ANDRE BEGIN

No matter how much I love coffee, the amount I consume can be a bit of a slippery slope.

In a perfect world, I’ll have my first coffee shortly after waking up and will slowly savour its flavour and aroma, sip by sip. I can make this ritual last about 45 minutes.

For me, this is one of the big rewards of retirement: the ability to truly enjoy my coffee without feeling rushed or jostled into my day.

I will follow up with the regular parts of my morning routine: taking the cat out for a leash walk followed by my own workout, then shower and breakfast.

That’s when I will get dressed, make my second cup of joe, and commute upstairs to my writing desk. The second cup of coffee also gets sipped slowly between sentences and paragraphs.

Whether a third cup is a good idea or not depends on a number of factors.

As much as I love my morning brew, I’m a bit sensitive to caffeine. That being the case, it is possible to get too much of a good thing.

The prospect of a third cup would be a dream come true for me. Not only would I appreciate each and every flavour note, but I know it would extend my window of quality writing, and keep the writing mood alive, lively and fun.

But to me there is a downside. After a third cup of coffee, in addition to the risk of getting jittery to the point of hitting incorrect keys on the keyboard, the shut off valve for ideas disappears. While this may not sound like a negative, the problem is that the ideas can flow well into the evening and past bedtime.

Experience has shown me that on a day when I have had three coffees, I don’t fall asleep on cue between 10:00 and 10:30 as I usually do. Some nights I might see 11:30. Others, I might see 12:30.

Where that can become problematic is that I have a 6:00 a.m. non-negotiable breakfast appointment with Ivy the Wonder Cat. After that, to bury myself under the covers in an attempt go back to sleep is also a bit of a non-negotiable which would involve getting walked on by the cat, as a warm-up exercise for her leash walk.

That being the case, my only alternative is to proceed with my routine despite a less than optimal night’s sleep, which, in turn, leads to a less productive day of writing.

So the third coffee really boils down to this: do I want to be super-productive today to the detriment of tomorrow, or do I simply stop at two coffees and enjoy two generally productive writing sessions on two consecutive days?

More often than not, I will choose the latter.

My dream would be for someone to invent a caffeine antidote pill that I can take after I’ve consumed the third coffee, after an amazing writing session, and then to erase its stimulant effect to achieve a normal nights’ sleep.

Until that happens, if I need a boost after the second coffee, I will often opt for a cup of green tea, which contains less caffeine than my standard cup of coffee. In winter time, I may go for a hot chocolate, also said to contain less caffeine than coffee.

There’s always decaf, which I do enjoy, but when I drink it, maybe it’s psychological but I taste a difference, like something’s missing.

Another factor in the caffeine equation is timing. For me, even if it’s the second cup of coffee, ingesting it after 1 PM is risky business. I am truly green with envy at anybody who can have coffee in the afternoon and still get a solid eight hours’ sleep at night.

With respect to energy drinks, I admit, I am not terribly experienced. When they first hit the market, I tried a few, but the taste didn’t appeal to me.

I realize that there are many new brands and flavors on the market today, which may be worth a try.

But if I choose to do so, any such experiments would require the subtraction of a corresponding number of cups of coffee from my daily intake. Otherwise, given my sensitivity, I would expect that watching the alarm clock through the wee hours of the morning would be the result, much like the third coffee scenario.

Either way, when it comes to caffeine, I think we need to be aware of the right amount we can drink to help optimize our performance as writers but to watch our limits as well.

For me that sweet spot is two cups. And the longer I can stretch out the ritual of savoring every drop, the longer I can enjoy my favourite combination of the simple pleasures in life: coffee, writing and retirement.

Did you enjoy this post? If you did, your likes and shares are most appreciated.
If you haven’t already, please check out the rest of my blog at andrebegin.blog. From there, you can click on the “Follow” button to receive future posts directly in your inbox.
Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André