Day 21: Caffeine Blues
Thursday, May 16, 2013
6:20 am
Book Report on “Caffeine Blues”: Wake up to the Hidden Dangers of America’s #1 Drug.
Video Summary:
Still in the withdrawal period, body doing strange things. Felt like I got a good deep sleep, but still feel a bit off.
Overall I feel pretty good, I think.
In the last video I misspoke. “Caffeine Blues” is not #1 on Amazon, it’s #1 in the caffeine section (#92,000 overall in books), “Caffeine Advantage” is #84 in caffeine section (#2,000,000 overall in books). Horror stories are definitely the more popular genre. But the caffeine market itself continues to expand. What people are reading — and what is happening in the market — are completely separate things.
Excerpt about how caffeine is the perfect addictive product to market and sell:
“If all you wanted to do was make money, how would you design the perfect product? Well, it would be incredibly cheap to make, and the market would be enormous: basically every man, woman, and child. It would be consumable, something people would buy every day. But to be the perfect product, it would have to be addictive. People would crave the product for its effect but, more importantly, they would suffer if they did not buy it. Importantly, this addiction would be firmly established by age seven or eight for maximum lifelong consumption… the explosion in the caffeine industry is unparalleled in the history of commerce. It has to do with the fact that caffeine is addictive, unregulated, and cheap.”
Trying to quit caffeine results in a long, unpleasant, and persistent withdrawal period that is easy to “fix”. You need a lot of willpower to beat it.
Books and videos may have no effect, since withdrawal is so unpleasant, and there is an easy way to end the suffering by drinking readily available caffeine products.
Sleazy marketing by cola companies: bigger drinks, marketing kickbacks to educational institutions.
Thinking about starting a new morning ritual of drinking herbal teas.
Comparing “Off the Bean” program to “T minus 30” program. There may be an advantage in trying to quit caffeine in the present days of energy shots and energy drinks vs. the old days of hot caffeinated beverages coffee, tea and colas: It’s harder to structure a gradual withdrawal method with coffee or tea or colas, from the point of view of convenience, accuracy and taste.