Caffeine Consumption Update

The day following my horrific experience of the 19 cups of tea, my consumption went down to 12. So I decided for the next day (yesterday) I would set myself the target of drinking the same number of cups. Interestingly by the late evening I still had a couple of cups to drink and had to force myself.

So I have come to the conclusion that the best way to proceed is to follow the same pattern of two alternating days - one day drinking as many cups as I want without restraint, followed by another day in which I have to drink the same number as the previous day.

Today is a no restraint day, and I am on my 4th cup of tea as I write this at 3 p.m. So it looks as if I will be well under the previous figure of 12 cups by the end of the day.

It’s early days yet, but I do get the impression that the method is reducing my cup of tea consumption. I’ll be very interested to see if this continues.

Previous Posts on This Subject

Caffeine Consumption: Day 2

I’ve just finished the day after midnight drinking my nineteenth cup of tea - truly a revolting experience!

The trouble is I don’t really know where to go from here. I certainly don’t feel at this precise moment that I ever want to see another cup of tea again, but will I still feel like that in the morning? And even if I do, how long will it last?

I think what I will do tomorrow is drink as much tea as I want naturally and record how many cups I drink. We’ll see whether the last two days’ exercise has had a beneficial effect or not.

Related posting:

Caffeine Consumption: Day 1

Caffeine Consumption Day 1

I finished Day 1 of my experiment on reducing caffeine consumption having established a benchmark of 19 cups of tea - yes, you did read that right: 19 cups of tea.

Frankly this morning I find the idea of having to consume 19 cups of tea today revolting in the extreme. So perhaps the technique is working!

Update on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 at 15:45 by Mark Forster

Urgh! Nearly 4 o’clock and I’ve still got another nine cups of tea to go.

The things I put myself through for my readers!

Reverse Psychology: Cutting Caffeine Consumption

A reader’s comment on one of my articles reminded me of a technique for giving up smoking which I had read about somewhere many years ago. The idea was to stop smoking being a pleasure and make it into a chore by giving oneself the compulsory task of smoking a certain number of cigarettes during a day.

As soon as I remembered this, I thought that I’d like to try it out. Since I gave up smoking over thirty years ago, I can’t use it for that purpose. But there is something I want to cut down on (or perhaps even cut out altogether) and that is caffeine. I don’t drink coffee, but I do drink endless cups of tea. I wonder if it’ll work for that?

So tomorrow I have the task of drinking as much tea as I like - without restraint. And then the following day I HAVE to drink the same number of cups. What happens after that? I’m not quite sure… I’ll have to make it up when I get there!

Tomorrow evening I’ll report back on how many cups I drink tomorrow - and it’ll be a lot!