This is What Happens to Your Body When You Quit Coffee For a Week!

We had the pleasure to conduct this expirement with the wonderful @megeatsworld (Instagram). She decided to stop drinking coffee for a week and replace it with matcha. Read below to understand why she decided to do this one week trial, and the effects it had on her body. 

Have you ever gave up coffee for a week? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Also, be sure to check out @megeatsworld and follow her for more health related inspiration. 


Megan's Expierence Quitting Coffee for a Week and Replacing it with Matcha! 

I love reading health and nutrition related articles and studies. I can get lost in them for hours. I'll find one which will spark a question, so I'll find another, and so on until (too much) time has gone by. Something that I had been looking into for a while was the negative effects of coffee on anxiety. Don't get me wrong- I love coffee! I love the smell, the warmth, the flavor that's reminiscent of dark chocolate... everything about it really. That being said, as someone who struggles with anxiety, I was willing to give up coffee as a week long experiment to see what would happen.

Coffee and matcha are the only caffeinated drinks I consume regularly, and although they both have caffeine, they are very different drinks. The caffeine in matcha is paired with L-theanine, which is an amino acid that promotes calmness in the body. Theanine sort of balances out the caffeine in matcha by reducing jitters and cloud-brain, and is sometimes even used as a natural remedy for treatment of anxiety. I was sold, and ready to try for myself.

Here's what happened to me during my experiment:

1. I got caffeine headaches. I'm not going to lie. The first few days were pretty rough. I only drink one cup of coffee each morning, but since matcha has considerably less caffeine than coffee, my body felt it. I drank tons of water and pushed through though, because I was determined to make it through the week.

2. I had no jitters. The rapid heartbeat and jittery fingers that normally accompany my morning cup of coffee were nonexistent.

3. I felt calm and focused. I noticed that I was able to focus better in my classes, and my brain didn't feel like it had a cloud of fog over it.

4. I didn't miss the taste or ritual of coffee. Matcha in itself provides its own ritual in making it, so I didn't miss the process of sticking a k-cup in the machine and listening to it brew. Instead I enjoyed heating water to steaming and blending in my matcha powder as a new ritual (I know I don't do it the traditional way- sorry!).

5. I didn't feel anxious. I know this is a big claim to make. I am a skeptic, so I'm thinking maybe the fact that I dealt with no anxiety during my week had to be a coincidence, or the placebo effect. It's true though. I felt calm and at peace throughout the week. I slept better. I could relax. I'm not saying that all of this was due to one food- because I don't think that one food can heal all (as I said, I'm a skeptic) but I can't deny what happened when I replaced coffee with matcha. This is enough alone to make me want to stick to my morning matcha ritual over coffee. 

Cover Image Credits: @megeatsworld Instagram Page