The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
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Two weeks ago I, along with the rest of the family, was laid low by a thorough stomach flu. I couldn't keep down my coffee, so I went (or rather slept) without, and subsequently got a withdrawal headache on top of already not feeling very well. Now as is my habit, immediately vowed everlasting enmity to the traitor, coffee.
Problem is, now that I'm back at work, I find myself not quite over it. It was easy at home, where nobody aside from me partook! Everyone's drinking coffee at the office. All the time. Breaks are spend on a hajj to the cafeteria. Lunches in the office are concluded with communal coffee consumption. Everything smells of coffee, I now realize. The coffee is free, dammit! Gratis!
Please give me reasons to stick to my crusade against the cursed bean. Lend me moral support. God knows I need it in this darkest of hours.
I successfully reduced my coffee intake from 3-4 cups/day average to <2/week, for about 1.5 years so far. I’ve also gone totally decaf twice within that period (about 2 months each time) and found that after the 3-4 week mark I didn’t really miss it, so it’s possible you’ll see some change even if you’re through the initial withdrawal period.
Initially I cut back for similar reasons to you, but this led to me realizing that caffeine had been a trigger for these weird fleeting déjà vu episodes I’d experienced for years, which I now recognize as focal seizures — mild enough to not need actual treatment (you wouldn’t notice even if you were talking to me when it happened), but this has helped push caffeine from daily productivity tool to recreational drug I occasionally enjoy on weekends.
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Why contain it? Let it spill over into the schools and churches, let the headaches pile up in the streets. In the end, they'll beg us to brew more.
Try just getting less addicted this time. Maybe you drink 2 cups of coffee instead of 4, and maybe you drink one day on, one day off, like resistance training your caffeine sensitivity. Quitting is unthinkable. It tastes so good. What would your life be without coffee? Come on, all your friends are doing it.
It's bizarre that I recognised that quote without having to look it up, even though I've never gotten further than the first ~3 hours of Deus Ex.
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Nice DX reference!
What is a spendcel? Someone who copes by spending lots of money on crap? But you still seethe after applying the cope?
Thanks! A spendcel is someone who buys something he wanted and yet feels regret at having paid as much as he did, yet probably could not resisted the temptation of buying it. JC Denton was a seething spendcel when he was buying Jock all those beers, or when he was forced to give his only candy bar to some dumb kid.
Much overlap with poorcel, I assume.
Indeed. Spendcel is just something I came up with on a whim for this account name. I find names (and passwords!) are better just going full stream-of-consciousness.
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Yeah. I know. I now realize that coffee was pretty much the only reason I ever went to work. Without coffee, I really have nothing to look forward to.
Which just means I'm one step ahead of everyone else, in my view.
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Sorry, nothing useful to add. My pre-sunrise walk with a cup of coffee is pretty much the highlight of the day and everything goes wrong after that.
Tell me more about that walk.
I wake up at an absurdly early hour, get my cold brew, and walk around a park near my house. It's roughly a mile. I do this daily and year-round except in pouring rain. I sip coffee while looking at the stars and, if the moon isn't too bright, the milky way. I saw a vivid shooting star this morning. I usually don't see more than one other person, if that (the other early bird lunatic in my neighborhood). I have a flashlight so I can spot troublesome wildlife in the really dark spots (stupid skunks). Aside from some great horned owls hooting away, it is usually quite silent. I get to savor my coffee while being the only person in the world. No one is bothering me to do something, I don't need to make small talk, I don't have to carry or look at my phone, and I don't have to get anything done. It's the best part of my day.
[the second-best part is my lifting or running, which follows this walk. Everything is unpleasantly downhill after that.]
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Ad fucking hoc. Free fucking gratis.
Why don't you drink tea instead? Black tea has got around 1/4 of the caffeine compared to coffee. Herbal infusions and the like have no caffeine.
Based Deadwood enjoyer.
Anyways, no thanks. I'm not looking for a replacement. The whole point is blowing a big hole into my daily routine, telling addiction and habit right off, and not needing any of it!
Hmmm... I suppose you have to try to recruit a few others to your cause so that you're not alone in this? Maybe start a "hydro homie" club where only the finest h2o will be imbibed.
Also, I guess you can just try to regularly appreciate the fact you're not addicted or beholden to any thing.
Well, one less thing at any rate. Let's see how long that motivation lasts.
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Have you tried decaff? You can get some that are quite nice.
I'm philosophically opposed to things-that-aren't-what-they-seem. Decaf, de-alcohol beer, vegan replacement foodstuffs.
Also, I suspect that constantly drinking coffee-that-isn't-coffee would just weaken my resolve. Am I even sticking to it in the first place if I drink decaf? I think not!
I'm going to second tea. It's hot, and in a mug, but you can drink more for the same amount of caffeine.
I'm not looking for a replacement. Well, other than water anyways.
Also, the gratis coffee machine doesn't dispense tea. Only hot water. I'd have to bring my own tea bags! What a hassle!
Here's my pep talk one man to another: Just fucking stop drinking it. You're a German for heaven's sakes, since when is your willpower weak? Job done. Onward
Yeah. And as said, on my own that would've been it. But you know us Germans' one great weakness? Peer pressure. Or rather, our strong sense for communal, prosocial behavior and cultural conformity. Refusing to drink coffee in the office is strictly over my eccentricity budget. You can't imagine the looks I get for it.
I sympathize. Just trying what often works. Best of luck.
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