the majority of college students suffer from some form of mental illness, most commonly, anxiety and depression. and did you know that caffeine and sugar are two of the leading causes of anxiety? isn't that crazy that we constantly consume things that can increase our anxiety?
i mean that's what happened to me. i was drinking about five or six cups of coffee a day; three to tame the headaches and two to three to keep myself awake and alert. but i was also ridden with constant anxiety. i was overdoing it for sure. my anxiety was so bad that my therapist from maven said i should try cutting back to 3 cups a day and work myself down to one or none. (yo, check out maven for real. it's such a great service! use my code for a 10 min appointment credit GRANDVALLEYAS) i don't like to do things half way, so i just decided to cut coffee out of my life all together. that was in october and now it's january and i maybe have a cup of coffee once a month. in october when i gave up coffee, i felt so many withdrawal symptoms and it even made my anxiety and depression worse for a while. i was making dumb decisions (nothing dangerous, just dumb). but soon the caffeine withdrawal symptoms subsided and i felt like a human again. i woke up feeling less anxious (it wasn't gone, because as you know anxiety doesn't just disappear) and i even started sleeping better. it's crazy how much better i feel without caffeine.
now i'm not saying caffeine is bad because sometimes you really just need it to get through the day (like right now i'm consuming a red bull because i got 4 hours of sleep last night, i have to work a closing shift, and because red bull sent me some in the mail), but i am saying that it's not good to depend on it. caffeine isn't good when it becomes something you're addicted to, when you need it to get you through the day. caffeine is a drug, an extremely addictive one, that not many people think about. are you addicted to caffeine? are you ridden with anxiety? do you feel like a robot? yeah? you might want to think about cutting back on caffeine. you might start to feel more like yourself again.
