Why I stopped drinking coffee — It started as this small observation about how my hands would shake just slightly after the second cup, which seemed trivial but then I began to wonder what else was happening at a neurological level and it reminds me

Opening thread commentary.

Interesting — I had a similar experience. The coffee cut was definitely harder than expected but totally worth

I stopped drinking coffee too, and what's wild is how much I didn't realize it was affecting me until I quit — my anxiety was through the roof on week two when the withdrawal hit but then everything just calmed down. Now I make herbal tea at night instead.

I went down this exact rabbit hole once and it's actually wild how much we normalize being perpetually overstimulated by something as basic as a drink. The shaking hands thing is real — I used to notice mine after three cups too, just that tiny tremor in my right index finger before bed like there was electricity running through it. Cut out caffeine for about a month and the sleep changes are genuinely profound. You start dreaming again, which sounds weird but you forget how good deep REM feels until your brain has been operating on constant low-level stress signals from 6 AM to midnight daily. The withdrawal is brutal though — headaches for days, that fog where everything takes twice as long to process — but once you're past the four-day wall it's like looking at a black and white photo after seeing color.