Quitting Caffeine & Missing My Daughter: Two Types of Withdrawal.
14 November 2016 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
so I just went through quitting caffeine
again quitting caffeine is not something you do only once in life all right not in my case you know I would I prefer ideally to consume zero caffeine and at the moment I'm consuming zero caffeine but there are many you know bumps in the road in life that can force you to get back on the drug even when you regard it as a drug even when you regard yourself as someone who would ideally like to be consuming absolutely zero caffeine I don't think I've told this story before it's possible I did when I was living in Taiwan and I just broken up with my wife and I just been separated from my daughter I was keeping very very close eye on my own moods from day to day and they sound like a funny thing to say but when you're going through a kind of extremely traumatic experience you would be advised to keep an eye on yourself and know okay all right that sounds stupid you have to keep a very close watch on how you are feeling and even what you're thinking about going through very real trauma of being separate from my daughter and that's separation I mean it's partly intellectual is partly emotional it's partly instinctual like you're separated from your daughter after spending 24 hours a day 7 day a week with her for the first year of her life you wake up in the middle of the night and it's not fear it's not dread it's pure instinct of one to go and take care you know you have these very very ancient entirely evolutionary instincts that rouse you out of bed that that kick you around when you're going through that basically a process of withdrawal so I was keeping a really close eye on myself and I remember already then it was already anti caffeine but I was vegan and I also there was almost nothing I could buy at the local convenience stores on the one hand because it was vegan the other hand I can't drink the kind of soft drink which is like 90 percent sugar and in Taiwan obviously there's stuff like Coke and Pepsi etc but they also have their own varieties of juice that are really really high in sugar you know juice drinks whatever you want to say I couldn't forgetting that stuff so I started buying their bottled tea that has no sugar added to it and I started buying it very specifically because I would leave my house almost all my life there in Taiwan at that time was inside my house the house that I had rented to raise my daughter in but as you may know at this breaker with my wife so I would buy this bottled tea and walk up the nearest mountain as is usually the case the word Melton is an exaggeration it's a hill it's a steep hill but it gives you a view of the whole city and I was most of the time I was the only person under 60 years old doing that what's know I should there were young people like boyfriends and girlfriends would go up this is a beautiful part computer play see but the majority people in that park walk in the Hill were elderly people who like myself we're trying to keep in shape by by going up the going up the hill started drinking bottled tea I guess one bottle a day it's like drinking a bottle of coke except it's tea with no sugar added it's vegan it's the only option I had it's hot as hell you're in the tropics and then you know I came to a weekend where I think I think let's say it was two weeks let's say for just two weeks I was drinking one bottle of tea again a day pardon me for just two weeks I was drinking one bottle of tea a day going up the going up the hill and then when I stopped I went into full caffeine withdrawal unbelievable and because I was watching myself so here it was like what's wrong with me why do I feel so awful why do I feel so terrible so it was really keeping track of you know what I was thinking what I was feeling from day to day really um you know really kind of being extra mindful of of every little thing going on in my head god then when the caffeine withdrawal hits you it can feel a lot like clinical depression it can feel like you're suddenly going into depression just have these horrible side effects and you realize I mean caffeine it's something that's going on in the background of so many of our lives it's something that we're boring so much of the time but you can really easily develop caffeine dependency even just short term in two weeks like that unbelievable anyway you know what clicked I realized oh my god it's not that I'm depressed it's not that I'm suddenly more upset about being separate from my daughter it's just it's just the the impact of the you know caffeine withdrawal anyway I was I started quitting caffeine this time so here in Kunming I started using caffeine because of construction noise outside my window you guys may have noticed that I may have been hearing that all this time you know very often when I'm recording you can hear the noise of the subway being built outside my window there's a lot of noise was having a lot of trouble getting any sleep at all there were other things interrupting my sleep so I started using caffeine for that reason again and again you know when your attitude is you want to minimize caffeine my point was not that I was gleefully drinking tons of caffeine every day but I was using caffeine as a drug and as a drug I'd prefer not to be using so anyway last Monday one week ago now I decided okay that's enough and the the construction at the window seems to have gotten a bit better okay now is the time in terms of a whole bunch of other things okay I'm gonna I'm gonna eliminate caffeine again then Donald Trump got elected honestly on the day on the day Donald Trump got elected I decided to I decided to hit the caffeine I was the day it happened he's remember I'm in a different time zone so for me it was my lunch break when I found out Donald Trump had won and I was just shocked I've already made videos talking about that but Wow and it's it's not even that I particularly think Donald Trump is gonna be a much worse president than Hillary Clinton I was just shocked um and that day I decided okay I probably had the equivalent of three cups of coffee one was just a large cup of coffee like a Starbucks sized coffee so I had two cups but I would count it as three cups of coffee and I went to the gym and you know tried to feel better and I streamed with you guys a lot too it did it made me feel better you know coming on you know and talking to people the day of the election the day and my time so I think from you guys it was the next morning did you know it did help it didn't make me feel better so anyway this weekend just past Saturday and Sunday I was again kickin caffeine and just the disruptions to your sleep cycle oh look it's awful but you know would my life be better if I had not played with caffeine and all was here in Kunming you got to make those hard decisions you know I I hate it couldn't you know caffeine is a drug I didn't want to compromise with it I didn't want to let it back into my life but you're in a situation where you're paying thousands of dollars for an education in this case in education the Chinese language and you've got to decide if I feel like you know I'm not getting the value out of this education because I can't get enough sleep at night because I'm falling asleep in the middle of the day which was happening all the time before I got on the caffeine I would be in class and then we'd have a break during class and I'd come to my room and pass out so whatever three o'clock in the afternoon 11 o'clock in the morning I was passing out at all hours of the day and you know just a couple times the teacher came and knocked on my door and said hey what happened to you oh you collapsed you fell asleep you know so if you're fighting against fragmentary sleep that way you know this is your one opportunity to learn Chinese the language you've paid the money made the commitment that temptation to get on the caffeine you know is becomes irresistible and I remember talking to one guy one vegan online and he said simply his reason for using caffeine was when he woke up in the morning he didn't want to be uh he didn't want to be grouchy with his kids because you know his kids would wake up and be full of energy so he'd get on the caffeine anyway this video is recorded while I am once again once again going through caffeine withdrawal or going through the adjustment after after quitting caffeine and you know I mean I can say I hope it's the last time I quit caffeine that doesn't really count for much I think the reality is again if I find myself living in circumstances where I can't sleep or where I need to unnaturally force my sleep cycle to come into sync she definitely can imagine with jet lag jet lag could be can be pretty rough I would use caffeine again for but I would also look for my first opportunity to quit using caffeine again
again quitting caffeine is not something you do only once in life all right not in my case you know I would I prefer ideally to consume zero caffeine and at the moment I'm consuming zero caffeine but there are many you know bumps in the road in life that can force you to get back on the drug even when you regard it as a drug even when you regard yourself as someone who would ideally like to be consuming absolutely zero caffeine I don't think I've told this story before it's possible I did when I was living in Taiwan and I just broken up with my wife and I just been separated from my daughter I was keeping very very close eye on my own moods from day to day and they sound like a funny thing to say but when you're going through a kind of extremely traumatic experience you would be advised to keep an eye on yourself and know okay all right that sounds stupid you have to keep a very close watch on how you are feeling and even what you're thinking about going through very real trauma of being separate from my daughter and that's separation I mean it's partly intellectual is partly emotional it's partly instinctual like you're separated from your daughter after spending 24 hours a day 7 day a week with her for the first year of her life you wake up in the middle of the night and it's not fear it's not dread it's pure instinct of one to go and take care you know you have these very very ancient entirely evolutionary instincts that rouse you out of bed that that kick you around when you're going through that basically a process of withdrawal so I was keeping a really close eye on myself and I remember already then it was already anti caffeine but I was vegan and I also there was almost nothing I could buy at the local convenience stores on the one hand because it was vegan the other hand I can't drink the kind of soft drink which is like 90 percent sugar and in Taiwan obviously there's stuff like Coke and Pepsi etc but they also have their own varieties of juice that are really really high in sugar you know juice drinks whatever you want to say I couldn't forgetting that stuff so I started buying their bottled tea that has no sugar added to it and I started buying it very specifically because I would leave my house almost all my life there in Taiwan at that time was inside my house the house that I had rented to raise my daughter in but as you may know at this breaker with my wife so I would buy this bottled tea and walk up the nearest mountain as is usually the case the word Melton is an exaggeration it's a hill it's a steep hill but it gives you a view of the whole city and I was most of the time I was the only person under 60 years old doing that what's know I should there were young people like boyfriends and girlfriends would go up this is a beautiful part computer play see but the majority people in that park walk in the Hill were elderly people who like myself we're trying to keep in shape by by going up the going up the hill started drinking bottled tea I guess one bottle a day it's like drinking a bottle of coke except it's tea with no sugar added it's vegan it's the only option I had it's hot as hell you're in the tropics and then you know I came to a weekend where I think I think let's say it was two weeks let's say for just two weeks I was drinking one bottle of tea again a day pardon me for just two weeks I was drinking one bottle of tea a day going up the going up the hill and then when I stopped I went into full caffeine withdrawal unbelievable and because I was watching myself so here it was like what's wrong with me why do I feel so awful why do I feel so terrible so it was really keeping track of you know what I was thinking what I was feeling from day to day really um you know really kind of being extra mindful of of every little thing going on in my head god then when the caffeine withdrawal hits you it can feel a lot like clinical depression it can feel like you're suddenly going into depression just have these horrible side effects and you realize I mean caffeine it's something that's going on in the background of so many of our lives it's something that we're boring so much of the time but you can really easily develop caffeine dependency even just short term in two weeks like that unbelievable anyway you know what clicked I realized oh my god it's not that I'm depressed it's not that I'm suddenly more upset about being separate from my daughter it's just it's just the the impact of the you know caffeine withdrawal anyway I was I started quitting caffeine this time so here in Kunming I started using caffeine because of construction noise outside my window you guys may have noticed that I may have been hearing that all this time you know very often when I'm recording you can hear the noise of the subway being built outside my window there's a lot of noise was having a lot of trouble getting any sleep at all there were other things interrupting my sleep so I started using caffeine for that reason again and again you know when your attitude is you want to minimize caffeine my point was not that I was gleefully drinking tons of caffeine every day but I was using caffeine as a drug and as a drug I'd prefer not to be using so anyway last Monday one week ago now I decided okay that's enough and the the construction at the window seems to have gotten a bit better okay now is the time in terms of a whole bunch of other things okay I'm gonna I'm gonna eliminate caffeine again then Donald Trump got elected honestly on the day on the day Donald Trump got elected I decided to I decided to hit the caffeine I was the day it happened he's remember I'm in a different time zone so for me it was my lunch break when I found out Donald Trump had won and I was just shocked I've already made videos talking about that but Wow and it's it's not even that I particularly think Donald Trump is gonna be a much worse president than Hillary Clinton I was just shocked um and that day I decided okay I probably had the equivalent of three cups of coffee one was just a large cup of coffee like a Starbucks sized coffee so I had two cups but I would count it as three cups of coffee and I went to the gym and you know tried to feel better and I streamed with you guys a lot too it did it made me feel better you know coming on you know and talking to people the day of the election the day and my time so I think from you guys it was the next morning did you know it did help it didn't make me feel better so anyway this weekend just past Saturday and Sunday I was again kickin caffeine and just the disruptions to your sleep cycle oh look it's awful but you know would my life be better if I had not played with caffeine and all was here in Kunming you got to make those hard decisions you know I I hate it couldn't you know caffeine is a drug I didn't want to compromise with it I didn't want to let it back into my life but you're in a situation where you're paying thousands of dollars for an education in this case in education the Chinese language and you've got to decide if I feel like you know I'm not getting the value out of this education because I can't get enough sleep at night because I'm falling asleep in the middle of the day which was happening all the time before I got on the caffeine I would be in class and then we'd have a break during class and I'd come to my room and pass out so whatever three o'clock in the afternoon 11 o'clock in the morning I was passing out at all hours of the day and you know just a couple times the teacher came and knocked on my door and said hey what happened to you oh you collapsed you fell asleep you know so if you're fighting against fragmentary sleep that way you know this is your one opportunity to learn Chinese the language you've paid the money made the commitment that temptation to get on the caffeine you know is becomes irresistible and I remember talking to one guy one vegan online and he said simply his reason for using caffeine was when he woke up in the morning he didn't want to be uh he didn't want to be grouchy with his kids because you know his kids would wake up and be full of energy so he'd get on the caffeine anyway this video is recorded while I am once again once again going through caffeine withdrawal or going through the adjustment after after quitting caffeine and you know I mean I can say I hope it's the last time I quit caffeine that doesn't really count for much I think the reality is again if I find myself living in circumstances where I can't sleep or where I need to unnaturally force my sleep cycle to come into sync she definitely can imagine with jet lag jet lag could be can be pretty rough I would use caffeine again for but I would also look for my first opportunity to quit using caffeine again