All About Caffeine Addiction and Withdrawal & How to Quit

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Last updated December 25, 2023.
Edited and medically reviewed by Patrick Alban, DC. Written by Deane Alban.

Caffeine helps your focus and mood, but when the side effects outweigh the benefits, withdrawal symptoms make quitting hard. Learn what to do about it.

Caffeine is the most widely consumed mood-altering substance in the world. 

You may be among the billions of people who start the day with a caffeinated drink — coffee, tea, yerba mate, energy drinks, or soda.

You probably like the energy, drive, and focus that caffeine gives you.

You may savor the taste, the aroma, and the ritual of consuming your favorite caffeinated beverage.

But not everyone reacts in the same way to this very common stimulant.

Some people find that caffeine becomes something they need, rather than something they enjoy.

It becomes an addiction.

And like all addictions, quitting caffeine is tough and caffeine withdrawal has some unpleasant side effects.

Caffeine Addiction & Withdrawal: Recognized Psychiatric Disorders

Caffeine is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget that it’s a psychoactive drug.

By definition, this means that caffeine changes brain function, mood, and behavior.

Caffeine readily enters the brain where it alters the activity of several neurotransmitters

It constricts blood vessels, reducing blood flow to the brain.

Caffeine also changes the electrical activity of the brain, causing an increase in beta brainwaves which are linked to a state of arousal

But is caffeine truly addictive?

To be considered addictive, a substance must meet certain criteria. 

Let’s see how caffeine stacks up against the three hallmarks of addiction — dependence, tolerance, and withdrawal. 

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Dependence

You crave caffeine, spend a good deal of money on it, and arrange your day to acquire it.

How many trips to Starbucks have you made lately?

Tolerance

You need to keep consuming more caffeine to get the same effect.

Eventually, you need it just to function normally.

Do you feel like you need caffeine to face the day?

Withdrawal

It’s hard to quit and you experience withdrawal symptoms if your caffeine consumption is interrupted.

Have you ever skipped your “normal dose” of caffeine? Or tried to quit? How’d that go?

" Johns Hopkins University researchers, who have studied caffeine withdrawal in depth, endorse a gradual approach to quitting caffeine to minimize withdrawal symptoms. 

Caffeine certainly seems to fit the bill as addictive.

The World Health Organization recognizes caffeine addiction as a clinical disorder. 

Numerous studies have concluded that some caffeine users become genuinely addicted.

You can find links to dozens of studies that support this in Caffeine Use Disorder: A Comprehensive Review and Research Agenda.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the American Psychiatric Association’s bible of mental disorders.

The most recent edition of the manual, DSM-5, now lists four caffeine-related disorders: 

  • caffeine intoxication
  • caffeine-induced anxiety disorder
  • caffeine-induced sleep disorder
  • caffeine withdrawal

Caffeine use disorder, the preferred medical term for caffeine addiction, is not yet considered a recognized disorder in the DSM-5 but has been included as a condition that merits further study. 

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Is Caffeine a Harmless Addiction?

Caffeine addiction is generally considered a “harmless” addiction because:

  • Unlike hard-core drugs, caffeine dependence does not ruin lives.
  • Caffeine withdrawal is relatively short-lived and rarely serious compared to that of street drugs or addictive prescription drugs.
  • The most popular caffeine delivery systems — coffee and various teas — have long histories of safe use and offer numerous health benefits.
  • Consuming caffeinated drinks is not only socially acceptable, it’s an integral thread in the tapestry of modern society.

Imagine the productivity slump if there was a nationwide coffee shortage!

If you think you’re addicted to coffee, tea, caffeinated sodas, or energy drinks, are there any compelling reasons to quit?

After all, you might well argue that your caffeine addiction is a legal vice and your friends haven’t done an intervention yet.

Besides, there are many proven health benefits of caffeine, especially when the source is a naturally caffeinated drink like coffee, tea, or yerba mate.

Benefits of Caffeine

Caffeine can enhance learning and memory, and reduce the risk of depression

It can reduce the risk of several serious diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, and diabetes.

It may even help you live longer.

Caffeine increases dopamine, the neurotransmitter that makes you motivated and productive. 

It also increases acetylcholine, the brain chemical most associated with memory and learning.

But do these benefits make up for the downside of caffeine?

Let’s take a closer look at the side effects of caffeine to see if there’s a good trade-off.

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Side Effects of Regular Caffeine Consumption

Caffeine raises the levels of the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine, making you feel more stressed out, irritable, and anxious. 

Caffeine can cause a racing heart and palpitations.

It can exacerbate symptoms of anxiety and panic attacks

And caffeine can definitely keep you up at night.

Coffee, in particular, can cause heartburn, indigestion, and GERD, and mess with your intestinal flora.

Caffeine impacts the activity of the most prevalent and important neurotransmitters, including serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and glutamate. 

By inhibiting the calming neurotransmitter GABA, caffeine leads to more anxiety and insomnia.

Caffeine floods the brain with unnaturally high levels of dopamine, fueling tendencies toward insomnia, an overactive libido, addictions, and other self-destructive behaviors. 

The latest research shows that caffeine is more addictive than previously thought. 

And being hooked means that if you are ever cut off from your source, you can expect to start experiencing caffeine withdrawal symptoms within 12-24 hours.

“Caffeine is the Trojan horse. It looks like a gift but instead delivers adrenal stress, low blood sugar, mood and energy swings, fatigue, depression, malnutrition, and disturbed sleep.”
— Stephen Cherniske, author of Caffeine Blues

Caffeine Can Make You Tired

One of the most surprising side effects of caffeine is that it can make you tired.

That’s because caffeine does not provide true energy and is not even a direct stimulant.

Caffeine works indirectly by binding to receptors in the brain for adenosine, a brain chemical that acts like a brake on brain activity.

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Adenosine helps you register that you are tired and need to rest.

When your system is flooded with caffeine, adenosine can no longer turn off your brain.

So, your brain on caffeine is like a car with no brakes and the accelerator pushed to the floor.

Caffeine creates a vicious cycle of temporary energy boosts with subsequent crashes, interrupted sleep, and a need for more caffeine.

Caffeine Does Not Mix Well With Many Medications

Caffeine should not be taken with dozens of prescription medications.

Drugs.com lists over 60 known interactions, including with common substances such as aspirin, melatonin, echinacea, and nicotine. 

Pharmacist Suzy Cohen, RPh, reveals some alarming interactions between caffeine and prescription drugs, especially those taken for mood disorders, in her bestselling book Drug Muggers: Which Medications Are Robbing Your Body of Essential Nutrients — and Natural Ways to Restore Them.

The combination of caffeine and antidepressants can cause panic attacks, tremors, and insomnia.

Related on Be Brain Fit —
The Effects of Caffeine on Depression

When consumed with ADHD drugs like Adderall and Ritalin, caffeine increases nervousness, irritability, insomnia, and heart rhythm abnormalities.

Caffeine undermines the effectiveness of anti-anxiety medications, sleeping pills, and lithium prescribed for bipolar disorder.

It’s advised that women avoid caffeine when pregnant or breastfeeding.

And few women are aware that they should not mix birth control pills with caffeine since they slow the breakdown of caffeine and magnify its side effects. 

How Much Caffeine Does It Take to Get Addicted?

How much caffeine do you need to consume to become addicted?

Not as much as you might think.

The average daily consumption of caffeine is 280 mg, but 100 mg per day is enough to lead to physical dependence and significant withdrawal symptoms.

A Johns Hopkins Medicine review of over 170 years of caffeine withdrawal research concluded that you can become addicted to caffeine from as little as one daily cup of coffee. 

For an accurate assessment of your daily caffeine consumption, you’ll find the caffeine content of hundreds of drinks and foods in this caffeine database at CaffeineInformer.com.

Caffeine Withdrawal Symptoms

The side effects experienced by those quitting a caffeine habit can vary wildly.

Some people experience only general malaise, while others feel like they’ve come down with a bad case of the flu.

The most commonly reported withdrawal symptom by far is headache, affecting half of those who quit caffeine.

You don’t need to quit cold turkey to get a headache.

Even a small decline in caffeine consumption is enough to trigger a caffeine withdrawal headache.

Using EEGs, researchers have found that caffeine abstinence alters brainwave activity and causes an increase in blood flow to the brain. 

It’s believed that these changes trigger withdrawal headaches.

Here are the most common side effects experienced during caffeine withdrawal: 

  • anxiety
  • brain fog
  • depression
  • fatigue and sleepiness
  • headache
  • hot and cold spells
  • impaired general cognition
  • impaired motor skills
  • irritability
  • mood disturbances
  • muscle aches and stiffness
  • nausea and/or vomiting
  • poor concentration
  • reduced motivation

As you might expect, those who consume the most caffeine generally experience the worst side effects. 

How Long Does Caffeine Withdrawal Last?

If you are in the midst of caffeine withdrawal or contemplating kicking the habit, you’ll certainly want to know how long caffeine withdrawal lasts.

There is no simple answer.

It depends largely on your body’s ability to metabolize caffeine.

This is determined by many factors, including your general health, age, weight, and gender, the medications you take, whether or not you smoke or drink, the health of your liver, the foods you eat, and even your genes

Scientists from Harvard School of Public Health have found a handful of genes that directly influence how the body metabolizes caffeine

The duration of caffeine withdrawal also depends on whether you quit abruptly or gradually.

Quitting gradually will extend the duration, but symptoms will be less severe.

Caffeine Withdrawal Timeline

Once you’ve had your last dose of caffeine, here’s a timeline of what you can expect to occur: 

  • Withdrawal symptoms normally start within 12 to 24 hours but can take up to 36 hours to kick in.
  • These symptoms usually peak between 20 and 51 hours.
  • The worst side effects are generally over within 2 to 9 days, although sometimes can last up to 12 days.

If you are seriously addicted, it can take several months to feel as good as new.

During this adjustment period, you might continue to experience brain fog and lethargy.

Fortunately, there are many things you can do to get through the process faster to feel more like your usual self sooner.

Should You Quit Cold Turkey or Gradually?

There are two schools of thought about the best way to beat a caffeine addiction — quit suddenly or quit gradually.

The key to deciding is knowing yourself and how you normally respond to these kinds of challenges.

From a neuroscientific perspective, taking small steps gives you time to actually rewire your brain to create new, healthier habits.

However, many people are excited by big goals, like quitting cold turkey.

Setting bold goals provides a nice boost of the neurotransmitter dopamine, known as the “motivation molecule.”

Johns Hopkins University researchers, who have studied caffeine withdrawal in depth, endorse a gradual approach to quitting caffeine to minimize withdrawal symptoms. 

Here’s a simple plan to quit drinking coffee gradually by swapping out 25% regular coffee with decaffeinated coffee each week for one month.

This plan can be adapted to any other caffeinated beverage that has a decaffeinated option as well.

A major advantage of this stepped plan is that you don’t need to make any behavioral changes to succeed.

And since there are many neuroprotective compounds in coffee besides caffeine, you can feel confident that your decaf coffee is still a brain-healthy drink. 

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Week 3: Drink 25% regular, 75% decaf.

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Easing the Symptoms of Caffeine Withdrawal

Whether you decide to quit immediately or gradually, here are a few things you can do to make your journey to being caffeine-free easier and ultimately more successful.

Supplements for Caffeine Withdrawal

There’s little scientific evidence that supplements can help with caffeine withdrawal, but here are some that are anecdotally reported to be helpful:

  • vitamin C and B complex
  • minerals calcium, magnesium, potassium, and zinc
  • amino acids tyrosine and DL-phenylalanine

A group of herbal remedies known as adaptogens may be useful for caffeine withdrawal.

Adaptogens mitigate the effects of stress while bringing the body into a state of balance — simultaneously calming and boosting energy without being overstimulating.

Some adaptogens to consider are ginseng, ginger, ashwagandha, Bacopa monnieri, and Rhodiola rosea.

All have been used for thousands of years and are well-established as effective and safe.

Essential Oils for Caffeine Withdrawal Headaches

Another natural way to treat caffeine withdrawal headaches is with essential oils.

You may think of essential oils as lightweight therapies, but inhaling these scents or rubbing them on your skin has been scientifically proven to relieve headaches.

Rosemary essential oil helps with the symptoms of opium withdrawal, so it seems possible that it could be helpful for caffeine withdrawal as well. 

Essential oils known to reduce headache pain include:

Pamper Yourself During Caffeine Withdrawal

While going through caffeine withdrawal, take extra good care of yourself.

Drink lots of pure water, eat well, and avoid stress as much as possible.

If you can swing it, take a few days off work to chill out.

(If you don’t, you may have to call in sick anyway.)

Nourish yourself mentally.

Spend time in nature, take long walks, get a massage, take hot baths, or meditate.

If you get tired, give yourself permission to take a nap.

Tell those who care about you what you are doing so that they will be understanding of your mood swings.

You might give tapping a try to relieve irritability and tension.

This simple technique is based on acupressure principles and may make it easier to get through caffeine withdrawal.

Switch to Green Tea

If you can’t face the idea of life without caffeine, switch to green tea instead of aiming for complete caffeine abstinence.

It has much less caffeine — 25 mg per cup compared to 100 mg per cup in an average cup of coffee.

But more importantly, green tea also contains naturally occurring relaxants that prevent caffeine jitters.

Two compounds found in green tea, EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) and l-theanine, alter brainwave patterns, helping to induce the same relaxed state as meditation. 

Unlike coffee and energy drinks which help you focus at the expense of feeling wired, green tea brings about a state of “calm attentiveness.”

Be Clear on Your Motivations for Quitting Caffeine

Lastly, you need to be very clear on what’s in it for you to be caffeine-free.

When caffeine withdrawal gets rough, you will undoubtedly question why you decided to quit in the first place.

If you aren’t clear on why you’re quitting, it will be very easy to throw in the towel.

For this reason, I suggest you write down your reasons for quitting caffeine.

You may want to quit because caffeine ruins your sleep, increases your stress, or makes you feel anxious.

Maybe you take one of the many medications that should not be mixed with caffeine.

Or perhaps you want to save all that coffee shop money for something more important.

Also, I urge you to write down how bad you feel when you are going through caffeine withdrawal.

(We all tend to forget these things!)

That might help you avoid a relapse so that you can quit for good.

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