I hope you don't mind a long post but it might provide a bit of information for someone.
I certainly agree with the points about coffee.
10 years ago I was on an international trip having to visit a number of countries in a short space of time..so, quite tired. I was required to do presetations to 20-30 people in most locations. Not a problem and never had been..I actually enjoy it.
Anyway, I don't drink coffee as a rule and if I do, it's very occassionaly and decaf with more milk than coffee..you get the drift. On this occassion, I was in Japan. It was summer and for the first time I tried an Ice Coffee for lunch. Twenty minutes later, I started the presentation and within seconds, I started feeling anxious, heart pounding, sweaty and so on. I Somehow, I struggled on but from that second was convinced I had something wrong with me. I had a miserable night thinking thoughts I'd never had before and feeling like I was plummetting downwards. The next morning I felt so scared I went to a local hospital. I was sitting on the chair shaking with my heart pounding, lips dry. The doctor checked me over, gave me a tablet and called in some students to look at me. He translated that he wanted them to see someone who was having an anxiety attack and how the mind could affect the body so radically. He also wanted to show them how quickly reassurance and diazapam would work. Within ten minutes I was calm but shaken that this had happened to me.
This episode opened a Pandoras Box for me. The experience showed me that my brain was able to instruct my body to realease some tremendously powerful chemicals,(particularly adrenalin)at the wrong time that would affect the way I act and think about myself. I had a number of further anxiety attacks that year (nothing to do with coffee) because, of course, having experienced one, the thoughts that trigger the attack more find it easier work second time round. However, with help, I learnt how to deal with them until finaly, I managed to get the lid back on the box and shove it away in a dark place.
The feelings and symptoms are probably in all of us because of our fear/flight
response but some are lucky never to trigger their innappropriate release.
I am convinced that the very strong black coffee I drunk that day caused an effect which went on to realease these symptoms in me. Needless to say, I'm now a tea or water man......
