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I have commented once or twice before about my coffee-drinking habits.  They began early in my life and have continued since, including while I was working in a campus coffee shop at my undergraduate school and through my graduate work.  Indeed, I would not have been able to complete my dissertation as I did without the black brew; most of the third chapter was composed in a caffeine-fueled haze of frenetic productivity.  Similar phenomena have marked much of my academic career; I have often ramped up my caffeine intake in the hopes of speeding myself along to success in the classroom and in the outside work that supports it.  While I have not perhaps been as successful as I should like, I have not failed as badly as I have feared to do.

But there is a cost to the method.  Caffeine is a stimulant, an artificial means to accelerate body and mind, and its effects only last a short while.  When they wear off, many people are left with less than they had before taking it in of vitality and energy; they crash at the end of the ride.  For many years, I was able to stave off the crash by taking in more caffeine, having another cup of coffee (and another, and another...), each one boosting me less until I came to a cup that did not matter; I drank it and went to sleep.  But with the resilience of youth, I woke up the next morning in fine form, ready to start the day again...and to resume my coffee drinking in earnest.  I knew myself to be addicted, and I still know myself to be, but I know also that I cannot maintain quite the pace of consumption that I used to even if I still feel the need for it to make my way in the academic world.

I still drink coffee on working days, about a pot of the stuff from home and one or two cups at the office during the day.  On my days off, however, I have been switching more to tea (I drink Darjeeling by preference).  I am still able to feel the influx of caffeine into my body when I drink it, staving off the ponding headaches that would come from its lack (I noted my addiction), but I do not suffer the...drawbacks of the caffeine rush quite so badly, if at all.  Perhaps it is because hot tea must be drunk more slowly than I quaff my coffee.  Perhaps it is because the production cycle is a bit slower, as well.  And perhaps it is the case that the other components of the tea that are much touted--soothing chemicals that emerge from the leaves when brewed--work upon me, keeping my heart from racing although it quickens, preventing my body from burning through its ready resources in short order while still sharpening the mind.

It seems to be helping matters somewhat.  I am feeling better on my (few, and growing fewer) days off than had been the case before, so I will keep doing what I am doing for a while.