The Word of Wisdom Part 1: Giving Up Coffee

I love coffe. I love love love love coffee. I love the smell, the taste, the color, and the feeling of coffee. I love it black, I love it iced, I love it frozen, I love it filled with sweeteners and creams. Most of my friends can attest to this love I have. I would perk up like a dog when he hears his kibble being poured whenever anyone would even mention the word "coffee".

I used to drink 3-5 cups a coffee a day when I was in college. I had to give that up however when I started suffering from crazy heart spasms, induced by stress and anxiety. Coffee just made my stress and anxiety worse!

When I got pregnant, I resumed drinking coffee. One cup per day! I had to stop taking my medicine for my chronic migraines (an ailment I had suffered from since puberty; I will discuss these more at a further date), and coffee was the only other thing that did the trick. I, of course, had no complaints about it.

When I started going back to church, I made the decision to give up coffee. Why, you ask? You love it so much! And it's so delicious. What does church have to do with coffee?

Well, you see, I'm a Mormon. I had never understood why Mormons weren't supposed to drink coffee. So when I stopped going/believing, I picked up the habit. I would make all sorts of excuses, telling my friends how great I felt, how I needed it for my health, how it's actually good for you. Most of them would just laugh and say, "Ok Ashton. Do whatever you want."

When I made the decision to give it up for my religion, I still didn't understand why I was doing this. All I know is that I had been asked to. That had never been a good enough reason for me before, but this time I concluded that I didn't need to know the reason. I believed that this is what Heavenly Father wanted me to do, and I would do it for no one else but Him.

Giving up coffee may not seem like such a big deal to some of you. I mean, the pioneers gave up everything for the church. I can give up coffee, right?

It was sooooo hard!!!!!!

The first month was the hardest. I would walk into my kitchen everyday and see my coffee machine, just staring at me....waiting...begging me to fill it up....Finally I just had to put it in a cupboard and hide all of my coffee. I began replacing my morning drink with hot chocolate (yum!). I was also grumpy, and very sleepy. I actually began to take naps, something I had avoided doing since Kai was born. I felt lame and unproductive.

Then something strange began to happen...so gradually I didn't even notice.

I began to feel happier about life. I began to have more energy. I began to sleep better. I was more willing to go out and do things, because of this energy and happiness. I also didn't have to go pee every hour.

Then I stumbled across this article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2012/08/21/caffeine-the-silent-killer-of-emotional-intelligence/

Basically, it goes into why caffeine is an emotional killer. Read the article if you want details. But this article seemed to be written specifically for me. I'm a very emotional person, due to my bipolar. I try to avoid anything that messes with that, since it's already difficult to balance. After reading this, I was convinced I had made the right choice.

I know a lot of people who say that Mormons are weird because they don't drink coffee. That's fine if you think that. I think it's weird that you have such a problem with us not drinking coffee for religious reasons. I mean, it's coffee. It's not food or water.

Anyway, I'm not saying everyone has to give up coffee if you don't want to. I'm just sharing my experience with this. I've had a few more experience I'm going to share throughout this blog about how following The Word of Wisdom (ask the missionaries if you don't know what this is, or go to www.lds.org) has changed my life in ways I didn't know it could.

Now I'm off to drink a nice cup of hot chocolate!