I sometimes get really emotional when I consciously think about the fact that caffeine is now working for me and is helping me deal with depression instead of causing it like it was before. I was literally about to quit this substance forever but here is my advice for anyone thinking about going down that road.
Firstly, if you think it might be causing you problems there’s no harm in quitting temporarily, you can always go back if your issues aren’t solved.
Secondly, if caffeine suddenly starts causing you issues like anxiety or depression at reasonable doses, something has obviously changed and it may very well be a nutritional deficiency or hormone imbalance.
For me, I strongly suspect it was a vitamin and protein deficiency because when I increased my protein and vegetable intake, I would always get very positive effects from caffeine and after a few weeks of eating these healthy foods consistently, I didn’t get anxiety even from huge doses of caffeine.
I noticed that when not on caffeine, I not only feel really sluggish, but somehow a lot more susceptible to depressive feelings and have no optimism despite being much calmer. now, when I consume caffeine in the morning and it affects begin to hit, that background negative mood lift suddenly and I seem to have a lot more optimism about the future. strangely, nicotine which I found much more euphoria and rewarding doesn’t seem to have that special effect which caffeine does. I can’t believe I’m saying that because I love nicotine much more as a recreational drug as well as a functional one. however, although I find nicotine good for getting tasks done later in the day I have a really bad reaction to it in the morning and I don’t know why. furthermore, I realise that nicotine, Even at moderately high amounts does not energise the physical body and produce pleasant alertness in the same way that caffeine does. from my experience of quitting caffeine and replacing it with nicotine for A whole month during ramadan, I learned a valuable lesson. this is that rewarding/dopaminergic properties of a drug might not always be the main determinant of why we like certain drugs. yes, in most cases it probably is yet in others, the main factor could be that a given drug could have a useful functional property such as promoting wakefulness and providing energy in the case of caffeine, or suppressing anxiety in the case of benzodiazepines or tricyclic acid depressants.