I substituted my coffee with ice-water for a week
I downed the entire icy bottle like the drinking game that it absolutely wasn’t
As a third year in college taking 18 credits, who entered the semester with someone asking “how much LSAT prep [she] did this summer” I already knew I was in for one hell of a ride. Within a few days I was sitting in class confused as to why we were discussing Fukuzawa when the reading the night before was clearly Hesiod…? I’ve always been a big coffee drinker able to do so in moderation, but as the past eight weeks of the semester have gone by, I find myself more often that not clutching a gradually-becoming-warmer “Venti Cold Brew, Unsweetened, Light Ice” as I reach my caffeine saturation point over the course of the day, warranting disgusted looks from my friends and confusion from the Starbucks Baristas as I order more and more, gagging on the caffeine-filled sustenance.
So, I decided to take a little break from my relationship with coffee and caffeine, to reacquaint myself with life as a woman free from this overly-dependent relationship. Last week, I traded my morning cold brew(s) for a cup of ice-water instead, and I don’t think I would do it again.
In order to give this experiment a fair trial, I removed all caffeine from my diet for a week (with the exception of a few M&Ms I scarfed down with zero regrets).
Monday
Thirty minute or three hour nap?
I woke up on Monday morning barely having slept three hours, with a subtle hangover that had carried over from the weekend. As I lay in bed with my alarm going off at 6:33am (of course I had a weekend’s worth of reading to finish before class), all I could dream of was my little caffeine boost that brightens my face in the morning in a way that surpasses even the best highlighter. Reality hit me quickly as I stumbled to the fridge to drink a bottle of freezing cold water over ice. I think I must’ve been confused from the weekend because I downed the entire icy bottle like the drinking game that it absolutely wasn’t. It was undoubtedly one of the worst experiences of my life. I felt like I was drowning internally.
The day only got worse from there as I had an exam at noon that I probably slept through more than half of, struggling to write down any coherent sentences I could think of. I slept through my next lecture and don’t remember the cute lunch I had on the lawn with friends, but at least the pictures were cute!
My 30-minute nap at 3pm turned into a three-and-a-half hour nap, leaving me groggy and miserable at 7, incapable of being even remotely productive. I cut my losses and fell asleep.
Tuesday
I have never felt more extra than I did standing in line waiting to order this
With a full night’s sleep under my belt, I decided to tackle Tuesday head on. By 7:25, I was in line at Starbucks ordering a GRANDE ICE WATER and a decaf tea. I managed to get all of my reading done for the day and a head start on an outline for Wednesday’s paper before my 12:30. As the day dragged on, however, I felt myself quickly spiraling downward. By 4pm, I reached the point where I felt I could no longer consume water, stuffed my face with a packet of M&Ms, and wanted nothing more than I wanted my bed.
At 8:40 when I stumbled out of my last class of the day, I felt positively defeated and got into the car determined to cheat and find myself the strongest, largest cup of dark roast drip coffee, but instead settled for a eating my feelings with Ben and Jerry’s and The Kardashians.
Wednesday
RBF, sweaty, sleepy and caffeine-deprived: the winning combination
You would think that by Wednesday I either a) got used to waking up to what literally felt like an internal Polar Ice Plunge b) at least stopped complaining about it or c) gave up. None of the above happened, of course. However, Wednesday’s saving grace was the insufferable, scorching heat which made chugging as much water as I could actually very pleasant. The entire day went over without a hitch, for the most part, and I rewarded my commitment to the cause with many glasses of wine and an evening spent enthralled in the debate.
Wednesday is when I learned that as long as I give up on even attempting to do work, let alone do well in school or life, I can handle my life without caffeine just fine. Though it was the best day I had all week, I can’t exactly classify it as a ‘detox’ so to speak, because I’m pretty sure a bottle of wine negates that entirely…
Thursday
Have I ever been more displeased?
The hangover that greeted me Thursday morning quickly exposed itself as a migraine, so I took comfort in knowing that had I been allowed to nurse my lukewarm cold brew all day, I wouldn’t have been doing so anyway. The only good thing about Thursday was it being the last day of classes before the weekend. I spent the morning in bed, and the afternoon in class wishing I was in bed, but luckily too nauseated by the idea of coffee to miss it. I drank more water Thursday than I did any other day, but also found that I actually felt refreshed rather than bloated.
Unfortunately, I had to go out that evening, and entered into it miserable knowing that not only did I have a two-and-a-half hour drive to Washington to look forward to in the morning, I also had a probably very lethal hangover, and remnants of this morning’s migraine to look forward to as well.
Friday
It LITERALLY says H2O
Friday morning was every bit as horrible as I could have imagined it and then some. Upon waking up, I managed to down my first bottle in one go, while simultaneously keeping everything else I had drank only six hours earlier down as well—a great feat in my opinion.
The rest of the day proved that I had actually become conditioned to relying on water—reaching for it whilst driving every time I yawned, and replacing my afternoon cup of green tea at home with a cold glass of water.
On Friday, I realized that though I spent the entire week miserable (something I really enjoy doing, and do very well—apparently), I hadn’t actually missed caffeine in my life. I had been more tired than usual, but that could also be attributed to a serious lack of sleep, a heightened amount of stress and generally not feeling well. I felt a lot healthier flooding my system with water, even if I wasn’t entirely cutting out toxins, and above all, my skin really thanked me for it.
I would only do this again under very specific conditions—perhaps not in the middle of the semester, as I tried this out somewhere between midterms ending and papers for every class being due and found myself extremely overwhelmed and entirely too lethargic to actually accomplish anything worthwhile. But I did appreciate how much more conscious I was being about my water intake, and cutting out things that I would automatically rely on as a quick fix versus taking steps to rectify an actual problem.