For most of my life, coffee wasn’t a choice — it was simply there.
My father drank coffee every morning, and in our home it wasn’t viewed as a stimulant or substance. It was just… adulthood. I never questioned it, I simply absorbed the habit.
When I went to college, I became a full participant in the ritual: coffee to start the day, iced coffee at night. I never thought about what it was doing to my system.
I only thought about how it helped me “function.” Like everyone else, I assumed that being tired meant I needed more caffeine, not more rest.
Years later, when I began trying to heal my skin and gut issues, I reached a point of desperation. I cut foods, added foods, changed supplements — nothing worked. The only constant pattern was stress.
So I did something extreme…
I quit work. And I quit coffee.
That’s when everything hit me.
It wasn’t just fatigue — it was like someone unplugged the power source to my entire body. I couldn’t fight the sleep. I wasn’t drowsy — I was pulled into sleep. It felt like the years of ignored exhaustion had finally surfaced.
At the same time, my menstruation became so heavy that I turned pale — literally white lips, white face. I was terrified. I thought quitting coffee was harming me. But in hindsight, I see it differently.
Coffee had been blocking adenosine — the chemical that signals the brain, “You’re tired.” Without caffeine, the brain finally received the message that had been building up for years. I wasn’t suddenly exhausted — I had always been exhausted. I just hadn’t been able to feel it.
And then there’s iron.
Coffee is known to reduce iron absorption — especially when consumed close to meals. Iron is what carries oxygen in the blood.
When your body runs low on usable iron, everything suffers: energy, mood, cognition, hormone balance. Heavy menstruation can also worsen low iron, and low iron can worsen heavy menstruation — a vicious cycle many women never trace back to caffeine.
After months of that crash phase, I actually did begin to feel physically better. My skin calmed down, my cycle normalized, and my body was quieter.
But even as my body was healing, my brain was catching up in a different way. I started feeling the pressure and itch to “be productive” again — to work, create, push forward.
And here’s the honest part:
I thought I might go insane if I couldn’t snap back into productivity mode.
So I went back to work.
And I genuinely do love what I do — I work with a company deeply rooted in health education, nutrition science, metabolic wellness, and real-food healing.
I love the research, the writing, the learning. I love being surrounded by information about how the body works, how food works, how people heal.
But life has a way of creeping back in.
Deadlines. Expectations. Screens. Output.
And I felt myself slowly being pulled back into that old pattern of stress-as-normal.
That’s when I realized I was at a crossroads:
either go back to being powered by caffeine and adrenaline…
or finally learn how to work from a place of true energy and internal calm.
Now I’m stopping coffee again — but differently this time.
Not all at once. Not aggressively. I drink it every other day.
On coffee days, I work.
On non-coffee days, I let myself rest — even if that means I sleep more.
Instead of using coffee to override fatigue, I’m supporting my body with hydration, lemon water, minerals, sunlight, and stillness.
And this time, the experience feels different. Instead of feeling like I’m losing energy — I feel like I’m finally letting my body generate real energy again.
Because here’s something I wish I had understood earlier:
The body never produces fake signals.
If you’re tired… you’re tired for a reason.
Coffee may silence the message, but it doesn’t solve the cause.
And I don’t think the human body was designed to live in constant stimulation.
Our natural rhythm is calm. Our natural attention is steady. Our natural wakefulness is gentle. Coffee pushes us into a state of buzzing intensity that we misinterpret as “focus.”
But real focus feels different — it’s grounded, not amped.
Real energy feels different — it’s stable, not jittering.
So here’s my gentle invitation — not as advice, not as a prescription, just as a reminder from someone walking this path:
Don’t wait until you’re burnt out or older or finally free of responsibilities to stop relying on coffee.
Try it now, even in small ways. Let your body wake up naturally. Let yourself feel your actual energy levels. Let tiredness be information, not something to suppress.
Maybe the real cure for exhaustion isn’t caffeine…
Maybe it’s permission to rest.
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