First day without coffee… or not?

I’m going to make an announcement that may come as a shock to anyone who knows me…

I’ve voluntarily decided to give up coffee.

Those that know me will probably react like the first person who saw me walking around today with a cup of water instead of a cup of coffee: they laughed. I was a heavy coffee drinker, about 5 cups a day. I enjoyed my coffee. I blogged about the wonders of coffee. I identified myself with a cup of coffee. I bought coffee for co-workers, and they bought it for me. I went out for coffee breaks when the smokers went out for cigarette breaks. I looked forward to drinking coffee…

So why the change? Ultimately, it came down to health and stress. I drink too much coffee (caffeine) and not enough water, and I’ve been too stressed lately. Coffee (caffeine) is not helping either of those.

After writing that, I decided to look up the negative effects of coffee. While typing into Google, the instant search instead brought me to this page: 7 Reasons Why Coffee Is Good For You (Popular Science). Not what I was looking for. Perhaps a more balanced review is here: 10 Reasons Coffee is Both the Best and the Worst Beverage Ever Invented (io9). Ugh. Why can’t this be easy?

Coffee isn’t a magic elixir, and it isn’t a doomsday device. Like most things in life, moderation is key. When it comes to coffee, I’ve tipped the moderation scale so far that it fell over. Time to recalibrate. I’ll be off the sauce for a while, and we’ll see where it goes from there…

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