No Coffee Challenge - March 2025

I cannot remember how old I was when I started drinking my 1st Coffee. But I know this: when I went to Thailand in 2024, I spent a good amount of time trying different coffee places across the country. If I enter Starbucks, cold Coffee with extra shots is my go-to. Other obsessions with Coffee include ordering kilos of South Indian filter coffee powder, ensuring I never run out. I was living my prime life with Coffee, or at a point, I had no idea what Coffee was doing to my body. There were times I would drink Coffee and sleep the best. There were times when the brain fog got worse after a cup. Sometimes, one cup is not enough. I also noticed that 2 cups of Coffee per day went all the way to 5 cups.

What if I give up? Can I even? Do I have the endurance? This was the one challenge I took on without thinking much. February 28, 2025, mmm, and I go *hmm.. It will be a new month tomorrow, so maybe it’s time for this challenge. At this time, I had a few other challenges on the bucket. I don’t know why giving up Coffee felt like a low-hanging fruit.

So it begins…

Week 1 - Pain of a Lifetime

Remember how I said I don’t know what effect Coffee had on me. The 1st week after stopping gave me all the answers I needed. The 1st challenge of this challenge is waking up without knowing what to do because Coffee is how I start my day every day. I swapped it with water, but that didn’t help one bit. Day 1-3 I almost gave up because that blasting headache was the worst I ever had. The throbs, the banging. I thought it would last just a few days, but god. Evenings become even worse. As the clock is 5 PM, my brain craves it again. The more I deny it, the more angry it becomes.

Week 2 - Low Power Mode

I was proud of myself for not giving up despite my mother suggesting I drink to wear me off the pain I was enduring. In week 2, the morning headaches almost vanished, but the evening headaches visited as and when they pleased. People online mentioned that you would get your energy back during week 2, but that wasn’t my case. The fog was still very visible. It felt like I was operating in low-power mode.

The second week of March was also Women’s Day week. I wanted to treat myself. Saying no to tiramisu was hard, but here we are.

Week 3 - Up… Up… Up…

Things started to get better—better than I imagined. I had a kickstart in the morning. I no longer craved Coffee. The brain fog was slowly vanishing. I had no headaches. There was stability in my focus and in my mood.

But… The weekend had a worse plan for me.

Week 4 - Stay Up to Slip Up

One thing people asked me during this challenge was Did my sleep cycle improve. Unfortunately, my sleep cycle has always been messed up. I’ve tried multiple times, but I cannot stick to proper sleep and wake times. That could be a different challenge. On March 20, I couldn’t sleep one bit as I was dealing with a technical challenge in my head. It wasn’t a tight deadline, just that my brain wouldn’t shut up. I also had an important meeting the following day. March 21, as I was trying to stay awake to power through a meeting that was 3 hours away. I had to be alive for it… not a sleep zombie. So I did it.

I ordered Starbucks and Cold Coffee, but there was no extra shot. That did it.

About 30 minutes later, after my first sip of Coffee in 20 days, I felt awakened, with a heightened sense of awareness and an insane amount of energy, as if a jetpack were attached to my brain. I finally knew the power coffee had over me. I felt alive.

After this, I was dead sure I was not going to slip again. Two sleepless nights later, on March 23, I was a judge at the IWD hackathon in Chennai. There went another small glass of Coffee.

That was the last slip. After this, I counted the final days of March to finally sip my Coffee again.

Breaking The Coffee Break

As I took my first sip of South Indian filter coffee on April 1, I was expecting the same awakening hyper feeling I had at Starbucks, but to my dismay, nothing happened. I enjoyed the Coffee as always, but there was no aha moment.

It’s been 9 days since the challenge ended, and I have kept it to 1-2 small coffees daily. I try not to return to having it as a 1st thing in the morning. No more extra shots at the Starbucks.

Will I do the challenge again? Yes.

Would I recommend this challenge to other coffee lovers? Absolutely. Not to quit forever, but to reset, to understand your relationship with caffeine, and to enjoy Coffee more intentionally.