Coffee and the Adrenals? page 2

[seaweed]

Thankyou =) I like watercress and berries lots and i do like nettle tea. i was eyeing up a rather nice green patch on my way around the block today and thinking spring veges. i will try some tea with lemon grass and some stevia if i can find some. i'm quite fond of liquorice tea too. Love bee pollen and also seaweed so i will work out a way to include these.

[Periwinkle]

Funny you should post. I am on day 4 of no espresso. I am eliminating it b/c of suspected adrenal fatigue. I was getting some caffiene from cocoa powder and 85% dark chocolate. From tomorrow on, I am planning no cocoa powder. I wasnt hard core addicted, just a little bit addicted and the first few days I had a headache and felt like I got run over by a truck. I just really like to drink chocolately/milky/espresso drinks the in the am.

As far as detoxing from caffiene...I know I read somewhere that if you drink lots and lots of coffee, you should not go cold turkey b/c that will put a lot of stress on your adrenals. maybe switch to half decaf...half regular, so you still get to drink as many cups as you are used to, but the caffiene is less? and then keep cutting it in half...

Good Luck...adrenal fatigue sucks.

[seaweed]

& i have been able to fall asleep after a cup of coffee for prob over 20 yrs! my tutor at tech when i did personal training told me that some of us arent responders to caffeine so i must be one of them.

[kiwigal]

I explain why this happens here:

Why do some people fall asleep after drinking coffee?




That is because the adrenals produce epinephrine and cortisol to help give us energy and keep us alert. The adrenals also control our ability to deal with stress. By crashing the adrenals with stimulants like caffeine energy levels will drop and stress increases. Other things that can happen are formation or aggravation of allergies and asthma, suppressed immunity, autoimmune conditions, hormonal issues, increased inflammation, disturbances in the body's water balance, hypoglycemic reactions when you don't eat, thyroid suppression, etc.



The adrenals do get priority of vitamin C over the entire rest of the body. Natural sources tend to be much stronger and more stable than synthetic vitamin C sources such as the ascorbates. Here is more on building up the adrenals:

Building up the adrenals

Thanks for posting this!!! I'm also dealing with infertility issues which is why I went primal/paleo. Being addicted to caffeine and being in Adrenal fatigue may also be contributing to this. This is one of the reasons why I want to quit caffeine.

[tarek]

This coming Saturday will mark two weeks without coffee for me. This is the second time this year I've done a prolonged period without coffee (in February, I went a month or so without it).

A few weeks ago, I had been drinking either one cup of coffee or one cup of yerba mate every day for nearly a month. There was once a point where one 12 ounce cup of coffee would keep me going for 12+ hours, and I'm currently trying to reset my caffeine tolerance back to that. A once-weekly cup with that effect would be great for me.

[sbhikes]

You could try crio bru. It's chocolate, not coffee. Makes a hot cup that is similar to tea or coffee. Supposedly it has no caffiene but has theobromine instead. It's very tasty but it's also kind of expensive, so you will naturally want to limit it.

[ennaejay]

What is this Yerba Mate of which you speak?

A quick google search shows that it's actually tea...? Is there a certain flavor or kind that would be more helpful/tasty for someone transitioning from coffee? Is it caffeine-ified?

I used to cold-soak my coffee and use the de-acidified espresso in a cup of hot water (like an Americano), but I got lazy and started drinking from my husband's pot again, the caffeine is definitely addicting. Coffee can be pretty rough on an empty stomach.

I want to wake up and feel awake, not crawl toward the kitchen like a dying person stranded in the desert crawls toward an oasis. I already had 1.4 cups today and am fully aware of the cold turkey headaches I'll have tomorrow morning. Maybe a cup of caffeinated tea would help with withdrawl..

[JamesS]

Thankyou =) I like watercress and berries lots and i do like nettle tea. i was eyeing up a rather nice green patch on my way around the block today and thinking spring veges. i will try some tea with lemon grass and some stevia if i can find some. i'm quite fond of liquorice tea too. Love bee pollen and also seaweed so i will work out a way to include these.

Don't know if you ever collected stinging nettle before. For anyone that has not done it wear pants, long sleeve shirt and gloves. Contacting the fresh plant with the skin will result in a nettle rash from the histamine and formic acid. I cut the plant then let it wilt a little, which reduces these compounds. Then I strip off the leaves so they will dry faster and spread them out on some clean paper in well ventilated room out of the sunlight to finish drying. Once dried the nettle completely loses its sting.

[seaweed]

we used to use dock leaves on nettle stings when i was a kid. i was just planning to pick it with my mountain biking gloves on as they are quite thick and stick it in the pocket of my jacket till i got home.

[cori93437]

If you are cutting out coffee to get away from stimulants for a while just swapping to the roasted cocoa drink might not be such a great idea.

Theobromine is not the same as caffeine, but it's still a psychoactive stimulant.
If healing something by getting off of stimulants is your plan, the switch isn't exactly foolproof.
Delicious I'm sure though!