Coffee Addiction – Fact or Fiction?

By Antony Cassidy

Let’s get straight to the point. Coffee can appear to be addictive because of the withdrawal symptoms it produces. As soon as the caffeine hits your brain it tells your adrenal glands to produce adrenalin, this is where the kick comes from. Adrenalin gets you ready for action, the problem is that if you are sat at your desk, or perhaps on the couch, you don’t need to be ready for action. About 30 minutes later the caffeine wears off, the adrenalin has worn off, and you come down from this action state, leaving you feeling tired and unable to relax.So what do you do now?

Most people decide to reach for another cup of coffee to end this sluggishness and the cycle is repeated all through the day, with you going from high to low, an emotional roller coaster of a day. If this sounds familiar you are not alone, thousands of people experience this each and every day.

These symptoms follow the classic tell tale signs of drug addiction, but with caffeine there is a difference. Drugs such as cocaine and nicotine are addictive because they affect the “reward and motivation” part of the brain. Caffeine does not seem to work on these parts of the brain, and as such is not seen as being addictive.If you find yourself reaching for cup after cup of coffee, you are just relieving the symptoms it produces, but you will not be physically craving caffeine.

This is an important distinction, because those of us who just can’t seem to get through the day without our little crutch, can find it much easier to end their apparent coffee addiction. Now i am not saying that stopping drinking coffee is a simple process, it can be very difficult to just stop doing something you have perhaps been doing for years. These symptoms are very real and can cause a lot of discomfort. It has been scientifically proven that caffeine withdrawal produces headaches and irritability for a period of up to 10 days.

The fact is that drinking coffee can lead to symptoms that appear to be similar to drug addiction,the fiction is that caffeine is not physically addictive.

Learn how to tame your coffee addiction. Great tips and hints to help you take the stress out of your life.

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