Coffee - the love child of the Western world as we know it. For many people, coffee is what starts their day and the brown, stimulating liquid is what keeps many busy 1st world, fashionable go-getters on their toes to catch the latest news and the next meeting.

But some people notice that their bitter, brown friend comes with a side effect. The jitters, the nervousness, the heart pounding and inability to relax at night. Would a real friend really do this to me, they might ask.

Commonly known, coffee contains caffeine, around 95 mg per serving. Caffeine is what gives the feeling of wakefulness and a boost of energy. Sounds all good right, except this boost of energy comes at a cost.

What really makes you feel awake is the shoot of adrenaline and cortisol which the caffeine stimulates your adrenals to secrete. This enables the flight or flight response in your body and the reptilian brain, making you set for a day in the concrete jungle to fight for your corporate life. What coffee really does is borrow the energy of tomorrow so you can have it today. Keep doing this and you will get in debt and this debt is known as addiction and adrenal fatigue.

Coffee is probably also the most legalized and widespread drug. If you have a look at the chart below, you will see that some psychedelic drugs are LESS addictive and LESS dangerous than coffee!

In addition, studies have shown that coffee:

• Raises homocysteine levels – a major risk factor for heart disease (15).

• Raises blood pressure (16).

• Raises cholesterol (17).

• Is associated with heart irregularities (18).

• Increases inflammation (19).

• Damages the nervous system (20).

• Interferes with neurotransmitters in the brain (21).

• Alters DNA repair (22).

• Increases risk of kidney stones (23).

• Lowers bone density (24).

• Interferes with sleep (25).

• Is linked to erectile dysfunction (26)

• Increases gastric reflux and heartburn (27).

Why the coffee craze then?

When people are addicted to coffee, it shows a few things:

1. They are trying to make up for something else they lack in their diet/nutrition regime, which is supposed to give them energy. This could be a lack of water and/or a lack of proper calories and nutrition.

2. They are under-slept (doh)

3. They are dieting and forcing their body to run on reserves and adrenaline

4. They are simply addicted to the caffeine by now and need that daily rush

Caffeine is a highly toxic stimulant that affects us not only physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. It is very addictive. Caffeine us used to give us an exciting feeling, a rush of energy, and this fake rush disturbs the natural order of life and our biological being. Like it steals physical energy from our adrenals, it also disturbs our mind balance with an overactive and fake masculine quality that makes it more difficult to still the mind.

Coffee addiction is a spiritual problem

"According to Ayurvedic medicine, it is recognized that coffee has an effect on the quality of mind, stimulating it into a “rajasic”, or overly active, state. This goes against the volumes of teachings that expound on the health benefits of stilling the mind, as in meditation." Source

As Conscious Creators, we need to be in control of our own mind and be able to connect with our higher self. What coffee does, is basically enable our fight or flight response, our primitive DNA, which puts play on self-centeredness, survival issues, stress and physical needs. This turns down our ability to feel compassion, see the bigger picture and live from a frame of faith rather than fear.

In order to activate our Angelic DNA, we must eliminate caffeine. Caffeine in any shape or form, is counterproductive, as it activates the primitive DNA.

You may still live a normal life, feel connected with your spirituality etc., but you are putting a limit to how deep you can go if you consume caffeine regularly, as you are continuously activating your primal DNA and putting your central nervous system in a state of stress.

I suggest you give this a test by eliminating all forms of caffeine from your life for at least 2 months. If you have been heavy on caffeine, you need to give your body some time to rehab and detox before you can expect to feel the benefits of a caffeine free life. Try the methods below to dig to the real cause of your addiction and why you are hooked

5 Coffee Alternatives

Hydration

Water. Believe it or not, the first coffee alternative is water. I bet you would have liked to hear about all the fancy powders and superfoods I was going to tell you about, but not in this post.

Dehydration is one of the major causes of tiredness and lack of energy and according to Dr. Batmanghelidj, dehydration is one of the biggest causes of all major chronic diseases, and people do not even know they are thirsty!

Water plays a crucial role in the ATP process of converting food into energy, so if we lack water, we lack the ability to properly process the food we eat, the air we breathe etc. and convert it into the readily available energy that our cells need. This causes a feeling of tiredness and what do most people grab when they are tired but don't have the option to sleep? Caffeine! What does the caffeine do? Dehydrate you even more!

That's why you want to make sure first and foremost that you are HYDRATED. It has been estimated that around 95% of all people on this planet suffer from chronic dehydration for many different reasons.

I suggest that you drink at least 3 L of pure, distilled water every day and water should be the first thing you consume in the morning, not coffee. Aim to have at least 1 L of water in the morning, preferably with some added lemon juice to up the hydration factor (fruits contain even purer water which helps hydrate our cells more efficiently). It is then also recommended that your breakfast consists of something hydrating, the very best thing is to have celery juice followed by a big fruit meal. Fruits, vegetables and greens contain bioactive water which reaches our cells a lot more efficiently than the pure water we drink.

Sleep

Well, doesn't that explain itself. Coffee and energy drinks are known as the go-to remedy when working a hard schedule or busy life. In the modern world, it is estimated that around 1/3 of all people in the Western world don't get enough sleep. On top of this, a survey of almost 1 million people from all over the major continents, showed that the average bedtime is between 12-1AM.

Our sleep is divided into 90-minute cycles of heavy and light sleep, from non-REM to REM sleep. It has been shown that due to our circadian rhythm and the production and secretion of various hormones, the most restful sleep is between 10 PM- 2 AM. So if you want more for your bucks, by sleeping earlier, you get better quality sleep and your body is allowed to heal and cleanse more efficiently. Therefore, it can be an issue that the average sleeping time is between 12-1 AM, as you are missing out on the major part of the healing sleep. You may still sleep 7 hours, but it is not the same 7 hours as if you went to sleep at 11 PM. And obviously, anyone with obligations, will have less time to sleep as they usually have a life to attend to the next morning.

You may "gain" some extra time in your day, but it is at a cost of your health, well-being and efficiency.

Carbohydrates

Wait what? But wont carbs make me fat?

Before I even start on this one, please educate yourself by watching this video, which covers over 8 studies which all show that it is very difficult for the body to convert excess carbohydrate calories to fat. It will rather get burned as heat, stored as glucose or even peed out!

Let's get to the point. Your body runs on glucose. All of your cells and your brain run mainly on glucose. That is the preferred fuel source of the body and that is what will give us optimal energy. We are frugivores by Nature, so we are designed to eat foods high in natural occurring sugars, fiber, vitamins and minerals.

When you deprive your body of its number one preferred fuel source, you are going to run into energy problems. Just like you cannot expect a car with a low gasoline supply to keep going and going, you cannot expect your body to either. More so, if you feed your body incorrectly, say high fat and high protein, you are filling your body with crap and toxins that it has to store, eliminate and cleanse out in some form or another and this will all take from your body system.

Calorie or carb restricting, eating high fat and/or high protein or generally eating a lot of processed food, will steal your energy. This can lead to dependency on stimulants such as coffee to keep your energy levels unnaturally high. If you see someone with a caffeine addiction, or if you have one yourself, know that this is an indication of something out of balance in your diet/lifestyle.

In order to eliminate this, I suggest adopting a high carbohydrate living foods diet as explained in "How to Communicate with the Angels". You can see an example of it here.

Meditation

If you are doing all of the above, but you still feel like your energy is not stable or that you feel addicted to your caffeine, you may look beyond the physical for an answer. Your addiction could be caused by an imbalance of masculine and feminine energies, yin and yang, which can lead to energy leaking. Most people think that physical addictions and/or symptoms have to be dealt with only on the physical plane, but the truth is that everything starts on an energetic level. In order to solve a coffee addiction, you may have to look at deeper issues and heal the energy leak, which pranayama techniques can help you with.

The heart crown chakra breathing outlined in "How to Communicate with the Angels" helps restore the proper function of the energetic channels. This is the kind of meditation I use daily. There are also other meditation techniques such as outlined here, which have been used specifically for curbing the coffee addiction.

Without much explanation needed, of course meditation also helps reduce and eliminate the basic reaction to stress. Once you get into a cycle of addiction, you have activated the primal DNA and it can be difficult to fully relax as you are now on autopilot from the fight or flight mode. This is what can lead to the need for increasing amounts of stimulants, even when you have the intention to stop. Biology has taken over. In order to reclaim back your power, you need to connect with the energy of your higher self, your Angelic DNA, and meditation, done correctly, can help you with this.

If you need extra support and guidance in activating your angelic DNA, I offer 1:1 personalized coaching aimed at achieving your specific spiritual goals.

Infusions / Dateorade

A specific substitute that you can use while you go through the period of still needing to grab something in place of the caffeine, I highly recommend infusions (not teas as tea contains caffeine as well, and especially matcha is a no-no). Any natural herbal infusion without added preservatives, flavors etc. will do. I personally like to make my own out of dried olive leaves, pine needles or rosehip. For buying, I recommend yogi tea.

You can also make a drink that looks a lot like coffee, and if you want it warm, you can use warm water to make it. It is called a dateorade and it looks like coffee, while containing no caffeine and provides all your cells with loads of glucose and fructose!

Matcha, the fake superfood poser

It's green. I bought it in the health food store. It says "super food" on the package. Must be healthy right? NO. It contains caffeine, caffeine is a drug and a stimulant whether you like it or not. Matcha by now is a billion dollar market and it has been a very clever business move to introduce a product like this, just as people start to become aware of the fatal effects of caffeine in coffee.

I will make a more elaborate article on this, but please do not buy into the idea of matcha being healthy. It activates your primal DNA and makes you lose control of your own mind just as coffee does.

For more information about how you can activate your Angelic DNA instead of being stuck in the primal urges, consult me for a private coaching session, get an Akashic Angelic Reading and have a look at "How to Communicate with the Angels". I also offer raw vegan coaching, if you are interested in transition to your specie specific diet to unlock your full potential. It's time we start to realize how much more powerful we are and it's time we start to take the necessary steps to unleash this inner power. It's in your hands. Reclaim your power now.

Sources

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21. Mol Pharm. 1988 May;33(5):481-85

22. Euro J Epidemiology. 2003 18(4):289-98

23. J Urology. 2004 172(2):555-8

24. Life Sciences. 1990 47(6):557-64

25. J Amer geriatric 1995 43(8):860-4

26. Inter J Impotence research. 2003 15(suppl 1:S8-14)

27. Gastroenterology 1995 108(1); 125-31