Coffee and coffee-related drinks are one of my favorite things in the world. The higher the quality and the more Ethiopian the better. I love it for the flavor and aroma, not a needed boost in the morning or midday.
Drinking coffee can be both beneficial and detrimental. Most research is almost 100% positive. When something is 100% positive and it's difficult to find negative results, I become skeptical. For a very long time I was part of that 100% believing coffee is helping my blood vessels, nutrient delivery, and providing many other health benefits when I drink it.
Over the years I fell in love with working on the human body and learning about the intricate details of how the body works. Working on thousands of people and experiencing how my body felt while fasting from coffee for 45 day periods through the year I began to realize a more real story of how coffee/caffeine affects the body. Rarely do you hear of people giving up coffee as it's an extremely addictive compound, one of the most widely used in the world. No one second-guesses what it’s doing to the health of the individual.
As with everything in this world, there is always a “give and take” principle to anything you do to the body. Energy is given, but then the caffeine has to then exit the body because it's a foreign substance. When exiting the body through your pee, it has electrolytes attached to it. As consistently as most people are drinking their coffee--sometimes multiple cups or pots--they are equally robbing themselves of electrolytes. This is critical to understand because electrolytes are much harder to replace than water. Without electrolytes, you do not hydrate or absorb the water you drink.
This is exactly why people show up in my clinic because they usually pair caffeine consumption with exercise, a busy schedule, sitting most of their day, etc. The tissue cannot mobilize the way it was meant to, so it gets irritated and symptoms arise. Once angry, the tissue has to be rehydrated before chiropractic, muscle work, or any other therapy will effectively resolve the issue.
To avoid injury and dehydration pay attention every time you use the restroom. If your pee is clear, water is passing straight through you and not being absorbed. This is because of the lack of electrolytes needed to pull the water into the cells of the body. If you are dehydrated your pee will be dark. If it’s dark, you need water. Your body could also be trying to get rid of damage or inflammation. The question here is how do you take the best care of your body? How do you have a body that is healthy and hydrated?
One way of many to heal your body is that you take a break from coffee/caffeine for a while so your body can reset. When you do this reset, you gain electrolytes through fruits, vegetables, or natural foods. Stopping the endless faucet of coffee/caffeine you’re drinking is crucial to being full of life. Yes, it seems small, but it is a huge detriment to the body if not paid attention to. Your body is made up of mostly water and when hydrated the amazingness that your body is can operate the way it was designed to.
78% of your brain is dependent on movement and that movement depends on hydrated tissue to move appropriately. So take a minimum of 21 days, optimally 45 days, away from coffee and caffeine. Will it be hard? Yes, it will be. This is exactly the reason you need to commit and do this, if you say you can’t or won’t then you should. I promise you will feel different.
