Caffeine Withdrawal Headache
For a few years now, I've been drinking about a litre of tea a day. But in the summers I lose the taste for tea and quit cold turkey for a few months. This morning I didn't feel like tea. I had some of the kids' apple juice instead. And now I've got a caffeine withdrawal headache, discernible despite the ibuprofen pain killer I've taken.I don't like being unnecessarily addicted to stuff. Air, food, water, sure, but being addicted to some irrelevant plant substance is just silly. Caffeine is a funny compound from an evolutionary point of view, though. It's present in several plants with no close evolutionary relationship. They must have evolved the ability to make the stuff independently. According to Wikipedia, it works as a pesticide. I guess a drug just potent enough to paralyze an insect will tickle a human brain sufficiently to keep it alert. I wonder what the natural purpose of the alkaloids in ergot are.
I don't like tea. What I like, actually, is milk and sugar flavoured with tea. And in the evenings I have taken to drinking rooibos flavoured with bits of orange peel. If I wean myself off caffeine, will rooibos start tasting as good as tea? Only one way to find out. And I could probably still have tea once a week.
[More blog entries about tea, caffeine, withdrawal; te, koffein, abstinens.]
posted by Martin at 14:58
12 Comments:
Large amounts of fridge-cool Coke Light (I prefer the Lime version) works quite nicely to give you your fix as well.
(This message not paid for by the Coca Cola Company, although they really ought to.)
/Akhôrahil
Gnnnoo, aspartame is evil! Tastes like plastic.
Ugh, rooibos! Don't you find it tastes exactly like dirt? And I know because I have tried dirt in my day, though admittedly not for a long time. I drink one caffe latte in the morning, emphasis on the caffe, and then decaffeinated or herbal tea the rest of the day. But no milk or sugar.
Själv tröttnade jag snabbt på rooibos, som jag tycker är lite för surt. Eller för lite fylligt, eller vad det nu är som felas. Istället har jag av min kärvänlige tehandlare fått tipset om honeybush, som inte heller innehåller koffein men som faktiskt smakar precis som te. Rekommenderas.
Martha: Like dirt? No, not at all! Is that junkie slang dirt or gardening dirt?
Molle: I'll ask my dealer about honeybush. Thanks for the tip!
What about de-caf tea? I've never tried the stuff myself, but it can be bought at The English Shop, for instance.
/Akhôrahil
Just drink ice-tea in the summer! Say yes to drugs mkay.
Vitnir
I wonder if Sweden should legalise tea the way the UK has. It might bring tea-related crime down a bit, but I'm pretty sure we'd see a lot more young people becoming tea drinkers.
It's always a sad sight when you meet a teen with a bulge under his lip and a paper tag with the Tetley logotype dangling from the corner of his mouth.
Try www.soycoffee.com as its made from soybeans, no coffee.
Yeah! Hell yeah! I'm gonna replace tea with roasted soy beans approximating coffee! And I'm gonna get LOADED!
White tea is the way to go, but dont choose the cheap shit in the shops. Buy tea like Yin Zhen, not the Lipton as the difference in quality differs. It´s very little coffein, almost none in white tea. I am quite sensitive to coffein myself and white tea gives me none prob at all, and the taste is like heaven itself..
There are a lot of shops, even on the net, www.houseoftea.se in sweden or just give it a search on google for yin zhen.
Thank you for the Yin Zhen tip. I'm going to see if I can find it in the UK (where I live).
I'm highly sensitive to caffeine and can't drink coffee (which I used to drink a lot when I was in Spain, and the 'real thing' too!), nor tea (which I love, and being in England there are some really nice ones...), I went on to cocoa (pure 100% organic, none of the strange mixes one gets).
Still, after missing my afternoon cup yesterday, last night I felt like having my head chopped off and thrown far far away - it was soooo painful! (I even indulged in two paracetamols - don't usually take painkillers), drank several litres of water, had reiki and a massage (that did help a little) - but this morning the nasty headache came back.
After yet another paracetamol and a cup of Ovaltine it seems to have gone... fingers crossed. (I don't get paid by Ovaltine and I'm a tad concerned after reading the label as it contains a small amount of cocoa... perhaps that'll do to wean myself off slowly of unnecessary poisons.).
By the way - Aspartame is nasty! it gives my a headache just by reading the label where the name is written. Stick to proper sugar, that's what I say!
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