I’m not dependent on it, but if I drink coffee while studying, my anxiety will often get worse.

How about replacing coffee with decaf or un-caffeinated tea? Obviously, I also recommend a therapist like everyone else, but exercise, eating better, and sleeping enough really really help with anxiety too.

 

[TheodoreCottontail]

I have to drink coffee when I wake up but I can't go past 2 cups or I get the jitters and a tummy ache. I know I should stop but I don't even smoke cigarettes anymore so I just wanna have something lmao