How to Defend Your Coffee Habit
I don’t think I’ve read a productivity blog yet that didn’t suggest kicking the coffee habit. I’ve kicked many bad habits in the last few years, something that seemed impossibly hard at first—such as dumping dairy—but coffee is one thing that I never succeeded with. That’s probably because I never really wanted to.
While it truly is best that you cut caffeine out of your diet or curtail your consumption, for many of us it’s the one thing we’ll hold onto even when making other drastic changes in our lives. Never fear—there are still many benefits to drinking coffee, and I’ll show you how to defend your manic addiction to the world when confronted by an overzealous stampede of crusading lifehackistas!
A Reduced Risk of Disease
Have you seen all those tea advertisements that claim it’s the best source of antioxidants? Apparently, coffee is the number one source of antioxidants in the American diet. Tea comes second. Of course, that’s a statistic measured on the level of consumption rather than the quality of the source.
Antioxidants prevent and slow disease and oxidative damage. When the body uses oxygen, the process creates harmful by-products that antioxidants destroy. This reduces the risk of disease and promotes optimal health.
This is one of the few benefits of coffee not derived from its caffeine content, so if you want to avoid high blood pressure or a heart attack, you can drink decaf without losing any health points—if you have a stomach strong enough to keep it down.
Counter-defense: fruits and vegetables are an even denser source of antioxidants.
Increased Mental Performance
This is why we start drinking coffee in the first place, right? I started binge drinking coffee in order to stay up all night working on various projects, though it didn’t take long for coffee consumption to become a hobby in its own right.
Drinking coffee improves your concentration, alertness and staves off a tired mind. For me, work comes to a halt when I’m missing any of the above, especially concentration or alertness. Ten or twenty minutes after a cup of coffee, I can be back to work for a few more hours.
Apparently coffee improves your short term memory, which indicates that I’m not drinking nearly enough of it. Did I mention that coffee improves your short term memory?
Counter-defense: eating a diet low in meat and dairy and high in vegetables and fruit will provide increased mental performance and higher energy on a more consistent basis.
Make Shift Work Slightly More Tolerable
Shift work forces the body into strange sleeping patterns, or more accurately, a lack of a sleeping pattern. Your body relies on patterns to tune and operate the whole circadian process which tells you when you’re in need of sleep or when it’s time to be awake. Lacking a solid pattern means you’ll be pumping melatonin or adrenaline through your body at very strange times.
I know someone who took their car through a street sign (and escaped without getting caught) because of the way shift work destroys your sleeping patterns, so for these workers caffeine is not as much of a luxury - it becomes a necessary part of safely performing the work and getting there and back. Drink 200mg (two espressos) to keep yourself attentive on the job for a period of five or six hours. If you’ve got a killer twelve hour shift, throw back a few more halfway through.
Drinking 400mg of caffeine in one night isn’t the healthiest thing you could be doing, but neither is shift work.
Counter-defense: become a freelancer!
Improve Endurance and Stamina in Physical Activities
It is well known that coffee improves endurance and stamina in physical activities, especially sports. The last time I played any team sport, I could count my age on two hands. Nevertheless, a cup of coffee before the morning run makes it go that much faster and easier.
If you’re starting an exercise routine (or returning to one) and having trouble with the adaption, drinking a cup of coffee before starting may make it easy enough to get over the hump and make it a habit. If all you need is an adaptation tool you can stop drinking it once you can get through each session on your own.
Counter-defense: with stamina and endurance training, you don’t need a cup of coffee to enable your body - you can apply these traits at any time.
Improve Your Ability to Socialize
A few cups of coffee can really help the introvert or cynic to come out of the shell and enjoy social situations. Coffee houses first formed in the Middle East hundreds of years ago and became popular as social locations, a tradition that has continued to this day. It’s got to do with not only the great atmosphere, aroma and architecture of most coffee houses, but of course, the effects of caffeine kicking your mind into gear and boosting your mood.
There is evidence to show that coffee doesn’t boost your mood so much as reduce stress by eliminating the hormone cortisol. Cortisol is responsible for the frazzled, distressed feeling brought on by day-to-day stress.
This one works well for me—especially for making visits to the wife’s family much more bearable!
Counter-defense: get a life, make some friends!
Truly, there is no substitute for replacing a caffeine dependency with the optimal diet for your body and lifestyle. Drinking too much coffee can wreak havoc on your system, especially your sleep patterns and blood pressure.
The latest research shows that drinking 200mg of caffeine or more a day can double the risk of miscarriage in pregnant women. If you’re pregnant, watch your intake, or better yet, just stop consuming caffeine altogether.
That aside, coffee drinking has a far worse reputation than it deserves; the benefits are real, and in moderation, it’s actually a good idea to get some coffee in your system. Go ahead. Have a cup—you know you want to!
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Joel Falconer
Offering a unique perspective and insight on productivity based on his experience as a writer, musician, family man and manager, Joel Falconer has been published online and off, and brings to Lifehack's readers practical advice you can use to be more efficient and effective.
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Comments
Scott says on February 19th, 2008 at 10:44 am
How about the fact that it promotes “regularity”. At least for me it does…
holly hoffman says on February 19th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I’m on Day Six of my coffee-free life. I had toyed off and on about whether or not to give up my habit, but like you, never really wanted to. One morning I woke up and decided I didn’t want to be dependent on it anymore. What really kicked me over were the nightmares I kept having about coffee stains on my teeth.
I think I will drink coffee again, but not on the hourly basis I’ve been used to.
Darlene says on February 19th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
This is a great post, and it came at just the right time for me too! I’ve just left the health-conscious West Coast, its plethora of yoga classes, homeopaths, naturopaths and numerous friends doing regular cleanses. It was there that I had successfully transitioned to Green tea from a lifetime of addiction to Mochaccinos and numerous coffees/day. My addiction was finally gone! However, after a mere 2.5 weeks into my relocation to Paris (yeah I know, life is hard), I’m back on a 2-coffee/day lifestyle. You’ve successfully allowed me to put away all the guilt that’s been plaguing me, which I’m sure will be an additional help to my health.
Thank you!
swag says on February 19th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Bah. People freak out about coffee and forget that humans have consumed it safely for many centuries in moderation. Yet we don’t seem nearly as freaked out about the recent rise of high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils that has taken over our diets and coincided with an explosion of obesity.
Some people just don’t have a clue when it comes to epidemiological evidence or priorities.
Jade says on February 19th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Thanks. This is the one personal development point I’ve always had trouble with.
lily says on February 20th, 2008 at 2:19 am
This is a very interesting post on improving your concentration. The ability to concentrate is highly important, especially for students. At http://www.attention-deficit-disorder.net they offer numerous methods to aid you in improving you concentration. Give it a try! It definitely worked for me!
NDK Creative Artist says on February 20th, 2008 at 4:09 am
I couldn’t wait to be old enough to start drinking coffee, that stuff smelled so good. And you know what, once I started drinking it, I didn’t want to stop.
But I know at least one guy who wires himself on caffeine and it’s espressos with a shot every couple of hours. I swear he’s got a personality disorder so coffee in excess is not good.
It’s like anything: always in moderation. Never in excess. Water will kill you. Soft drinks will kill you. And yeah, coffee will kill you. Man there is nothing that won’t.
kureshii says on February 20th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Well, coffee hardly seems to work for me anymore - I can start dozing off within 10 minutes of finishing a drink.
But I still drink coffee for one reason: I like the drink. Isn’t that reason enough?
Adrian says on February 20th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Great article. You could have mentioned that coffee is good for your short term memory.
LJ says on February 20th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Honestly, the thought of giving up coffee makes me shake. If it came down to coffee vs. productivity, I’d choose coffee. I don’t over-consume (except to combat bad headaches…it beats the prescription), but at the same time, I enjoy the warmth and smell of the beverage. It’s a reminder to me to sit back and enjoy a few minutes. So kudos to you for presenting the other side to the story!
DJ says on February 20th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Nice article, but why dillute your very salient points with counter-defense? It’s a legal, delicious drink. If people have a problem with it, then they shouldn’t drink it!
Kampai!
Joel Falconer says on February 20th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
@Swag: I totally agree with you. It’s far past the point of being ridiculous, and soon enough they’ll be growing capsicum with pre-packed corn syrup!
@kureshii: that’s reason enough, but have you tried the Espresso Stack? Instead of pouring a jug of coffee, add espresso shots until you have as much liquid in the cup as you’d usually have - add sugar and milk (soy for me) if you take it. That keeps me going for the whole day, albeit with a slight twitch in the eye!
@Adrian: I don’t think I mentioned it - thanks! ;)
@LJ: I also get bad headaches and use coffee before resorting to painkillers, and a few minutes on the lounge with a coffee between serious work sessions keeps me alert and on-task.
@DJ: The blogosphere is full of one-sided arguments and aggressive squabblers, even on topics as simple as drinking coffee - the counter-defenses just provide a bit of food for thought so it’s not yet another one-sided vitriolic post.
Nate says on March 8th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Coffee is great. It has alot of benefits same as tea.
However caffiene can be your enemy if you have too much. Can cause anxiety, irregular sleep patterns, depression, dependency, etc.
I try to maximize the benefits of coffee by saying under 1-2 cups per day
-Nate
Dan Philpott says on March 8th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
As a method of caffeine delivery it helps to manage my ADHD.
I don’t actually drink coffee regularly (love the smell, the taste, not so much). The downside for regular drinkers is what I affectionately term ‘dragon breath’.
Guillaume says on March 8th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I don’t for others, but there’s a vicious circle i’d like to entitle about coffee, in my experience :
- one day i had a bad night and i’m tired
- i drink coffee every hour to be as good as i’m willing to be (ambitious me…)
- i’m not _that_ efficient, in fact, or too ambitious (because i’m not relaxed or feeling “in control” of my productivity), then i have to stay awaken later to work/do stuff until i’m finish what i’m willing to get done on my day. Or I find myself too tired to finish it, but at’s the end, i go to bed late, so late, thanks to the coffee
- Then, my night is short, i’m hardly sleeping, staying nervous/anxious/thinking about what I have to do. Is it really mental, or is it because my brain is still kept artificially awaken/nervous (and my body tired), thanks to the cafein in my blood ?
- Then, i wake up tired, again
And so on…
Then, I found another plan, chaotic at first, but not that much :
- I drink only little or no coffee
- sometime after a short night i’m tired and i’m not able to concentrate too much. However, i focus on easy tasks that doesn’t require me deep concentration (bureaucracy, filling forms, etc.). Can’t do that every day, but the point is : i’m facing that i’m tired, and i can find work for which i can be efficient enough.
Even, sometime, staying cool because i’m assuming what i am able and not able to do instead of forcing myself, leads me to my most creative ideas.
- Then, at night, i cannot stay awaken, whatever important is the job I have to do. I simply can’t go over what my body tells me : you’re tired, go to sleep. I discovered it wasn’t me that was forcing me to stay awaken, but coffee. Whitout, i can’t fight that and I fall asleep.
- Then, i wake up with a strange sensation : being fresh. Something coffee never-ever gave me.
- Then, i can concentrate, and work efficiently on complex tasks
- Then, at night, i feel that i gave the maximum of myself, and i don’t feel to think about my day tasks anymore
- Then, i sleep well
etc…
From time to time, who cares you’re not efficient or drink coffee every hour, but about regularity and considering every day on a long period, i’ve discovered the few-or-no coffee discipline leads me to a higher productivity than the coffee habit.
Worked for me.
Matt L says on March 9th, 2008 at 3:11 am
I was drinking my morning coffee with a friend the other morning. My friend told me how unhealthy all the caffeine in coffee was for me, then walked over and joined the long line of customers at McDonalds.
Bill St. Clair says on March 9th, 2008 at 10:32 am
For years I found it necessary to take a coffee fast two or three times a year, as I found myself worn out and wasn’t sleeping well. I got accustomed to a few days of dull headache in the middle of my forehead, and little energy, but by seven days, I was free. Until i stated again in a month or so. The last two times, though, it was different. I couldn’t think. My forebrain was dead. I named it “coffee lobotomy” (google it for my articles). And my physical exhaustion was more accute. Lost a week of work both times. After the second occurrence, I decided that I can no longer drink coffee. And I discovered that my creativity is better without it. Your mileage may vary.
Stacey says on March 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I come at this from the perspective of an employer. I don’t see anything wrong with a few cups per day - that’s not an issue for me. But I have an employee who, a few years ago, was very capable, was good at analysis, etc. However, he began drinking more and more coffee. I think he’s at 6-8+ cups a day now. His thought process is all over the place - he has some trouble articulating a single thought from beginning to end, and jumps erratically from thought to thought. So he has a *lot* of thoughts, but many are incomplete. He still gets work done, but it’s not as high of quality as it was previously. Conversation with him is much more difficult because it’s not linear. Yes, I’m pretty sure it’s the coffee and not some other problem (he wouldn’t be able to hide drug use very well or for this long in this job).
Nehal says on March 9th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
How about ‘I like the taste’? I usually have one medium (16 oz?) latte in the morning as/with my breakfast, and besides helping brush aside the cobwebs, I really enjoy the taste.
Sergey Kalitenko says on March 9th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Drinking more then 1 cup of coffee a day may be not a good idea, because caffeine may decrease human growth hormone and testosterone level, leading to decrease of self repair and sex functions.
Sergey Kalitenko says on March 9th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Drinking more then 1 cup of coffee a day may be not a good idea, because caffeine may decrease human growth hormone and testosterone levels, resuling in decrease in repair and sex functions.
P. Harris says on March 9th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I stopped caffeine at age 15 when I started getting migraines. However, I sort of wish that I’d never stopped because getting back on caffeine is very hard after your body’s been free for years. And the reason I’d consider getting on it is that I think a LOT Of Americans are ADHD and self-medicate with Starbucks! And I’ll tell you this Starbucks is cheaper than Ritalin and way less trouble to keep up with. :)
P. Harris says on March 9th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
I stopped caffeine at age 15 when I started getting migraines. However, I sort of wish that I’d never stopped because getting back on caffeine is very hard after your body’s been free for years, so unless I want to have a headache for a month as I inch my way back up (tried caffeine free pepsi for 3 days and had a long-running headache just from that.) I think a LOT Of adults are ADHD and self-medicate with Starbucks and never have to question it! And I’ll tell you this Starbucks is cheaper than Ritalin and way less trouble to keep up with. It does the same thing, but requires no prescription. You do the math. :)
Causalien says on March 9th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
My stand on this is that coffee is the only legal drug that is sold and believed to be safe. Why do you get withdrawal symptom from stopping your daily consumption?
If you think about it clearly, drinking a lot of concentrated black coffee is disgusting. So then, are you probably addicted to the sugar and milk added along side the coffee?
It has its benefits and draw backs. After quitting coffee, I decided to never go back again and live on by my own strength. Read about my struggle with quitting here:
http://www.ultracrepidate.com/?p=1133
Jason Clarke says on March 10th, 2008 at 1:31 am
I wish I could remember where I read it, but I read about a study that determined that different people metabolize caffeine at very different rates.
At the extremes, the study concluded that coffee is healthy for people that metabolize caffeine quickly, because they can reap the benefits of the antioxidants in coffee without experiencing the negative health effect.
That negative effect is hypertension, which caffeine can cause in people that metabolize caffeine very slowly.
Personally, I’m a coffee lover that belongs to the second group - I metabolize it very slowly. I’ve recently sworn off coffee for that reason and I firmly believe that it is the healthy choice for me. But certainly that is not necessarily the case for others; for example, my wife metabolizes caffeine faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. I truly believe that coffee is healthy for her.
The question of whether coffee or caffeine is healthy is more complicated than a simple yes or no, at least if that one study is to be believed. Based on anecdotal experience, that study at least most closely explains the differences I have seen in terms of how I and other people feel about what caffeine does to us.
CoffeeHtr says on March 10th, 2008 at 10:04 am
For those of you who drink coffee to ward off headaches. Do you know why you get those headaches in the first place? It’s because caffeine has created a physiological dependency in your system that wasn’t there in the beginning (i.e. before you started drinking coffee). Listen, in moderation coffee is ok, but it’s not necessary at all! Our bodies and minds were built to last only on water and the food we eat. Read the book “Caffeine Blues.” You will never look at coffee the same way again!
Angeliki says on March 10th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
my addiction it is not to drink coffee but to my naked partner that serves it every morning! If I stop drinking the coffee he might hit the shower instead! :)
Angela Wolf says on March 11th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Coffee makes me awesome!
I realize I’m addicted, but I can quit anytime.
Bagpuss says on March 12th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Has anybody mentioned the fact that as well as the acknowledged relaxation, brain stimulation, anti-disease, and social benefits coffee also is very effective at staving off hunger?
I can often have a single coffee in the morning when I go into work and not need a thing to eat until five hours later at lunchtime. And I definitely could not manage that without coffee!
Shnappa says on March 13th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
It was rumored that Stevie Ray Vaughan used to put a gram of coke in his coffee every morning. Now THAT’S a coffee addiction!
Mike Yarmish says on March 16th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
The best way is to have a habit to drink just good coffee. For example, drink just good turkish coffee and you won’t read it much because lack of time: http://blog.coffeenatic.com/ho.....e-at-home/
Hanem Khater says on April 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 am
I do have a questin for you somebody asked me who works as a driver in a night shift, is the coffee smell casue awakness and by time will cause addiction?
he did not like to drink coffee but he can smill it during driving?
is that good or bad
please reply to me at my email as soon as possible
arlene corwin says on April 6th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Charming, charming, charming!
Is it true about the anti-oxidants?
What are they? All I ever learned and gleaned was that my lovely coffee took my lovely water soluble B vitamins, and threw them into my urinary tract.
Help me. I do so love my coffee alertness.
jana says on June 29th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
just my two cents:
tze mediterranean diet is believed to be very healthy. in italy and france, people not only eat lots of vegetables and olive oil, but also drink lots of strong (often black) coffee. it might as well be somehow related, or at least not undermining the effects of healthy foods.
(i am european and the general american attitude against caffeine, coffee etc always sort of surprises me - i do not really think it is that bad)
i drink about 3-5 cups daily, usually black coffee or with some skim milk. i like the taste, and like the alertness it brings. my general health, also confirmed by recent thorough checkup+bloodwork, is really good. :)
Hanem says on January 11th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Hanem Khater says on April 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 am
I do have a questin for you somebody asked me who works as a driver in a night shift, is the coffee smell casue awakness and by time will cause addiction?
he did not like to drink coffee but he can smill it during driving?
is that good or bad
please reply to me at my email as soon as possible