Giving up Coffee?!

Oh no.

I think I'm going to have to give up coffee.  

This is bad.  I'm a coffee lover.  

I'll have to resort to decaf.  And while I'm okay with that, it just takes away the variety that I have when shopping for regular coffee.

And why do I have to give up coffee??

The medication.  Concerta is a stimulant as well.  The side effects of Concerta are similar to caffeine.  When I take my dose in the morning and then have coffee, the jitters are pretty bad.  It pretty much makes my hands somewhat more clumsy, my torso feels like it's shivering, even if it isn't, and it makes doing things a bit more difficult.  

Which sounds weird, considering that I drink coffee for the stimulation and the Concerta to help calm me.  

Interesting thing though;  when I was doing my reading about ADHD, medications, diet and exercise, I came across research that said that many ADHD sufferers use stimulants like caffeine because it has a calming effect on them.  With the amount of coffee and diet pop I drank, there's every chance that's why I drank it.  It's also why ADHD sufferers also are more prone to self medication and addiction.  

The biggest problem with this is that it can heighten my anxiety.  Because it makes my heart race a bit, it makes me nervous, which then triggers the anxiety.  The anxiety can literally be debilitating, and causes me to want to sleep more often than not.  Sleep almost resets my body, but it causes me to be awake later at night.

Of course, another reason to eliminate caffeine is the sleep.  BUT!  I have been finding my sleep has been good, easy and restful.  This is a HUGE change from before.  I would find my brain racing, coming up with things that aren't worth worrying about.  I could calm myself, but it took time.  Sometimes an hour or two.  I could use deep breathing, visualization, meditation, anything I could think of, and it would take so much time.  I have found in the past month, my body starts to relax and slow down around 10pm.  Not 8pm.  This is a HUGE deal.  When I wake up, it still takes a few minutes, but I lay there, play a game on my phone for a bit, and come down to get the day started.  I have our morning routine down to the point where we can do it in 20 minutes if we need to be in a hurry, if I slept in.  

As much as I love coffee, and as much as I don't want to give it up, I know there are so many benefits to lowering the caffeine intake.  I can still have a diet Pepsi or Coke Zero during the day.  But water is most important.  I purchased some fresh mint, I have limes and lemons, I like to add that stuff to the water.  No chemicals (though I do love those too!) and it keeps me drinking water!  I don't drink juice for the sugar, except for very occasionally.  That doesn't leave me a lot of options outside of tea!  Which I love too!  

So while I might have to give up coffee, there are many options.  And this doesn't mean I can't EVER have coffee.  I just need to be mindful of where, when and what I'm drinking.  

I guess that this medication has helped me in more ways than I had thought.  Sometimes while I'm not watching!  

But I'm still not happy to give up my coffee!!!!!  (LOL)  *Enter little kid tantrum here!*