The glorious energy boost I've gotten by abstaining from coffee

[EDITED] I recommend tea (black, green, oolong or white - i.e. white leaves, not with milk). As well as being rather lower in caffeine than coffee, tea includes L-theanine, which (a) increases the benefits of caffeine (viz. attention, accuracy, energy) and (b) counteracts jitters and headaches from caffeine.

Oolong tea usually has a bit more caffeine than the others, though green & white teas have a somewhat better ratio of L-theanine to caffeine. But caffeine and L-theanine contents are very variable anyway.

https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/research/#nutrient-nutrient-interactions_caffeine

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4787341/

I actually feel pretty confident that your former behavior of drinking coffee until 4 pm was a highly significant contributor to your low energy, because your sleep quality was getting chronically demolished every single night you did this. You probably created a cycle where you felt like you needed an afternoon coffee because you were tired from sleeping so badly … because of the previous afternoon coffee.

I suggest people in this position first do the experiment of cutting out all caffeine after noon, before taking the extra difficult step of cutting it out entirely.

To also report a null result: every now and then I try giving up caffeine, go maybe 1-4 weeks without it, and fail to notice much of a difference in anything. Then I go back to using it (around 100 - 400 mg per day), since it does make it somewhat nicer to wake up.

How long did it take to feel the difference?

I did this about 8 years ago and had some of these benefits--especially the superpower of afternoon power naps--along with one other very interesting one: I started having vivid, specific dreams and remembering them in the morning for longer. I ended up keeping a dream journal by my bed--I would half wake-up and scrawl a few key words, then go back to bed, then flesh them out in the morning immediately after waking and reviewing my notes. 

Then I had a two-week trial, and, well, yanno.

I'd like to present myself as a plus-plus result to this same phenomenon. I've became sensitized to coffee and had to drop it completely, because the results started becoming calamitous.
I have celiac disease, have some sort of intolerance to milk, even lactose free, and have strong hay fever in the late summer. An overreactive immune system, in short.

By sensitization I do not mean an exceptionally strong stimulant effect, but the sort of sensitization that develops upon repeated chronic exposure to a specific pollutant, often familiar to industrial workers. Some examples are the dust of many exotic woods, many harsh chemicals and other stuff.

When I consume coffee, I get the normal stimulating effects in about 20 minutes. Roughly an hour after imbibing the negatives start developing: 
- My energy levels crash, my joints, especially my in shoulders, knees and elbows start aching and lose flexibility. I get pulled into a hunched, tense posture. My feet sometimes get painful cramps
- I become distressed, panicky and lose the ability to lead effective trains of thought. 
- Work and other accidents happen at an alarming rate.
- Often I crash so hard I have to lie down to sleep, which usually lasts from the afternoon to the next morning, when I absolutely have to wake up for work.

Any kind of coffee causes these symptoms, from cheap instant nescafés through quality capsules to freshly ground roasted beans. I once got violent diarrhea and got knocked out for about 20 hours from an especially strong little cup of artisan coffee from a hipster coffee shop. My friends who drank the same had no ill effects.

I'm definitely not sensitized to caffeine. I can consume tea, chocolate, caffeine pills, even the "big bad" monster energy drinks without getting any symptoms. Too much caffeine definitely has it's negatives, but so does sugar, ever more so. For this reason I found sugar free energy drinks better instead of tea, which I drink only with sugar. 

It took a noticeably long time to convince myself to drop coffee completely, even once symptoms were obvious. I acquired a good taste for it, consumed it by the mugful for many years without problems and the symptoms developed very slowly over the years.
When I'm tired and my willpower is weak, I still rarely find myself acractically accepting a cup if offered and there are no alternatives. I have an addiction to stimulants, clearly.

Other people's disbelief of this reaction also made it much more difficult than it had to be. They act very sure of themselves, as if their beliefs are more applicable than my own direct somatic and mental experience.  Having in mind the Typical Mind Fallacy and the Dunning-Kruger effect helps protect against this, but I found a simple "No thanks", strictly without explanation, the wisest answer. 

This report ballooned out quite much, but I hope it will be beneficial to others who find themselves in the same boat.

TL;DR: It's rare, but one can insidiously slowly develop an inflammatory reaction to some other component in coffee other than caffeine. 

Aaaaaaarrrggh man I think I am supposed to give up or cut back coffee but I... like it and feel sad about not having it in my life. (I like it better than tea, or other sources of caffein or other drinks). I think the thing I like here is a particularly gritty taste.

I... suppose I am supposed to try decaf. I feel like in the past when I've tried that I didn't really like the taste. (Edit: I just bought myself some decaf coffee of a type I think I might like. I like it... less than regular. It's not the exact same brand I normally get so not sure if that's a brand problem or a decaf problem). But, I'll give it a try.

Thanks. :)

In January I went to the ER because I was having a lot of heart palpitations...still haven't found anything conclusive to determine the cause.  However, I had a visit with my primary care doctor and she told me to cut back on or preferably eliminate the caffeine I was drinking via hot tea.

I went from ~6 cups per day to <1 cup per day cold turkey.

It was a rough week, but now I have no desire for it and have a good amount more energy throughout my day.

(Palpitations have more or less disappeared, but I'm not sure if that's because of caffeine, the 11 pounds I've lost, and/or something else)

When you say you sleep 7-7.5 hours on weekdays, do you mean as measured by a wearable such as Oura or Apple Watch, or do you really mean time in bed? There can easily be one hour difference, even if you think you don’t have problems sleeping. 

I never got into coffee, and was unaware of this.

Reading the other comments*, maybe I should try to increase my energy by finding ways I can sleep better.

*Like this one:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Nf3HQgb7f7iEfC85D/the-glorious-energy-boost-i-ve-gotten-by-abstaining-from?commentId=DqekkHoB3RWvkFGCr [LW(p) · GW(p)]

I have pretty bad energy-level problems and have been looking for more things to try to fix them. I’d always thought quitting caffeine would make it so I could attain my current energy levels without caffeine; it never occurred to me that energy levels after quitting could be higher. So this is very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Every 6 months or so I do 2 to 3 weeks without caffeine the first several days are always terrible, but after that I return to my baseline pretty quickly.

Mrntally I don't feel much a difference whether I'm drinking coffee or not. Lifting is much tougher without energy drinks or pre-workout. Running is a little bit harder for the first half mile or so.

Overall it isn't too much a change for me. I guess it's relevant that I'm young and didn't start drinking caffeine until 3 or 4 years ago.

Been off caffeine for 5 months now, my resting bpm decreased roughly 6.5~ bpm, but also surprised at how much overall energy I have. If I do end up going back to caffeine I would probably monitor my heart's resting bpm and see if there is a big difference between tea & coffee for consumption ( l-theanine being responsible I imagine). As much as I do enjoy the taste the removal  of caffeine from my diet has shown me maybe we should take a step back and see if we are really gaining overall energy from daily consumption of caffeine (suspect weekly would be more efficient).