If you don't drink coffee, something will go wrong! Am I addicted to caffeine?

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"Ah... Now that I don't drink a cup of coffee every day, my brain can always stand by. "

"Ah... If you don't have a cup of coffee after lunch, you will crash even if you take a lunch break. "

Compared with other drinks (except herbal tea), coffee can be said to be not delicious! When many friends drink coffee for the first time, their expressions or hearts must be like this:

Although it is not delicious, there will always be only zero and countless times. Perhaps after this cup of coffee, there will be a large amount of coffee expenditure every month, and more and more coffee will be drunk every day. Finally found that as long as I don't drink coffee, my soul will always fall off the line.

"am I addicted to caffeine?"

For their dependence on coffee, I believe that many friends will wonder if they are addicted to caffeine. On this topic, we need to be divided into two parts, one is psychological addiction, the other is physical addiction. The former belongs to mental addiction, it is relatively easy to quit, while the latter is really addictive. If you want to quit, you still need to overcome the "opposition" of physical function.

In the words of psychologists and neuroscientists, coffee is probably the most widely used psychoactive substance (psychoactive substance) in the world, and it is legal and available everywhere. A core point is also made in the Story of caffeine: caffeine is a drug.

Gary L. Wenk, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Ohio State University, believes that coffee makes us so infatuated because it simulates the reaction of cocaine and marijuana in our brains. When we drink a cup of coffee, we stimulate the abnormal secretion of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the synaptic space, triggering a sense of euphoria, which is similar to that of amphetamine drugs.

But caffeine is not so easily physically addictive as long as it is consumed reasonably every day. Daily intake of a small amount of caffeine (1-2 cups of coffee), the addition of a small amount of caffeine can have an impact on the nervous system, bring physiological stimulation and sensory enjoyment, and temporarily change the state of consciousness.

If you just think about coffee every day, don't drink it as if your soul is not in place, or when you feel like something is missing without drinking a cup of coffee every day, it's just a psychological addiction, also known as ritual anesthesia (ritualized inebriation). Such a state is like "drinking courage". You need to give yourself a sense of ritual through coffee and give yourself an "opportunity" to do things.

But if you need to consume a lot of caffeine every day, otherwise you will experience drowsiness, depression, restlessness, nervousness, gastrointestinal / urinary / heart adverse reactions, etc., then you may be really addicted to caffeine. Caffeine addiction is followed by withdrawal reaction (abstinence reaction), which refers to a specific psychological syndrome that occurs after stopping caffeine intake or reducing the dose.

Under what circumstances will caffeine addiction occur?

Everyone can take different levels of caffeine! According to the safe intake standards set by FDA (US Food and Drug Administration), caffeine addiction generally does not occur as long as you consume caffeine above 400mg (a cup of 225ml hand brewed coffee with 15g extracted in the proportion of 1:15 powdered water, with a caffeine content of about 60-90mg, that is, 4-5 cups of hand brewed coffee).

Of course, each cup of coffee has different caffeine content depending on the way it is made, if you look at coffee drinks made from regular Arabica beans:

The caffeine content of a cup of cold extract coffee (200ml/20g beans) is about 200mg; the caffeine content of a cup of French pot coffee (225ml/15g beans) is about 120mg; the caffeine content of a cup of hand coffee (225ml/15g beans) is about 60-90mg; the caffeine content of an espresso (30ml/15g beans) is about 85mg.

(espresso will not reduce its caffeine content after dilution unless the formula is a different type of espresso.)

What if I'm addicted to caffeine?

If we are really addicted to caffeine, we can't stop our caffeine intake suddenly, because a sudden stop will really put us in a "offline" state, and we will often have headaches that lead to mental illness and affect our daily life.

Quitting coffee itself requires a lot of willpower, and it's impossible to cut it off right away, so what we can do is to gradually reduce our caffeine intake every day, not just coffee. In daily life, caffeine can be found in functional drinks, cola, tea and carbonated sodas.

Before you start to reduce your caffeine intake, prepare your caffeine record and write down how much caffeine you consume from food and drink. Recording gives me a clear idea of my daily caffeine intake and gives me a better idea of when I unconsciously consume more caffeine every day.

If the only source of daily caffeine intake is coffee, start by reducing the amount of coffee by 25% a week. For example, if we drink four drinks a day, we will only drink three drinks a day at the beginning of this week, then two drinks a day the next week, then one drink a day next week, and then try not to drink one day a day, and so on.

If you really can't quit and your daily status is affected by excessive caffeine intake, you need to seek help from a doctor in a more scientific-professional way.

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