Caffeine, Coffee addiction

[Rowley]

Do you need that cup of coffee in the morning? Do you feel almost sickly on those days you haven't had your morning cup of joe?

Reuters.co.uk has an article I just read regarding caffeine addiction. It sheds some new, interesting insight on how I feel about getting a cup of coffee.

It isn't going to get me to stop drinking coffee though!

 

[manual_drip]

There are only four days in my recent memory when I haven't had any coffee - three days on a backpacking trip in May and a day hike in August. I didn't feel bad those days, however most days I do feel bored and not awake yet until I have my coffee. Once I took close to a gram of caffeine pills a day for a while, and did feel some mild withdrawal(malaise, headache) when I reduced how much I took. I'm sure it would be worse if I took that much for a long time, but I can't imagine doing that since the side effects become annoying.

Average daily intake in the United States is about 280 milligrams, found in one to two mugs of coffee or three to five cans of soft drink.

Before I've heard 200mg in the U.S. - I wonder which is more accurate.

In some countries (U.K. and northern Europe) I've heard the average is 500mg.