I think I’m addicted to caffeine

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I started drinking one of those tallboy cans of Mountain Dew Amp energy drinks in the morning to keep we awake throughout school recently. After about a week or so, I started drinking another one right before work so I stop having those so-called crashes at work. Now if I try going back to drinking one energy drink in a day, I get these horrible caffeine headaches. Anyone have any advice?

Well, it will help some if you switch to a sugar free one. It seems to be the sugar that makes you crash hard, or at least on me that's how it is. The sugar free ones just kind of fade away.
Also, maybe try subbing a the afternoon one with a regular mountain dew, or even coffee or something? Less caffine, but should still help you get through.

If you just want to back off completely, try just drinking lesser caffinated products until you wean yourself off.

sry cant really help you im up to anywhere from 8-20 cans aday my self best i could say would be to just slowly wheen yourself off 1 can aday

Energy drinks suck. I have a feeling that those have more of a placebo effect, etc.... and if they don't they will be one of those things that everyone finds out are bad for you in a cigarette way. Ever see those old ads for cigarettes? "Aids Digestion!" Improves your lungs!"
I see the same thing happening with energy drinks.

Do yourself a favor: drop that energy drink bull-s, and opt for proper nutrition and exercise.
I eat a citrus and take 2 excedrin and that keeps me feeling better than a nasty full throttle ever will.


Side note: My brothe used to drink 5 full throttles a day, maybe he still does, but dude had close to pass 20 or more kidney stones.

The headache is a caffeine withdrawal, I would get them on weekends when I wouldn't have any coffee.
Sugar has nothing with your headache, but if you are having this reaction try cutting back on the caffeine.

A workaholic I gather. Sounds like you developed a dependency. Crashes at work? High sugar diet?

Don't forget the value of sleep in learning and productivity.

Stay away from the sugar because it's almost like getting high.

Your sugar levels will raise real high and then drop dramatically. You want keep your sugar intake even....if that makes since.

I see nothing wrong with staying on coffee but black tea is better for you as it has low cortizone levels.

Slowly taper off the amount you are drinking of these things, and get more sleep at night. They're not good for you.

Thanks for all of the advice. I know they aren’t good for my health that is why I’m trying to cut back and eventually stop altogether. Part of the reason I got hooked in the first place is because I have some insomnia problems and am always somewhat tired. But I think coffee would be a better option once I am able to stop drinking the energy drinks.

I am hooked on Red bull for my bad migraines, and need to cut back on my intake,
because I also take tylenol migraine which contains 60mg of caffeine per tablet.

I concur with most of the other posters. Sugar is the downer.

I love how pro-caffeine the WP community is. (Seriously!) In another thread, we discuss how caffeine seems to mellow us out.

I just drink iced tea (unsweet) and lots of coffee - with a little raw sugar and a lot of half-and-half.

If I were to stop I'd get headaches for about a week - however, I have no reason right now to quit.

Another bit o'advice - watch the sugar-free drinks. The imitation sweeteners (aspartame, splenda, etc...) can have side-effects even worse than sugar. They can make some people a little crazy - myself included. I get this weird ringing in my ears and this yucky quasi-headache thing and I get really edgy. At that point, I'd rather do sugar.(There are some more long-term side-effects, supposedly, but I haven't consumed enough to find out.)

But everyone's different and I'm sure someone here will chime in and correct me and say that artificial sweeteners are safe and its a myth they cause bad side-effects.

No, I agree about the Aspartame, it's sends my son loco. And a friend of mine did some crazy liquid only diet, and got aspartame poisoning...I did a little bit of reseaarch on aspartame (no, none of the crazy websites, a boring toxicology book) and one of it's metabolic products can be methanol (ie same as poteen, moonshine etc), so maybe in ASDs we process more of it this way? (I'll not bother with more science on this, I get bored of myself preaching)

personally, i don't like sweet things that much, so for me the only drink is coffee with skim milk, and probably litres of it per day...

Aspartame is horrible stuff. The only time I had Coke Zero I had really bad stomach cramps. I don't touch the stuff anymore, in fact I don't have any soft drinks, apart from an occasional lemonade, but that to can make me ill.

I like having one coffee in the morning. It actually makes me a more productive person.

If insomnia is the real problem, address it directly.
Caffeine and sugar only address the symptoms of lack of sleep.
If you said one can of soda or cup of coffee was all you needed, fine. Then its working as a self medication, but the fact that you've grown to need more and more tells us its not serving its purpose.

If you're on medication, ask your dr. if the meds might be inspiring your inability to sleep. Perhaps the Rx can be adjusted or changed.


If you're not on meds., a common cause of insomnia these days is mental exhaustion with out being equally matched with physical exhaustion.
A simple remedy for that is fresh air exercise two or three hours before your normal bed time. It might be something as simple as an evening stroll.

Just before you go to bed you might try deep abdominal breathing with the exhales longer than the inhales to encourage your parasympathetic nervous system to kick in.

It never hurts to consult an MD if you're having sleep problems.

I worked real hard a couple of summers ago ... physical labour in hot weather ... took to drinking about 20 cans of coca cola a day for the fluid intake. After about a week I got really sick ... headaches, stomach cramps, couldn't sleep in spite of being exhausted, shaky, hot and cold shivers. Saw a doc and was diagnosed with caffeine poisoning, switched to drinking water and was back to normal after a few days.

Not a good idea to take in too much caffeine. Aviod letting it poison you at all costs, it's not pleasant. Take the advice of other posters and get onto a healthy diet/exercise/rest regime.

I concur with many suggestions. I get bad eye twitching with too much caffeine. For what it's worth, here's some ideas.
1) Go to natural sources. Black and green teas and coffee are most common, but there are others too.
2) Avoid "commercialized" caffeine such as energy drinks.
3) Avoid caffeine after 5-6 pm if sleeping within 6-7 hours.
4) Excercise. It increases endorphins, which are the bodies natural caffeine substitute. Try some pushups before bedtime to help you sleep. The shoulders, neck and jaw are where we hold most stress, so pushups are perfect. It has worked amazingly well for me.
5) Trick your taste buds. Find the same taste in something without the caffeine. If coffee for example, brew decaf sometimes (decaf still has some caffeine). If espresso, get a two shot beverage as a "split" shot, one shot with and one without caffeine.
6) When caffeine headaches start, be absolutely sure you have drank enough water and aren't dehydrated. Then have a natural caffeine source in smaller amounts, gradually (drink the beverage over an hour or longer, not in 5 minutes). Don't overshoot trying to rid the headache quickly.

Natural caffeine sources and excercise have held me for quite a while now. Hope this helps. Good luck!