It’s the most widely consumed psychoactive drug in the world for a reason.Ĭoffee has no shortage of well-documented health benefits to further my rationalization. I enjoyed effects of caffeine just like the other 5 billion humans who consume it on a daily basis. Fixing a cup, or going down to the corner cafe, was a nice respite from whatever I was working on. In the afternoons, it would keep me going. Of course, there were no shortage of coffee-pros for me to rationalize my habit:Ĭoffee helped pry me out of bed in the morning and propel me to work. Mixed in with the rapid heart rate and jitters was feeling of guilt with every sip. I sat there in my underwear hearing the same refrain from a half dozen doctors over a half dozen years and I didn’t take their advice to heart. Yet, here was this one concrete thing – this one element to the algorithm I could eliminate that would make a real impact on my day-to-day anxiety level. I was doing all the other things the doctors said: eating better, meditation, exercise, trying medication after medication, the list goes on. Goddamn, why am I so anxious? Why can’t things be like they used to? Why am I afraid of everything? In the early days of my anxiety, everything seemed like a mystery. There are so many mysterious elements to anxiety – the triggers, the roots. The up, followed by the down, wreaked havoc on my mood. In the back of my mind I was always aware that coffee was aggravating my anxiety, but only in retrospect did I realize quite how much it was making me restless, irritable, tensing my muscles, disrupting my concentration, and jacking up my heart rate. If I felt stretched thin, coffee stretched me further. If I was close to the edge, coffee nudged me closer. The first time I went to the doctor because of a panic attack, the first question she asked me was, “What’s your caffeine intake like?” It’s literally the first thing they ask you.Ĭaffeine was not the cause of my panic attacks, but it made things worse. Let me tell you something you already know: caffeine does not mix well with anxiety. I’ve had diagnosed Generalized Anxiety (GAD) with Panic Disorder for years, but I kept up the coffee. maybe another cup around 6pm if I was going out or working late that evening.another cup for the last stretch of work around 4pm.one cup around mid-morning or after lunch.one cup from the cafe before work around 8:50am.doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2014.09.Drinking coffee was like dumping kerosine on my smoldering anxiety. The impact of social skills training for social anxiety disorder: A randomized controlled trial. doi:10.1037/hea0000146īeidel DC, Alfano CA, Kofler MJ, Rao PA, Scharfstein L, Wong Sarver N. Do slumped and upright postures affect stress responses? A randomized trial. Nair S, Sagar M, Sollers J, Consedine N, Broadbent E. Relations among social anxiety, eye contact avoidance, state anxiety, and perception of interaction performance during a live conversation. Howell AN, Zibulsky DA, Srivastav A, Weeks JW. The liking gap in conversations: Do people like us more than we think?. doi:10.1037/pspi0000097īoothby EJ, Cooney G, Sandstrom GM, Clark MS. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It doesn’t hurt to ask: Question-asking increases liking. Huang K, Yeomans M, Brooks AW, Minson J, Gino F. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Relaxation techniques: Breath control helps quell errant stress response.Įpley N, Schroeder J. Social communication deficits: Specific associations with social anxiety disorder. Social performance deficits in social anxiety disorder: Reality during conversation and biased perception during speech.
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