My week

Caffeine.

As I've gotten older, I've begun to realize how fine-tuned the human body is. I think as you get older, your natural error-correction mechanisms are not as good, but folks of any age are a lot more susceptible to having their systems get out of whack than they realize.

Weight, sugar intake, caffeine intake, quality of sleep, alcohol consumption, exercise, and supplements all have dramatic impacts on brain function and mood. Everybody knows that if you drink too much alcohol you feel worse the next day, but few are really aware of the impact that shorting yourself on sleep has.

And the problem is subtle and pernicious. Using the sleep example, people working at 80% capacity are often not aware that this is the case. The brain "adjusts" so that you always seem normal to yourself. Over time, your mood and cognitive ability can drift significantly and while others around you may (or may not) note the change, I can guarantee you that you will not.

Realizing this was a revelation I had sometime in my early 30s. Wow! Who knew that something as simple as rapid blood sugar changes can have such a severe impact on things like obesity? So I set out to control or limit these things, which led me to an even more disturbing conclusion: it's all inter-related. Yeah, it'd be cool if it were one thing, but it's five or six, and they all impact each other.

Didn't get enough sleep last night? You're more likely to eat a sugary food in the morning -- your body knows that sugar makes it run. Or, fighting that, have a cup of coffee. Drink coffee three or four days in a row? You're more likely to continue. Caffeine is habit-forming, even somewhat physically addictive.

What do a lot of people do that work too hard, drink too much caffeine, and eat too much sugar do? They want to relax, and alcohol provides instant relaxation. Next day you are more tired than normal. So it's a cup of coffee and a doughnut. The cycle continues.

My problem is that I don't like being "good" all of the time. I can get it all in balance, but then I miss pizza, and beer, and I absolutely love a good white tea. These substances begin cycles, however, cycles that lead to more pizza, beer, and tea. The thing feeds on itself.

I usually don't have too much problem switching from "good" to "bad", but last year I couldn't make the jump, which was disturbing. Much later I found out why -- I wasn't breathing at night. No good sleep -> start the cycle again.

So now that I have that fixed it's time to start debugging the system. I am quitting caffeine. At least this week. Hopefully for a long time. And after a couple of years of very heavy caffeine usage, quitting caffeine has not been much fun at all. Headaches every day, sometimes debilitating. Grumpy. Hard to clear my head.

Not fun.

But it's not all bad news. The headaches are getting better, and -- if I stay off caffeine -- sometime next week I'll start restricting bad carbs. That should lead to another week of feeling like I was attacked by vampires, but that should be the worst of it. The problem may be difficult, but it is defined. I've learned the order to unravel my own particular system.

It's just interesting to note how complex the human body can get without adding any prescription medication. It's no wonder that folks on prescriptions can end up in poor health and deteriorating. Who really knows the side-effects and how all the edge cases can interact? It's impossible. I cannot imagine the impact of adding another 4 or 5 variables would have to my own situation. It'd be like playing Russian Roulette.

But for now, I have my Nerds on a Rope, and life is getting better. Heck of an unexpected thing to go through, though.