If one of your new year, new you goals is to quit coffee, this article might help you change your mind and be damn happy about it. You have the opportunity instead to realign your mindset and redefine your relationship to your coffee consumption. Shift it from a guilty habit into a self-care ritual, and be intentional in the following 5 ways to help you enjoy the taste and health benefits of coffee.
Each ritual in life, including your daily cuppa joe, has the opportunity to be sacred self-care.
1. Mindset
Whereabouts on the below spectrum do you lie regarding coffee?
Are you hooked and need that coffee to wake up, like it’s your lifeline that makes you a reasonable human? i.e. Coffee has its claws embedded deep in you. Or, are you a perfectly reasonable human who LOVES coffee and literally looks forward to going to bed just so you can wake up and enjoy the F out of your coffee. i.e. Coffee makes life better.
Two people who drink the same amount can think of their caffeine hit in different ways, and it, therefore, has a different effect on their body’s health. If your mind can make you sweat, and make you smile, why wouldn’t your thoughts about your coffee habit also impact your physiology? So if coffee isn’t hurting you or anyone in your life, then set the intention to pour love and gratitude into this habit and it will love you back.
On the other hand, if you’re addicted and hate the fact that you’re addicted, if coffee and caffeine gives you anxiety or worsens anxious feelings, if your consumption drains your bank account and impacts your sleep quality, then read on for shifts to become more intentional about your coffee consumption so you don’t have a little devil on your shoulder with each cup.
2. Timing
Timing is everything, as they say! Many people have an acceptable window of time for coffee, such as morning until noon or only before 5pm or else it ruins their sleep. Keep this up if you do! And if you don’t, try adding a time cut-off for your coffee consumption. Even if it doesn’t seem to affect your sleep, try cutting yourself off at 2 pm instead of 10 pm for other health reasons.
- Prevent waking to pee as much at night.
- Gentler on your kidneys and adrenal glands (and thus anxiety levels).
- Opportunity to switch to healing herbal teas instead — expanding your taste horizons!
If you’re currently in the habit of drinking coffee all day and into the night, this switch makes your enjoyment more intentional. By cutting yourself off at a certain hour, you get more hours of anticipation for the next day’s cup, which therefore makes it taste better! The longer you look forward to it, the smoother the taste.
The mindset here is ‘I GET TO have coffee tomorrow,’ rather than ‘I DON’T GET TO have coffee this afternoon.’
3. Water
When having your morning coffee, ensure you time it intentionally after a full glass of water. I find the easiest way to implement this habit is to leave a 500 ml glass full of fresh filtered water on my bedside table. This way I can sip overnight if I get a dry throat and as soon as I sit up in the morning, I drink most of it, then carry it to the kitchen and finish it while I make coffee. By the time coffee is ready, I already have my second glass of water poured. Be intentional to hydrate with water before you suck back the brown!
Become intentional to have a glass of water (or even half a glass) before you reach for a coffee refill throughout the day. Dehydration can make you feel sluggish, and often we reach for coffee to perk up, but water sometimes does the trick. The intent is to alternate coffee with water. Be mindful of this habit and you’ll naturally reduce your caffeine intake (and save it for that nice little morning me time).
If all that water consumption makes you annoyed because you’ll have to pee a lot, caffeine is the reason you pee a lot, not water. If you trade out coffee and have water instead, you’ll feel thirsty and excrete urine at a regular healthy amount. Interestingly, caffeine does not make you dehydrated. It just increases urination frequency. A bit of a riddle if you ask me but that’s what the science says.
4. Amount
If you’re likely never going to give up coffee, join the club! Being intentional about the amount is still one way to help switch yourself from DAMN I’M ADDICTED to DAMN THAT BRINGS ME JOY (and I’m a reasonable human after one cup).
This is the simple act of making the conscious decision to reduce, and then using strategies to help get you there.
For example, I used to drink 2–3 cups each morning and often an americano in the afternoon. It was a habit, an expensive one, and a jitters-inducing, sour-sweat-causing, bad-breath-bringing icky one that I had bad feelings about. It’s bad for your health to go through life with bad feelings about yourself, don’t ya know?! So either get over it or change it!
Write down how many cups or shots of espresso you currently consume. Then, write down how many you would like to consume. Make one small goal towards that goal.
Try these ideas to get to fewer cups daily.
Make Less in the Morning
- Make a smaller pot or french press. Even if you just reduce by half a cup in the pot, this is a great first goal.
- After your first coffee, put the evidence away in the cupboard. Hide the machine or french press, so that you don’t think (mmmm coffee) every time you see it.
- Drink from a high-quality thermos — thus allowing you a LARGE first cup rather than three cups, which stays hot. You may even make a thermos full of coffee (less than your usual) and pour it into a nice little mug if you don’t like sipping from a thermos.
Make It Extra
Make it extra, like kids these days say (not an extra amount). A few ways to make your coffee extra:
- Add coconut oil and butter and blend it — this makes it frothy.
- Add cacao powder, maca powder, mushroom powder, or a mixture like Harmonic Arts Kick Start (not sponsored, just a fan).
- Add both of the above (congrats, you earned a hipster pin).
- Use espresso beans, so you’re bucking up on the quality of beans but reducing your consumption so much that it doesn’t actually hit the wallet too badly.
Actually Take the Time to Enjoy Yourself
Have you ever downed your first cuppa while multitasking, and filled the second or third before you even leave the house? Why not allow yourself 10–30 minutes to simply sit and enjoy your coffee? Enjoy each and every sip. Put on some groovy music that energizes you at the same time. Sip on a nice fresh glass of water and lemon with your coffee. Read a book for a few minutes while you sip!
I PROMISE, if you pay closer attention to the first cup, you won’t need the next as much. The little devil on your shoulder gets a bit quieter as you send more energy joyfully inwards during this sacred, self-care ritual.
Alternate Coffee with Other Yummy Drinks
One cup of coffee, and one cup of water. One cup of coffee, and one cup of herbal tea. One cup of coffee, and one sparkling water. One cup of coffee, and … you get the idea.
Ensure you alternate with non-caffeinated beverages (maybe even sprinkle in a decaf coffee here and there). Also, try to avoid pop and juice. The goal is to look forward to water and herbal tea as much as you do coffee, not to replace it with sugary (unhealthy) alternatives.
If you’re an herbal tea newbie, try rooibos. It brews nice and dark like a cup of coffee but is naturally caffeine free.
5. Blood Sugar
Intentional coffee consumption takes your blood sugar into consideration. Caffeine and other stimulants cause a spike in blood sugar (imagine a kid who eats cotton candy and is bouncing off the walls) energy spike — followed by an energy crash. Adults usually direct this energy spike towards work or chores rather than running around screaming, but it paints a picture nonetheless.
Did you know the crash that follows the spike is often what causes you to crave another cup later on? Your energy is gone and you’re in a mental or physical slump so you want something to bring you back up.
If it’s not caffeine, other cravings, and habits that bring back that momentary spike include nicotine, sugar such as donuts and pastries, and alcoholic beverages. A lot of people are addicted to the blood sugar high just as much as the substance that brings them there. Blood sugar imbalances lead to some very nasty habits! So bring awareness to this fact, and when you consume items that spike your blood sugar, simply pair them with items that balance your blood sugar, which is protein and fiber foods (and breathwork too, by the way).
Therefore, intentional coffee consumption looks like coffee and eggs on toast. Coffee and a protein shake. Coffee and nuts and apples. Coffee and oatmeal with peanut butter. Coffee and intentionally chosen breakfast cereal with protein add-ons like yogurt or nuts. Coffee and fruit and yogurt.
Coffee and a balanced breakfast. Or coffee and a balanced snack.
Sugary breakfast cereal and milk, pastries or white toast, and other simple items with little or no protein are not the best blood sugar balancers. These foods break down quickly in digestion to become sugar really fast, which thus spikes blood sugar as well.
Even apples and bananas are low in protein, but because of the natural fibers, they will help balance blood sugar more than coffee alone.
Test this in your own experience and use your intuition once you’ve compared the feelings you get. Try having just coffee. Then another day have a piece of fruit and coffee within the same hour. On the third day, have coffee and a protein-containing breakfast such as eggs. How long does your energy last from that single cup each time?
And next time you crave an afternoon pick-me-up, consider whether your blood sugar might be going through a yo-yo. Can you make a warm cup of soothing tea, have a protein snack, go out for a little fresh air, or even take a cat nap?
In Conclusion
Don’t worry about your coffee habit, just find balance within your mind and in your actions so you can joyfully go through life with intentional coffee consumption. Create a healthy time boundary for your enjoyment, make sure you stay hydrated, moderate your amount, and balance your blood sugar to curb cravings. And enjoy the F out of your coffee!
Carly E. Mantik is a multi-passionate Registered Holistic Nutritionist & Creative. She’s also the author of Your Vitality Guide.
