Feb 9th marks the one year anniversary of when I broke my daily caffeine habit. I hadn’t meant to, initially. I just missed having caffeine one morning. Then decided to continue. I had three or four days of pretty bad headaches in the afternoon before I broke the addiction.

I cannot say that I’m caffeine free. I just do it medicinally, instead of habitually. I figure it’s probably about once every ten days or so. Sometimes longer than that, sometimes shorter, but that’s about the average.

Deciding to no longer require caffeine was one of the better decisions I’ve made. It’s made my life so much easier. When I could drink coffee, it wasn’t as much of a problem. But when coffee decided that it no longer loved me as much as I loved it, it made getting my daily caffeine intake more problematic. Particularly when we were traveling, going out to breakfast, etc.

The pandemic put a hold on all our travels and restaurant goings, but I’m still glad I did it. It means one less thing that I have to do every single day. One less thing that I have to do in order to maintain my health.

Plus, it puts a really powerful tool in my arsenal. I don’t need a lot of caffeine to get the full benefit of it. I’m suddenly awake and able to focus. That is, when my hormones aren’t buggared and caffeine puts me to sleep.

Because that was the other problem with my caffeine habit. It only worked 90% of the time. 10% of the time, I’d have some caffeine and would crash. Hard. Frequently, I wouldn’t really wake up for the entire day.

There was only one time during the last year when I almost went back into the habit. I had caffeine three days in a row. That was enough for me to have headaches on the fourth day when I stopped again. Won’t ever do that again.

Though, I will say that I miss coffee. I have recently found a nice substitute. The Jnantik Maya Seed Coffee Alternative. It’s labeled as a Mayan Superfood. (Rolls eyes.) It doesn’t taste at all like coffee. However, it’s a roasted seed/bean that’s slightly bitter. It gives me the experience of coffee. It’s really satisfying.

I’m also going to try Crio Bru, which is roasted cacao beans. I’ll let you know how that tastes.

I’ve tried a lot of different coffee alternatives over the years. The ones with chicory are good, but they aren’t as satisfying as the Jnantik. Plus, one of the most popular has barley in it, and I’m really trying not to do grain.

So – I guess – yay me for no longer requiring caffeine!