Your Brain Becomes Addicted to Caffeine – Curbing or Quitting

Have you tried to quit your morning coffee? Within 24 hours of quitting the drug, your withdrawal symptoms begin. Initially, they’re subtle: The first thing you notice is that you feel mentally foggy, and lack alertness. Your muscles are fatigued, even when you haven’t done anything strenuous, and you notice that you’re more irritable than usual.

Over time, an unmistakable throbbing headache sets in, making it difficult to concentrate on anything. Eventually, as your body protests having the drug taken away, you might even feel dull muscle pains, nausea and other flu-like symptoms.

It is a Drug

This isn’t heroin, tobacco or even alcohol withdrawal. We’re talking about quitting caffeine, a substance consumed so widely (more than 80% of North American adults drink it daily) and in such mundane settings (say, at an office meeting or in your car) that we often forget it’s a drug — and by far the world’s most popular psychoactive one.

Caffeine Addiction:  A Mental Disorder

Like many drugs, caffeine is chemically addictive, a fact that scientists established

in 1994. Last  May, with the publication of the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), caffeine withdrawal was finally included as a mental disorder for the first time — even though its merits for inclusion are symptoms that regular coffee-drinkers have long known well from the times they’ve gone off it for a day or more.

Why, exactly, is caffeine addictive? The reason stems from the way the drug affects the human brain, producing the alert feeling that caffeine drinkers crave.

Soon after you drink (or eat) something containing caffeine, it’s absorbed through the small intestine and dissolved into the bloodstream. Because the chemical is both water and fat-soluble (meaning that it can dissolve in water-based solutions — think blood — as well as fat-based substances, such as our cell (membranes), it’s able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain.

Structurally, caffeine closely resembles a molecule that’s naturally present in our brain, called adenosine (which is a by-product of many cellular processes, including cellular respiration) — so much so, in fact, that caffeine can fit neatly into our brain cells’ receptors for adenosine, effectively blocking them off. Normally, the adenosine produced over time locks into these receptors and produces a feeling of tiredness.

When caffeine molecules are blocking those receptors, they prevent this from occurring, thereby generating a sense of alertness and energy for a few hours.

Additionally, some of the brain’s own natural stimulants (such as dopamine) work more effectively when the adenosine receptors are blocked, and all the surplus adenosine floating around in the brain cues the adrenal glands to secrete adrenaline, another stimulant.

Buzzed

For this reason, caffeine isn’t technically a stimulant on its own, says Stephen R. Braun, the author or Buzz: the Science and Lore of Alcohol and Caffeine, but a stimulant enabler: a substance that lets our natural stimulants run wild. Ingesting caffeine, he writes, is akin to “putting a block of wood under one of the brain’s primary brake pedals.” This block stays in place for anywhere from four to six hours, depending on the person’s age, size and other factors, until the caffeine is eventually metabolized by the body.

Brain Chemistry Will Change

In people who take advantage of this process on a daily basis (i.e. coffee/tea, soda or energy drink addicts), the brain’s chemistry and physical characteristics actually change over time as a result. The most notable change is that brain cells grow more adenosine receptors, which is the brain’s attempt to maintain equilibrium in the face of a constant onslaught of caffeine, with its adenosine receptors so regularly plugged (studies indicate that the brain also responds by decreasing the number of receptors for norepinephrine, a stimulant). This explains why regular coffee drinkers build up a tolerance over time —because you have more adenosine receptors, it takes more caffeine to block a significant proportion of them and achieve the desired effect.

This also explains why suddenly giving up caffeine entirely can trigger a range of withdrawal effects. The underlying chemistry is complex and not fully understood, but the principle is that your brain is used to operating in one set of conditions (with an artificially-inflated number of adenosine receptors, and a decreased number of norepinephrine receptors) that depend upon regular ingestion of caffeine. Suddenly, without the drug, the altered brain chemistry causes all sorts of problems, including the dreaded caffeine withdrawal headache.

If you drink more than 4 cups of coffee per day, such as more than 500 to 600 mg a day – you may experience side effects such as:

•        Insomnia
•        Nervousness
•        Restlessness
•        Irritability
•        Stomach upset
•        Fast heartbeat
•        Muscle tremors

Magnesium Deficiency

“Magnesium is the most critical mineral required for electrical stability of every cell in the body. A magnesium deficiency may be responsible for more diseases than any other nutrient.” - Dr. Norman Shealy

After oxygen, water, and basic food, Magnesium may be the most important element needed by our bodies, vitally important yet hardly known. It is more important than calcium, potassium or sodium and regulates all three of them. Millions suffer daily from magnesium deficiency without even knowing it!

Coffee, sodas and black tea can lead to a magnesium deficiency due to both the caffeine and acid content! This can cause a host of problems with regard to your health, i.e. kidney stones, pain management and inflammation.

Maybe you don’t have immediate or long-term health consequences in mind but are tired of being dependent on caffeine to get going or stay going during the day. It’s not an empowering feeling to wake up thinking about getting your “fix” and knowing you’ll suffer a monster headache if you don’t get it.

Sleep Deprivation

Most adults need seven to eight hours of sleep each night. But caffeine can interfere with this much-needed sleep. Chronically losing sleep — whether it's from work, travel, stress or too much caffeine — results in sleep deprivation. Sleep loss is cumulative, and even small nightly decreases can add up and disturb your daytime alertness and performance.

Using caffeine to mask sleep deprivation can create an unwelcome cycle. For example, you may drink caffeinated beverages because you have trouble staying awake during the day. But the caffeine keeps you from falling asleep at night, shortening the length of time you sleep.

Giving Up Coffee

The good news is that, compared to many drug addictions, the effects are relatively short-term. To kick the thing, you only need to get through about 7-12 days of symptoms without drinking any caffeine. During that period, your brain will naturally decrease the number of adenosine receptors on each cell, responding to the sudden lack of caffeine ingestion. If you can make it that long without a cup of “joe” or a “spot of tea”, the levels of adenosine receptors in your brain reset to their baseline levels, and your addiction will be broken.

You won’t miss the jitters, energy crashes, teeth stains, dehydration, and nervous irritability!

Energy Drinks Have Caffeine

If you need to break your addiction to caffeine, here’s how to do it with minimal discomfort . 

Know your “why.” Why do you want to curb your caffeine intake?  Everyone I know who drinks coffee say “they say coffee is good for you, right? Antioxidants and all that?” 

Truth:  Up to 400 mg per day is regarded as safe for most healthy adults. That translates to about 4 cups (8 oz sized) of brewed coffee, 10 cans of cola or two “energy shot” drinks.  (Adolescents should be limited to 100 mg of caffeine a day.)

 I  drink _____  cups per day and my favourite cup holds ____ oz of coffee.

For some, a single cup of drip coffee causes increased sweating, nervousness, mood changes, and a caffeine crash!

Curbing Caffeine Intake

To change your caffeine habit more gradually: 

Keep tabs. Start paying attention to how much caffeine you're getting from foods and beverages. It’s usually more than you think so read the labels carefully! Even then, your estimate may be a little low because not all foods or drinks list caffeine. Chocolate, which has a small amount, doesn't.

Cut back. But do it gradually. For example, drink one fewer can of soda or drink a smaller cup of coffee each day. Or avoid drinking caffeinated beverages late in the day. This will help your body get used to the lower levels of caffeine and lessen potential withdrawal effects.

Go decaf. Most decaffeinated beverages look and taste the same as their caffeinated counterparts.

Shorten the brew time or go herbal. When making tea, brew it for less time. This cuts down on its caffeine content. Or choose herbal teas that don't have caffeine.

Check the bottle. Some over-the-counter pain relievers contain caffeine — as much as 130 mg of caffeine in one dose. Look for caffeine-free pain relievers instead.

Caution on Caffeine Consumption

Although the recent research and evidence is shifting toward a more favourable view of coffee's effect on our health, it is not based on cause and effect but on links for which there could be other explanations: it could be that regular coffee drinkers have something else in common, that studies have yet to discover, to account for the effect on health.

As usual, it is always up to you to manage your caffeine intake.  Mark Twain once said,

 “Too much of anything is not good”

and that goes for caffeine too!

At Osteoklinika:
We provide professional osteopathic care; relieving pain, reducing stiffness and increasing mobility, so you may feel better as soon as possible.  Please call us to book your consultation at 905.660.8810. - Andrew Subieta, M.Sc., R.M.T., C.L.T. andrew@osteoklinika.com 

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