Adventures in Caffeine & Mental Health – Part 1: The Hidden Trap in Your Morning Cup

This week I’m sharing my personal adventures in caffeine experimentation – specifically less, and now currently, none. If you’re a professional man juggling family responsibilities while battling burnout, anxiety, or depression, my relationship with that daily cup (or four) might sound familiar.

Experiments with caffeine

I’ve been experimenting with caffeine this summer – specifically less, and now currently, none. At medical school we were taught (or this is the best I can remember) that caffeine is a stimulant drug, and is an ‘adenosine receptor blocker’, which basically means it keeps you awake and you are less likely to sleep. I’ve subsequently learned that this is really just scratching the surface.

What is interesting is that society encourages us to consume it, often alongside sugar. For me Cola as a kid, became cola as an adult, but what was an occasional treat became a daily habit. Eventually this shifted to coffee (my wife was worried about the sugar – I was very passive in my health in my 20s). This then gradually, over time seemed to be had in ever increasing amounts.

When a GP Becomes His Own Worst Patient

Studies about caffeine – coffee consumption in small amounts for better health seemed to fuel this. It was only during my first period of major burnout when I started to question the role of this drug on my body and mind. I did cut down, try some time off, but without self-awareness, this became meaningless & the amounts quickly ramped up again. This followed more burnout, and less, but not stopping consumption.

Then, more recently, as I’ve written about in my recent work on burnout, I became burned out again, and coffee consumption was up to 4 cups/day, drinking it late in the afternoon to ‘keep going’. None of these things I would advise on my Mind Compass, so why was I doing it to myself?

The Therapeutic List: My Honest Reckoning

I started to question what caffeine was actually doing for me, and how I’m using it. These are all true for me:

Pros:

An enjoyable way to start the morning
A social drink – enabling me to bond with close friends 1:1 more intently
A ‘high’ – the world seems much more vivid
Better at sports – more coordinated, energetic shortly after drinking it
A spiritual / enlightenment experience before doing some breathwork
A friendship with the owners of a local coffee house (Leicester Coffee House on Granby Street in Leicester – it is great!)
Learning about coffee production and its environmental effects
Being present with wonderful flavours, aromas, textures

Somewhere in the middle:

Social ‘fitting in’ – my peers drink coffee, it’s a normal thing to do
I avoid drinking ‘tea’ which I have an aversion to as it reminds me of my dad’s death

Cons:

Keeping going, trying to fight off feeling tired – for work, driving, trying to have energy for my family
It facilitates going deeper into burnout
It enables me to ignore my actual needs, as I can play the old game of ‘keep going’
It plays into people pleasing – doing more for everyone else, but not for me
Needing to go to the toilet at night (which stops when I’m not drinking coffee)
Sleep disruption – I sleep less well if I drink coffee
Addiction to it to function, perhaps to the ‘buzz’ of it (link to my recent addiction post)
Overlap with chronic stress states which exacerbate all the above
Side effects – morning headaches
Being incredibly paranoid if I stop using caffeine

The Revelation: When Writing Becomes Healing

A real mishmash of things! As I started to write that list, it felt like there were a lot of positives in there. I nearly convinced myself to go and have a cup just now! But spending more time with writing it allowed more honesty about the genuine effects for me. There’s a lot of complexity, and if I’m being honest, a fair bit of damage being done to myself.

I’ve not written that list before, but it actually feels quite therapeutic doing so. I get a sense of perspective on the problem that I haven’t had before. It’s interesting comparing the societal fitting in with the actual effect on me.

The Gentle Approach: “Just Taking a Break”

So, where am I now? This reminds me of my approach to alcohol that I suggest to people who just want to experiment. “I’m just taking a break” is a nice phrase you can use with yourself, with friends. It’s gentle, there’s no judgement, and it allows a space to explore and learn. And that is a good thing.

As a quick point, I’d not recommend going ‘cold turkey’ with caffeine specifically. It isn’t pleasant – paranoia, depression, headaches, sickness, emotional numbness are some of the effects for me, and these are quite common, but usually short lived. Gradually reducing down over some weeks would be preferable to minimise this.

The Science Behind the Struggle

Recent research confirms what I experienced personally. Higher levels of caffeine use disorder are associated with increased professional depersonalization, a key component of burnout syndrome. The very drug we use to maintain performance can undermine our emotional resilience.

Studies show that while moderate caffeine intake may reduce depressive symptoms, the relationship between caffeine consumption and mental health is intricate, with individual variations in metabolism, sensitivity, and genetic factors playing crucial roles.

Your Turn: Try This Therapeutic Exercise

Try exploring an element of your life which you think may be causing difficulty. Spend time with this, reflect on what it gives you, what it takes away. There doesn’t even need to be an ‘action’ from this (although you may wish to change things), the process of writing things down can be healing enough.

What’s Next?

Next week I’ll write more about the science of caffeine & what we know about how it affects mental health more generally.

If this resonates and you’d like support identifying the patterns that might be sabotaging your mental health recovery, I’m offering free 30-minute conversations.

Book your slot here

Thanks for reading

References:

Exploring the link between physicians’ caffeine use disorders with sleep quality and professional burnout: a cross-sectional study. BMC Health Services Research, 2024.
Longitudinal Effects of Lifetime Caffeine Consumption on Levels of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress: A Comprehensive Review. Current Nutrition Reports, 2025.
Coffee and mental disorders: How caffeine affects anxiety and depression. PubMed, 2024