How many of you get up in the morning and simply cannot function before you have your coffee? How many like to drink a can of Monster while playing video games to increase your concentration?

While a large portion of those reading this may not do either of those things, I’m confident a large portion of you do. The ritual of having some sort of caffeine intake every morning or sometime during the day to get a “boost” in energy is something ingrained into our culture. Millions of people do it.

So…what if I told you caffeine doesn’t wake you up?

This doesn’t give you energy, but it does make you twitchy. (image source)

So what does it do? That boost you feel when you drink caffeine is very real, but it’s not augmenting your energy at all, in fact, it’s just bringing your energy up to the level of someone who doesn’t drink caffeine. That groginess you feel the in morning? Caffeine withdrawal.

Yes, everyone who feels the need to intake some sort of caffeine in the morning is addicted. Now, this isn’t as harsh as an addiction as being addicted to something like cigarettes, but it is an addiction nonetheless. What actually happens when you consume caffeine is that it blocks the receptors in your brain for the chemical adenosine. Adenosine, to put it simply, helps you relax and clam down. It depresses your system and is a big factor in helping you sleep. While your brain isn’t soaking up adenosine, it is still taking in dopamine and glutamate, which are stimulants that your brain creates itself. Soaking up extra dopamine and glutamate doesn’t mean your energy levels spike, however, rather it makes you twitchy and increases your anxiety levels.

However, after a short period of time, the side-effects (twitchiness and anxiety) of drinking caffeine do fade, so what your brain is left with is the addiction to the overdose of its own stimulants without adenosine to keep their effects in check. What this means is that you’re effectively handicapping yourself by drinking caffeine every day, as the solution to the withdrawal you experience by not getting caffeine in a 8-hour night’s sleep is to drink more caffeine. You’re not giving yourself an advantage of any sorts by drinking it; the people who don’t drink caffeine are already at the same level of energy you are after you have your cup of coffee.

Alright, you’re addicted, what do you do? It’s no question that caffeine withdrawal sucks, however it doesn’t take all that long to break the addiction. You may experience a splitting headache, insomnia, and some joint pain, but generally after a week (give or take a few days) your body will be back to normal.

The science behind this is solid, but it’s silly to think that the millions of people who drink caffeine daily are going to stop after finding out this information. Why should you stop? It’s true, the negative effects of drinking caffeine every day are negligible, so long as you do it every day and avoid withdrawal symptoms. However, have you ever thought about how much money that daily dose costs you?

              
                                         
                                                       Image Source

Let’s say you drink a $4 cup of Starbucks coffee every day to “wake up” (that’s a bit optimistic considering Stabucks’ prices), and let’s say you only drink it on weekdays, so that’s $4 5 days a week, or $20 a week. Already, that sounds quite pricey…$20 is enough for a movie or a pretty decent dinner that doesn’t consist of ramen. Let’s say you do that all year…$20 a week times 52 weeks…that’s $1,040 a year. You can buy a lot with $1,040. And when you consider that you only need to go through a week or so of negative symptoms to break your caffeine addiction…it seems silly to opt to keep drinking it every morning.