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Coffee As An Anti-Depressent?


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Yeah, I just posted this as a response to someone else, and my doctor's appointment didn't go well so now I'm restless and need to talk about something good just to keep from going insane at this moment. But ... it works for me.

We all know caffeine is an upper, it generally lifts your mood in other words, but some myths about risks for coffee have been debunked ... which leaves us with: No risks.

Strange, a drug with no risks, and normally something that sounds too good to be true is, not this time. Told my doctor about it today, explaining how I've learned to cope with my depression since I can't use any of the prescription psych drugs, nasty side effects always hit me hard and there are never any benefits. She said she would have recommended it herself if she had known I liked the stuff.

My trick is, when I am feeling "less motivated," a red alert for a really low point, I drink coffee like it's going out of style. The mental and physical high makes it impossible for me to stop doing something, and makes it impossible to think about the negative parts of life long enough to get into the dumps. Combined with the physical health benefits ... there is really no better solution for me. Coffee is probably the only reason I am still alive at this point, well, that and the surgeon who removed my gallbladder, but that's a different story ... sort of.

Lately I have had a lot of things dragging me down, and I mean a LOT. The surgery had major complications, so I woke up with a huge scar and two small ones, instead of three small ones. Since then everything healed ... except my digestive system which is still hurting, causing accidents, and generally not helping my mood. I am getting strange genital infections that no one has answers to nor are they even looking for solutions because they think I'm doing it on purpose. They almost said it directly once ... and I almost went to buy a gun that day. But instead I bought a huge Starbucks mocha ... chugged it and got lost in my CGI work. Right now my computer is calculating stuff for a huge project so I've got free time.

My father, who I managed to finally get in touch with after losing contact for many years, vanished off the face of the planet. Which worries me to no end. I saw him one day ... then gone. For all I know he could be dead, since he's bi and living with mostly Seattle freaking hillbillies. But ... coffee keeps me checking my email every day in hopes he sends something.

This turned into more of a whine post, sorry.

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A life without coffee is unimaginable to me :o I'll be crinking the stuff no matter what anyone says about it. If I had to choose between food or coffee, I'd choose the coffee 3/4 of the time ;) I don't know that it helps my depression but if it helps with yours go for it :thumbsup:

Bettypooh

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Well, I worried about saying it before, because of the fact it may encourage others to try it and there were so many mixed reports on health and risk to it. Recently I just saw a bunch of reports that said the risks of coffee were all myths and that the medical studies actually showed there to be no risk so I am no longer worried about admitting it, since if it does encourage others to try I'm not encouraging them to hurt themselves more.

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It is not the coffee that was necessarily considered to have side effects, it was the caffeine. I do not know what risks you are referring to when you say they were debunked, but caffeine is and always shall be a diuretic. As such, drinking caffeine regularly decreases absorption of minerals such as calcium since they are flushed out, which could lead to the thinning of bones. Of course, you can usually mitigate this with a calcium supplement. Still, while I consider coffee to have some side-effects that can be easily dealt with, my feeling is the antidepressents have more severe side-effects that may be difficult to manage. If coffee works for you and you are not depressed, why not continue drinking it instead of needing anti-depressents.

Funny story, I grew up near Seattle, and I do not drink an ounce of coffee. I hate the taste of it, lol, and there is a Starbucks everywhere. For example, on the street intersection near where I live, there are 3 Starbucks. Two are in buildings by themselves in adjacent sides of the intersection and one is the Safeway. For those who do not live in Seattle, this is fairly common.

Last but not least, welcome back KittenAB.

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i would say, the 'risks' of coffee consumption is much less in many many ways than that of taking many of the SSRI's commonly used to treat depression. I'm so glad to hear you have found something that works for you.

Personally i find coffee deceiving! it smells soooo good and doesn't taste a thing like it smells!

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The best coffees taste like they smell and are luscious :) Today's trend is toward over-roasting the beans which burns them and ruins the coffee. And percolated coffee is the best of all, drip coffee is another of the modern and wrong ideas of 'improving' things :( Besides, coffee makes me pee a lot and that has to be a good thing doesn't it? :lol:

Bettypooh

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Thanks for the welcome back Jason. However, the risks of caffeine are only overdose, which is impossible from coffee, you'd die of kidney failure first or suffer from dehydration. The diuretic effect for the dose in coffee is negligible, it's really small, miniscule ... but the diuretic effect of hot drinks is there as well. This is why the myth had to be debunked. Drinking cold coffee and you won't even notice a difference, as a matter of fact you can rehydrate with cold coffee just as well as koolaid or other such drinks.

Bettypooh, I agree about the over roasting thing. I find the generics don't do it as often but the high end brands are really over roasting. Starbucks and other such companies still offer a nice variety but they're expensive! LOL Starbucks even has a new blond roast I want to try someday.

Oh, one more thing, it can act as a safe and very mild laxative as well. It will induce bowel movements without creating the sudden and powerful urge, it also won't alter your bowel chemistry the way other laxatives do. Which is win for anyone who has had bowel problems.

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Thanks for the welcome back Jason. However, the risks of caffeine are only overdose, which is impossible from coffee, you'd die of kidney failure first or suffer from dehydration. The diuretic effect for the dose in coffee is negligible, it's really small, miniscule ... but the diuretic effect of hot drinks is there as well. This is why the myth had to be debunked. Drinking cold coffee and you won't even notice a difference, as a matter of fact you can rehydrate with cold coffee just as well as koolaid or other such drinks.

While cold drinks do cause the blood vessels around your stomach to shrink slowing down absorption of food and drugs, they also slow down rehydration which is related to the absorption of the food in this case. I guess you better show me this article you are getting your information from. I think it would make an interesting read, because it is certainly new news to me.

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While cold drinks do cause the blood vessels around your stomach to shrink slowing down absorption of food and drugs, they also slow down rehydration which is related to the absorption of the food in this case.  I guess you better show me this article you are getting your information from.  I think it would make an interesting read, because it is certainly new news to me.

Article? You forgot an "s" there. ;) Mostly it's from a doctor, and I don't know the links to what she was quoting, next appointment I'll ask her. However, warm fluids also run through your system faster, so yeah. Hydration is something I learned about through experience though, since your body needs a constant supply, cold is better for maintaining hydration while hot is good for a quick fix but won't last long. One of the biggest drawbacks with being thin is that we lose moisture very quickly, so yeah, I've been there, done that. The thing is, all bodies are different in so many ways that what works for some won't work for others, even in the "standards". Some people will stay hydrated from hot drinks, others will lose it quickly (like me!). But the slower your body absorbs the liquid, the longer it will last, basically.

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I do not drink that much caffeine (only because I do not like coffee and energy drinks), so it does not take much for me to feel its effects. I can gurantee that after one hour after drinking a coke, I will need to use the bathroom badly. Of course, it is always cold.

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I do not drink that much caffeine (only because I do not like coffee and energy drinks), so it does not take much for me to feel its effects.  I can gurantee that after one hour after drinking a coke, I will need to use the bathroom badly.  Of course, it is always cold.

One hour? I'm lucky if I don't need to urinate 30 minutes ... without coffee.

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I had a red bull once... one of those energy drinks... it was the sugar free kind.... but i was so thirst and it was so hot out and there was all this ice cold red bull.. so i drank it in one gulp practically... for the rest of the day i was SOOOOO irritable!!! but it probably wasn't the caffeine but all the other shit in it.....

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I had a red bull once... one of those energy drinks... it was the sugar free kind.... but i was so thirst and it was so hot out and there was all this ice cold red bull.. so i drank it in one gulp practically... for the rest of the day i was SOOOOO irritable!!! but it probably wasn't the caffeine but all the other shit in it.....

I won't touch those energy drinks, just ... gah. Refined caffeine scares me, and I just see no point in the rest of it.

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yeah i learned my lesson... i hated feeling like that... and i was biting my boyfriends head off just for breathing! thankfully, i did tell him what i had drank and how it was affecting me, and so he was well aware that this is a very temporary mindset...

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