From Restaurant Owner To Caffeine Crusader W/ Steve Frazier
Steve Frazier is a 68-year-old serial entrepreneur and self-sabotage coach who shares his 40-year journey through business, addiction, and natural health. Triggered by his wife’s Lyme disease diagnosis and his own caffeine-induced heart scare, Steve dove into hundreds of studies and now advocates for caffeine awareness—not abolition, but informed choice. He debunks myths (e.g., longevity studies mixing caffeinated/decaf coffee), explains caffeine’s disruption of cortisol, adenosine, sleep stages, hormones, and fetal development, and stresses free will, planning, and social pressure when quitting. I add personal anecdotes on alcohol, meditation, and green tea. The conversation blends science, psychology, culture, and practical tips (Swiss-water decaf, lemon water, under 200 mg/day, trackers).
Transcript
We want things that make us feel good.
In all my research,
And I've done,
I've researched three to 500 different articles.
There is no documentation that says caffeine is good for you.
I watched a major influencer.
He sells coffee on the internet.
No names,
No product.
He made this outlandish statement that if you drink three to five cups of coffee a day,
You're going to live longer.
Doc,
You get 80,
Americans get 67% of their antioxidants from coffee.
And so I did a deep dive and I went into the first one.
And I found two meta studies.
One was 500,
000 people.
Another one was a million people.
And they met an analysis.
Now,
These are not randomly controlled trials.
These are causation and observation studies.
But what they found is that people that drank that much coffee actually had a little bit more life expectancy and they were a little bit healthier.
With this caveat,
Which they don't really,
It's not in the fine print,
Because I'd read the fine print,
Is that those studies,
Half of the people doing it were drinking caffeinated coffee and half were drinking decaf.
You realize caffeine had nothing to do with this.
Cullis,
Welcome.
This is Josh of Interskilled.
And today I have Steve Frazier with me.
Steve,
What's going on?
Well,
Hi,
Josh.
There's a lot going on.
We have a kind of a crisis in our world today.
And I'm here to talk about it.
And you know,
People don't see this as a crisis because of something called cognitive dissonance.
And I don't know if you're familiar with that.
I'm going to explain it briefly.
So if your listeners aren't familiar.
But before we get to that,
Steve,
If you don't mind,
Let me just,
I usually just say,
You know,
Who is Steve Frazier?
What kind of work does he do?
So people that aren't familiar with you and your work and where you come from,
People connect more traditionally with a quick,
And you just,
You can keep it brief as you want to,
However you want to do it.
I am and have been a serial entrepreneur for 40 years.
And as a result,
I've done a lot of things,
A lot of life experiences.
I have found as I age,
I'm 68,
And I'm very healthy.
So I intend on doing this for at least another 15 years.
I have found that there are just certain things you don't get until you're older,
Okay?
It just,
Sometimes life's got to hit you up alongside the head,
Okay?
And then sometimes life treats you very,
Very gently as well.
Those are also things to take home.
And so through those 40 years,
I've had a lot of different experiences.
You know,
I was in the restaurant business,
My wife and I own six different restaurants over 23 years.
So dealt with a lot of different people,
A lot of different personalities,
A lot of different addictions.
And you know,
My wife got sick 13 years ago,
Chronically,
It took two years to figure out.
Our daughter finally figured out that she had Lyme disease.
17 doctors decided that they didn't want anything to do with her,
So they just told her to leave.
And so we went into the natural health rabbit hole,
Which is really a good rabbit hole.
If you're going to go in a rabbit hole,
That's not a bad one to go into because,
You know,
Unfortunately it took her getting extremely ill.
She was almost dead when my daughter got a hold of it.
And she would have died without my daughter.
And you know,
It is what it is,
And God,
But that's another conversation.
And it's all natural,
It's all supplements.
And so as a result of that,
That rabbit hole,
You know,
We've dealt with a lot of different issues.
And then several years ago,
I became a self-sabotage coach and realized that there's a pillar in self-sabotage and it's the physical pillar.
And it deals with all the ways that you physically self-sabotage.
And we all do this.
Okay,
We all have tools in our tool shed.
So you know,
Don't feel bad,
I'm not picking on anybody,
Not shaming anybody,
And I don't judge because I'm not against anything.
I'm pro-health and pro-knowledge.
And so when I got into that physical pillar,
The usual suspects are there,
Nicotine,
Caffeine,
Alcohol,
Drugs,
Prescription drugs,
Overeating,
Lack of sleep,
And a couple other ones.
As I looked at these,
I thought,
You know,
Caffeine seems to be a pretty big deal.
So as I started to research it,
I found that in the United States alone,
85% of people drink caffeine every day.
And probably 99.
8% of them have no idea what caffeine actually does to their bodies.
And so as I researched and researched and have literally have looked at hundreds of studies,
Most are,
Many are peer-reviewed,
Many are randomly controlled trials.
I found that caffeine has a very big impact on people's lives,
On their health,
And they don't know it.
And that is the key,
Is my message today and every day,
Every day I do this is,
Do you know someone that might be affected health-wise by caffeine?
And so it's not a message of being against caffeine.
It has short-term uses,
There's no question.
We'll get into that shortly,
But,
You know,
It gives you a buzz,
Gives you dopamine,
Gives you adrenaline,
Gives you cortisol.
Okay,
So short-term,
This is great.
If you do this all day,
Every day,
It's very bad for you because your system is going to,
Say at some point,
Rebel.
So when I became the self-sabotage coach and I looked at the caffeine and I thought,
You know,
This is going to be my mission.
My mission is to spread information and let people decide for themselves.
Because I learned something from my wife,
She has got a lot of wise sayings and one of them is,
We all have free will and free won't.
And I know that I can't make you or anyone else do anything.
And I have no desire to,
Okay,
Because all you're going to do is get resentment and pushback.
So what I try to do is I talk about caffeine in a very compassionate way.
I have been,
In the past,
A chronic caffeine user,
You know,
For those 23 years in restaurant business and then for another eight years after that,
I lived on caffeine.
And then oftentimes,
I would have a drink of alcohol at night to go to sleep because my circadian rhythm was messed up because I had too much caffeine.
I quit when I had a health scare.
I had,
I thought I was having a heart attack,
Went to the ER,
They put me on an EKG.
I'm having premature ventricular contractions,
They're called PVCs.
And I said to the doctor,
We're watching the EKG machine go up and down as these are pumping out of my chest,
You know,
And he said,
You're going to be fine.
You're just very sensitive to this.
I said,
So what causes this?
He said,
Well,
Stress.
And then he paused and he smiled a little bit and he said,
And caffeine.
And so,
And that morning I had been traveling.
I quit.
And fast forward to two years ago,
I finally figured out what was affecting my sleep and my life.
I was really dependent on caffeine in the morning.
Yeah.
So there seems to be a little lag.
I got most everything.
There was only a few parts that dropped out.
Okay.
I've,
Yeah.
So it seems to be okay now.
It seems to be back more in sync.
So there's,
There's quite a few things here.
I've never worked in,
Well,
Let me just say a quick background where I'm coming from.
I used to work at,
For entrepreneurs myself,
And we had a company drinking culture.
So for me,
It used to be more alcohol,
You know,
Going out partying and then people blacking out and me telling them what they used to do.
So it was a little bit more severe in that sense.
And I wouldn't get hung over.
So that was the,
That was even more dangerous because usually that you're saying it's,
You know,
Stop,
It's dangerous.
I don't want to do this again.
But actually,
You know,
After I hit rock bottom and then come into meditation,
It got to be so much more gradual where eventually I was getting hung over from one beer.
So I'm like,
What's the point?
You know,
I used to be able to go out and drink all night.
So now it's,
I'm just feeling so much better that I don't even need to do it.
So I haven't drank since 2013.
Wow.
So I have a daily meditation practice.
I appreciate that.
Yeah.
And I haven't worked in the restaurant business,
But where you're coming from,
From what I've heard,
It's kind of a not so well kept secret that there's a lot of drugs and stuff coming in and out of restaurants.
I don't want to implicate anybody with owners or get anybody in trouble,
But it is pretty well known.
I mean,
You're my,
My guess is,
You know,
You're getting pleasure of food,
But there's all other kinds of pleasures coming in,
Going in and out of there.
So I don't know.
Many of my employees smoke,
Drink,
You know,
Some obviously did drugs.
Sure.
So I,
Yeah,
I hear it's really common.
It's just,
It's just part of it.
It seems like,
Yeah,
In America or elsewhere too.
And so,
Um,
Then the,
I know this,
This,
The serial,
Because my,
Uh,
My brother,
He's a 24 seven,
You know,
They say either work nine to five or you work 24 seven for yourself.
And there's just like,
Um,
Yeah.
So I understand the archetype of just going,
Going,
Doing,
Doing,
Doing,
Doing.
And I have to do this.
I have these obligations,
These commitments.
So how am I going to do this?
Um,
Well,
It seems one way to do it.
Right.
And then the other thing I will do.
Oh,
I was just saying he's a serial entrepreneur to,
Uh,
Or not serial entrepreneur,
But he's an entrepreneur.
So he's working quite a bit.
So I,
And I,
The,
The people I hung around with years ago,
You know,
They have all these obligations and commitments.
So it makes sense that if they have to fulfill them and,
You know,
The quick,
Easy way would be caffeine for a lot of people.
So I kind of understand it in some sense where it's coming from for,
For me right now,
I have like one cup of coffee a day,
Um,
On when the weather's really bad,
I might have to,
But I do drink,
Um,
Green tea and with the meditators.
So,
So from what I understand has a small amount of way less amounts of caffeine.
Then like black tea or coffee.
Um,
So yeah,
That's,
I'll just,
Just,
Just so you know where you can speak to me or how to speak or whatever in the audience.
I,
You know,
I'm sure it varies gratefully.
Whoever's listening to this,
Um,
95% of my podcast hosts are usually drinking coffee or tea while I talk to them.
So,
Uh,
You know,
I'm,
I'm not here again to judge,
To shame.
Uh,
I do have some green tea here and yeah,
Sure.
Once you hear just a couple of things,
See,
I'm,
I have,
I have a cup of coffee in my hand,
Except mine is organic Swiss water process decaf,
Okay.
Which takes out 99% of the caffeine,
Keeps all the good stuff in there.
And there are,
There are some good things in,
In coffee,
But regular decaf still has 10 to 15% caffeine.
And they take the caffeine out with chemicals,
Which stay in the decaf.
But be aware of that.
Uh,
In particular,
If you're sensitive to caffeine and you're drinking decaf,
You're still getting caffeine.
If you're drinking five cups a day,
That's like a full cup of coffee or more,
You know,
A regular coffee.
So it's just,
I could,
I could do fun facts to no one tell for a couple hours.
So,
You know,
But that one,
That was important for people because they think they're drinking decaf and,
And they're actually getting caffeine.
Now what I'm drinking doesn't,
You know,
It's got maybe a milligram or two in a cup and I drink one cup a day.
Okay.
Well,
My liver's taking care of this.
Okay.
You know,
It's,
It's processing this and I'm not getting a buzz.
I'm not getting the adrenaline hit because what happens is when you drink caffeine and particularly first thing in the morning,
It kicks off some things that aren't good for you.
And so,
Cause one thing,
When you wake up in the morning,
Your natural body response is to shoot cortisol into your body.
It's a stress hormone.
And what it does is it gives you energy for the day.
And as the,
As your day goes,
Which you go through your day,
The cortisol goes down and melatonin and adenosine come up.
Now,
Many people have heard of melatonin,
But not a lot of people have heard about adenosine.
And adenosine is the key to you sleeping at night.
What it does is it literally,
Adenosine goes into these receptors in your brain and it puts you to sleep.
And that's your circadian rhythm.
And that's,
That's a natural thing.
And caffeine actually disrupts that.
And now,
As you mentioned,
If you have one cup in the morning,
There's a,
There's a fairly good chance that you're,
That it's not going to affect you because the half-life of caffeine is five to eight hours.
And so if you have caffeine first thing in the morning,
You know,
Your half-life and then your half-life,
You know,
If you have 100,
150 milligrams,
You're down to possibly 20 or 30 milligrams when you go to bed,
Okay,
People that drink caffeine sleep,
So don't misunderstand me.
There's a lot of things that I say that people say,
Well,
That doesn't happen to me,
So that can't be true.
Well,
Each one of us processes differently.
Okay.
So you and I can drink the same cup of coffee and one of us will get a buzz and one of us won't.
Okay.
All depends on how we metabolize.
There's fast metabolizers,
Slow metabolizers.
And so,
You know,
What,
What are the impacts then?
So we have our natural circadian rhythm.
So when you drink,
If you get up,
First thing you should do,
And I'm just being honest,
Whether you drink caffeine or not,
Is drink a cup of lemon water,
A glass of lemon water,
20 ounces,
Because it rehydrates you,
Okay,
Because you dehydrate overnight and if you,
The lemon water,
I drink warm lemon water,
I put other stuff in mine,
But that's key.
So I'm,
I'm rehydrated.
Now,
If you do that and you're a caffeine drinker,
Just wait another hour and then have your first cup of coffee.
So what's going to happen is your natural cortisol is going to be better.
And you're going to be re,
You're going to be rehydrated because caffeine is a diuretic.
And if you,
You don't know what that is,
That makes you go to the bathroom.
And when you do that,
When you pee,
You don't just pee water.
You pee minerals,
Particularly calcium and magnesium.
And if you don't supplement these out,
And I'm not giving medical advice here,
But if you're doing this and you're not supplementing calcium and magnesium,
You need to talk to a natural health practitioner and you need to do something,
You know,
And a lot of people take magnesium glycinate at night just to help them sleep because that does help you go to sleep,
But also then gets the magnesium back in your body.
Particularly older women,
They're in post-menopause,
They've,
Their bones are already starting to go.
And if they're throwing,
If they're losing calcium and magnesium through coffee,
Caffeine,
You know,
It just makes it worse.
So first thing.
That was huge for me.
Um,
So I,
I had noticed the really good health benefits when I was doing lemon water in the morning and it's,
It's a good thing in general too,
Um,
To do other times I think as well.
Yeah.
And then the magnesium,
I noticed a huge,
Uh,
Benefit when I was taking topical and I still do sometimes,
Uh,
Magnesium,
It kind of relaxes the muscles so that,
That I was,
I didn't know the dehydration and the other chemical,
Thank you for mentioning that.
I hadn't heard of that one that it does.
And yeah,
I am fairly sensitive to caffeine,
You know?
Um,
I can't drink it,
You know,
Probably definitely in the late afternoon to early evening.
Otherwise I'll have trouble falling asleep,
You know?
So,
So I'm fairly sensitive,
Not as,
Not as much as that could be.
If I just drank,
I think green,
A couple of cups of green tea a day instead of a cup of coffee,
You know,
The other thing I was curious about here is the,
Um,
I have heard the regular decaffeinated,
Uh,
Coffee that they,
Yeah,
Tons of chemicals is the,
I also heard there's a by-product of a sugar cane,
Is that the process you're talking about for decaf decaffeination?
Are you familiar with that one too?
And how that differs from the Swiss water one?
No,
Because I've heard of that,
But I don't know what it is.
Yeah.
The Swiss water press,
Yes,
Just uses water.
And so,
Uh,
And I'm going to give you a number of links that you can put in the show notes.
And one of those has a link to a three,
Three page white paper on Swiss water process.
Okay.
Another one is just tools and trackers,
And then there's other articles on caffeine.
And there's also,
Uh,
Ironically a website link that tells you how much caffeine is in basically every beverage sold in the United States and Canada.
I mean,
It goes down to the Starbucks,
Different sizes.
Okay.
So,
You know,
Just realize that the resources are going to be with you for you and your listeners.
And then,
You know,
The key to realizing if you have an issue is how much are you actually drinking?
And if you don't know how much you're drinking,
You can't really have a plan because if you want to quit caffeine,
You have to have a plan because you don't just casually quit caffeine because it is,
It is a psychoactive stimulant.
It's a legal drug and it's socially accepted and socially promoted.
Okay.
So,
You know,
I,
I did a podcast last month and we were talking about this and the,
And I said to the host,
I use the analogy of a salmon swimming upstream.
That's me.
I'm the salmon swimming upstream because I'm fighting a coffee culture,
Right?
And he kind of chuckled and he said,
No,
Steve,
You're a salmon swimming against a tsunami.
Okay.
And I think that,
I think that's a better analogy.
You know,
I,
I have talked to friends and family about this.
And the first thing they say to me is you can't take my coffee from you.
And I said,
First,
I have no desire to do that.
And second of all,
I can't.
I can't do that because you control what you do.
So when you,
When you drink that caffeine first thing in the morning,
You,
You jump,
You,
Your cortisol goes up,
Your dopamine goes up.
And if you're familiar with dopamine,
It's a great hormone.
Okay.
It makes you feel good.
Okay.
Now this just doesn't happen when you drink it first thing in the morning.
Every time you drink caffeine,
It spikes cortisol.
It spikes dopamine and adrenaline.
And adrenaline is in our bodies.
It's a wonderful thing.
It comes from the adrenal gland because what it does is it puts you in fight or flight,
Which is a stress hormone,
And that will protect you and save you if you're going to get in a fight or you need to run away from a lion or tiger or bear,
Right?
However,
If you are putting yourself into fight or flight and you're not fighting or flighting,
What happens?
Well,
Your adrenal gland at some point gets a little ticked off at you and,
And it also shoots glucose into your muscles.
Okay.
Now this is why a lot of pre-workout drinks have a lot of caffeine because it shoots glucose,
It shoots a lot of adrenaline,
You know,
Then they're all pumped up and,
And it produces,
Helps at that point,
It does produce testosterone when you're using your muscles.
However,
And for all your guys and even,
Even women that have guys in their lives,
Cortisol and testosterone are not good friends.
The more cortisol you have in your body,
The less testosterone you're going to have.
Okay.
What does that do?
Well,
It,
It lowers your libido.
It fractures your sperm.
And if you're trying to conceive,
It's going to be harder,
Not impossible by any means,
Because we both know that people that drink caffeine have babies every day.
Okay.
So I'm not making an outlandish statement.
However,
Realize that every time you drink caffeine,
That cycle happens.
And,
And then it plugs,
The caffeine molecule is very similar to the adenosine molecule.
And what caffeine does is the caffeine molecule goes into your brain and plugs the adenosine receptor.
And that's what gives you that feeling of alertness because adenosine is what puts you to sleep at night.
And so it,
Once that,
Once that circadian rhythm is disrupted,
You,
You would do sleep,
People that drink caffeine,
Even chronic users sleep,
But their sleep is,
Is not good because you have in the,
And I'm going to briefly touch on that as a,
There's four stages of sleep.
The first stage is,
Is 5% of the cycle.
It's where you're just low,
Slowly lulling into semi-conscious and unconscious.
Right.
The second is the biggest one.
And that's 40% of the,
Of the stage.
And you're,
You're doing possibly a little dreaming.
You might have a little brain activity,
But you're just there.
Stage three and four are the big ones.
Because in stage three is where you heal.
Okay.
Men produce testosterone.
Women produce estrogen.
The,
Your body repairs the cells in your muscles.
Okay.
And once your circadian rhythm is off,
Stage three is delayed and shortened.
And then you get to stage four and that's REM sleep,
Rapid eye movement.
Okay.
And what that does is that's where you dream.
And that's also where your,
Your subconscious is repairing your brain and repairing some other things up there.
Now,
One of the things I found is that those four stages happen four to six times a night.
Okay.
So it's not just once.
So if you,
Every stage three and stage four is shortened,
What happens when you wake up,
You're tired because you didn't get that deep restful sleep.
You know,
I I've done a number of anecdotal stories and the people for people that have quit caffeine and 95% of the stories that I've read,
Their sleep has improved so dramatically that they can't believe how well they're sleeping.
They can't in their memory,
Remember how well they slept.
And so what happens,
They wake up in the morning and they have energy.
You know,
I wake up in the morning and I am,
I've got,
I do my best work in the morning.
I do.
I,
And I still,
I still have energy at night,
But because my natural cortisol and I look at the sun now,
Now,
Because it's dark in the morning,
When I get up,
I use a sun lamp.
Okay.
But what that does is that helps you naturally boost your cortisol.
So how does it affect women?
Well,
It affects women more because of hormones.
Okay.
There's a lot more hormonal stuff going on and it's coming from the adrenals,
You know,
And,
And,
And whether we,
You and I might want,
Not want to admit this,
But caffeine causes anxiety and nervousness.
Okay.
Now men aren't supposed to talk about this,
But,
But you know,
Real men do.
Because it's a real thing.
And if you hide it,
It's only going to come back and bite you.
Okay.
Because we,
You know,
You have to,
You know,
You understand,
You have to address issues when they come up.
Okay.
So women who are,
Are already anxious and nervous,
Now they throw some caffeine in the mix,
Their circadian rhythms messed up and you know,
I'm going to touch briefly on the menstrual cycle because it's big,
It's a big deal.
For women,
Because there's a phase in a menstrual cycle.
It's a 28 day cycle.
The luteal phase is from 14 to 28 days.
And this is where you're ovulating and you are,
You can get pregnant and then you have your period.
Well,
In those 14 days,
Because of the rise in estrogen in your body,
You process caffeine 70% slower.
So the half-life goes from five to eight to eight to 12.
And so a woman in that phase of her cycle drinks a 150 milligram cup of coffee at noon and doesn't have any caffeine after that,
She still probably has 75 milligrams active at 10 o'clock when she's going to go to bed.
Now she's going to go to sleep.
What's it going to do?
It's going to mess with her sleep cycle.
Right.
Now,
You know,
My mission here in everything I do is to give knowledge for people that may have a health issue associated with caffeine and perhaps,
You know,
Someone,
You know,
And maybe you do,
And maybe one of your listeners does,
Please share this with them.
Now that's my,
My general mission.
I do have a micro mission because I touched on this briefly,
And that is we,
We all have free will and free won't.
So we control what goes in our bodies.
Now there's,
There's one person that doesn't.
And that's this person right here.
This is a fetus and fetus is completely dependent on mom.
Everything that mom eats and drinks goes right to the fetus.
And when it comes to caffeine,
It's,
It's dramatic because there's an enzyme in our livers as adults.
It's called the CPY1A2.
There's no quiz on that.
Okay.
But that,
That process is 95% of the caffeine that we put in our bodies.
Babies don't develop that enzyme until they're three to six months old.
So all the caffeine that goes into their bodies stays in their bodies.
And if mom's drinking caffeine every day,
Caffeine never leaves the baby's body,
The fetus's body.
Okay.
So what happens?
Baby's born and 12 hours after it's born,
The adenosine receptors open up and baby is screaming bloody murder because it's got a headache and,
And the common response is,
Oh,
That's normal.
That's colicky.
You know,
Your baby,
This is normal.
Okay.
Well,
When,
When you get a baby and they know that the mom is addicted to a certain drug,
They know that they have to deal with the baby in a different way.
How many people realize that caffeine is the same thing,
Right?
But then what else does caffeine do to the fetus?
Okay.
And here's,
Here's the things and,
And through many studies that I've researched,
This is not my opinion.
Okay.
So I want to make that clear.
I am a subject matter expert here.
Okay.
I'm not being arrogant.
I've just put in hundreds of hours of research and the bottom line is caffeine can lead to these things.
It can lead to low birth weight.
It can lead to miscarriages.
It can lead to stillbirth.
It can lead to ADD,
ADHD after the baby's born.
It can lead to different development issues because the baby doesn't develop the same way when it has caffeine in its system for nine months.
And so my message is to ask if you know,
A pregnant woman that's drinking caffeine,
Please share these facts with her because many people just don't know this and it's not their fault and I'm not making excuses for them.
They just don't know because they're,
You know,
Socrates said this thing.
You don't know what you don't know.
Okay.
There's so many things we don't know that it will make your head explode.
It really will.
And so,
You know,
There's,
There's other things that caffeine does.
You know,
We could get into,
Again,
We could do this for hours.
We're not going to.
Again,
I have my mission is to spread knowledge.
You know,
Men often have higher blood pressure when they drink caffeine regularly,
Because the adrenaline is when your adrenaline hits your heart beats faster.
Okay.
Then we talked about libido.
We talked about the sperm and actually couples that are trying to conceive,
If they're both drinking caffeine,
Realize that the sperm could be fractured.
The egg's getting less blood flow in the uterus and it could lead to an inability to conceive.
So I'm just saying throwing it out there that if you are in that position or you know,
Somebody that is say,
You know,
Just try quitting caffeine and see what happens.
What's the worst thing that can happen?
You,
You have a baby,
Right?
I mean,
Yeah,
This is,
You're already trying.
And so,
Yeah,
I just,
I'll jump in here real quick.
And,
You know,
I don't,
I don't have kids,
None that I know of.
And,
But it just,
It just seems,
And I haven't looked into this and I appreciate all the knowledge around this too.
There's,
There's so much that goes into this,
Like you said,
Well,
It just makes sense to me because there's so many products that have warning labels on them specifically for being pregnant.
So it makes sense that,
You know,
That,
During that,
That time,
It,
There's going to be a lot of different things.
I mean,
We can see that just by picking up lots of different products and seeing warnings on them.
So with,
And we know that kind of strength in the effect that this has.
So to me,
It just,
It just makes sense.
I mean,
Even if you don't,
Yeah,
At least it should be a starting point for one's own research to look into this more deeply,
Just because all the different things that could go wrong during a pregnancy,
All the different warning labels,
So I'll just put that out there.
Right.
You know I want to ask too,
A little bit about health benefits of coffee.
Cause I,
I,
You know,
I see all these different studies.
One is,
Is on one side,
You know,
The other one,
Oh no,
There's good things.
So,
But,
But before we get into that,
I just want to say that how,
Where I can relate more to is the psychology part of it that you talked about,
Like even lifestyle and,
You know,
Culture.
So that's,
That's a huge topic on its own.
Um,
But let me,
Maybe I'll come back to that in a second,
But I also want to say the nature of addiction is a huge thing too,
And it's different with different substances,
I know with,
Um,
What,
When I smoked cigarette,
Okay,
Sure.
That's enough to go,
But the nature of addiction is,
Is a big thing too.
Like cigarettes.
When I used to smoke cigarettes years ago,
There was no more pleasure left from the cigarette.
It was just to get rid of this gnawing like nervousness or my nerves were just like on this state of like,
You know,
And it was just to get rid of that.
It was no longer even pleasurable.
So once I quit that,
Um,
For me though,
Green tea,
It has a low amount of caffeine,
But there's other things in it that also have a calming effect too.
And I'll know just from my own experience with coffee,
I can't drink that much of it because I will start getting,
My nervous system will get overstimulated and over activated and it's very,
Very unpleasant and there's no benefit.
It,
It,
It,
It feels really bad for me.
So that's why I can only really drink one cup.
Otherwise,
You know,
Um,
Very rarely will I get shakes,
But I know a lot of people that do that.
That's so unpleasant for me.
I will just like,
Yeah,
There's either stop right there.
And then maybe even to the next day,
Not do it,
But,
But I'm pretty fairly energetically sensitive.
And I can monitor the nervous system effects that I have and know where that threshold is.
And like I said,
The,
The stop,
Cause usually you do it for some kind of benefit,
But when it gets to that point there,
There's no benefit plus it sucks.
You know?
Right.
So,
Um,
Not everybody has that feedback though,
You know?
Um,
So yeah,
There's plenty of stuff here for you to address that I threw out here.
Right.
Yep.
Chronic caffeine users aren't getting a,
Aren't getting a high anymore.
They're only drinking caffeine to get to a baseline.
Okay.
I mean,
What you just said,
You know,
You were having a cigarette just to get that craving away.
And that's what caffeine,
Chronic caffeine users are doing exactly the same thing.
Okay.
Uh,
You know,
Because they're so,
There's this vicious circle cycle of.
You get high,
You come down and what do you do?
You got to have more caffeine.
Okay.
Because your adenosine receptors open up,
You,
You,
You're used,
Your body's used to this dopamine hit.
It likes it.
So it wants more.
Okay.
Let's face it.
We want,
We want things that make us feel good.
Right.
And,
And so in all my research and I've done,
I've researched three to 500 different articles.
Okay.
There is no documentation that says caffeine is good for you.
Keyword there.
Caffeine.
Now there's then,
And so I watched a major influencer.
He sells coffee on the internet.
No names,
No product.
Okay.
He did a real last week and my wife sent it to me and he made this outlandish statement that if you drink three to five cups of coffee a day,
You're going to live longer doc it's proven and that you get 80 Americans get 67% of their antioxidants from coffee.
And so I did a deep dive and I went into the first one.
Okay.
The first one,
And I found two meta studies.
One was 500,
000 people.
Another one was a million people.
And they both,
And they met an analysis.
Now these are not randomly controlled trials.
These are causation and observation studies.
Okay.
But what they found is that people that drank that much coffee actually had a little bit more life expectancy and they were a little bit healthier with this caveat,
Which they don't really,
It's not in the fine print because I'd read the fine print is that those studies,
Half of the people doing it,
We're drinking caffeinated coffee and half are drinking decaf.
You realize caffeine had nothing to do with this.
It was this,
And you mentioned this.
Okay.
So I give you kudos for that.
There is stuff in coffee and tea that is good for you.
Okay.
So when I drink my organic Swiss water process,
I'm getting the polythenols and things like that.
Okay.
But I'm not getting the caffeine because caffeine is caffeine is a pesticide.
It's a natural pesticide.
It's bitter.
There's no reason to have this in anything other than coffee because it's natural there.
Okay.
I mean,
If you look at soda and energy drinks,
They take the caffeine that the coffee companies take out of the coffee beans,
And then they put it in their product to make people addicted to it.
Okay.
I mean,
That's,
That is a fact.
That's what happens to it.
They don't floor it down the toilet.
They,
They use it.
They really,
They sell it and they use it so they can increase their product.
Okay.
And so there are some things,
There's some benefits you do get up,
You do,
You do get a quick high,
But the culture that we live in is,
Is,
Is hard and quitting,
Quitting caffeine as in quitting anything.
If you're,
If you drink alcohol and you're an alcoholic and you've been going to the bar and you decide you're going to quit and you go to the bar and you have an NA beer or a,
Or a tonic water,
You're going to,
You're going to face some serious backlash.
As,
And this goes to my self-sabotage background,
Is that you are no longer part of the herd and the herd doesn't like it when somebody leaves the herd,
They don't like that person.
Okay.
And so as an example,
When you are at work and you have coffee breaks and everybody says,
Sees you are going to have a decaf,
I had breakfast with a friend a couple of months ago,
A good friend.
Waitress comes up,
Would you like a cup of coffee?
He says,
Sure,
I'll have one.
And I said,
I'll have decaf.
And he slams his hands down on the table and he looks at me and he said,
Decaf.
And he just like that decaf.
And I said,
Well,
Yeah,
Caffeine doesn't agree with me.
And about five minutes later,
I looked at him and I said,
I just wanted to bring something up here.
I said,
Eight or nine out of 10 people that you'd have said that to would have had regular coffee,
Peer pressure,
Social peer pressure.
Okay.
And I,
I mean,
I didn't,
I didn't say anything back to him.
I just said,
Look,
I,
I don't do this.
Right.
And you,
And if you don't like it,
Basically,
If you don't like it,
Leave the table,
Right?
Okay.
He didn't because we're friends and he understood.
However,
How many people actually will deal with you on that level?
I'm on a compassionate level,
Right?
Because that herd mentality is real in our society.
And when you leave the herd,
You're the outcast.
It's like one of my favorite memes is the,
All the sheep running off the cliff.
Okay.
And they're just following the sheep in front of them.
And there's a little bubble cloud.
It says the one sheep looks,
Is looking back and say,
Why are we following Sarah off this cliff?
And somebody else behind him says,
Because everybody else is okay.
And so,
You know,
We,
We get a lot of cognitive dissonance here when it comes to caffeine,
Uh,
As in,
In many things in our culture.
Okay.
And that is when,
When we have new information presented to us,
That goes against everything that we've known and believed,
We have to say to ourselves.
Realistically,
Am I,
Have I been brainwashed or programmed or is this stuff actually something I should consider?
And I did a podcast yesterday with a guy in England and he may,
He had one of the statements I've ever heard about this particular thing.
He said,
It is so hard to research things that you don't want to know.
Wow.
Talk about profound,
Right?
I mean,
I,
This guy,
This guy was only 46 years old and he had more nuggets of wisdom in that,
In that hour and a half I spent with him that I had in 30 podcasts before,
Because I mean,
That that's an interesting thing because how many people can actually go and say,
Okay,
I don't believe this,
But I need to learn more about it because I could be wrong.
That's called humility,
Which is a virtue.
And if you ever want to deal with self-sabotage,
You got to have some humility because you got to admit that you,
You,
You maybe haven't been making the right decisions.
So,
Uh,
You know,
I,
I will leave you with this and this,
It's a,
One of my,
My wife,
Brenda's,
That's why I wanted to do this podcast.
That's why I wanted to do this podcast too.
Is because,
You know,
I,
Um,
I said,
Well,
You know,
What's my cup of coffee?
There's no harm in that.
And so just,
I saw my defensive nature and I thought,
Okay,
Well,
Something,
Something's there,
You know,
That I need to look at.
And so that's why I invited you on to begin with same way,
Like a Zen practice.
I don't want to do all these silly forms,
You know?
Yeah.
I don't want to do all these silly forms.
Um,
So it's like,
Well,
Why are you so averse to it?
You need to go check this out.
So,
So yeah.
So that that's,
That's,
It's a really good point.
Yeah.
And then the light friendship,
You just,
You just,
Um,
Illustrated beautifully how friendship is so important because then we kind of really know who our true friends are,
If they,
You know,
In that sense of belonging is really so important.
I remember when I was,
Uh,
Had quit and I was still went to like a cocktail party with,
Uh,
People I used to work with and I,
I didn't have any,
My mistake was I didn't even have a,
Like a tonic water,
So I was doing nothing.
And so I got all these different comments,
You know,
And even these ones,
Oh,
What are you trying to make me look bad or things like this,
But it's time.
I will find that some old people that I used to hang around fall away.
And then I come back and then we'll get new friends too.
And the friends are so super supportive as well.
Yeah.
I,
Um,
And I'll,
I'll go in and maybe illustrate,
I'll,
I'll let you finish where you were at.
I was,
Um,
And I can illustrate like the sophistication of this too,
That goes beyond just that and in the coffee world now,
But,
Uh,
Yeah,
Please continue where you were at.
So what my mission is this,
And that is there's this old saying it's you,
You can take a horse to water,
But you can't make a drink.
However,
You can make it thirsty.
And my role here is to make people acknowledge and be thirsty for information.
So if you know someone that has some of these things going on and caffeine could be a mitigating factor,
Particularly in health conception,
Baby,
Whatever,
Please share it with them.
Okay.
You yourself and anybody that's listening.
And I will end with this because as I've said to you a couple of times,
You know,
If you know someone perhaps that someone is you and can you look in the mirror?
Okay.
Mirror work is wonderful.
I mean,
We,
When we deal with self-sabotage,
You know,
And I know that you,
You do a lot of meditating and things like that.
Mirror work is incredible because when you look yourself in the eye and say,
You know,
I have on my back,
I have a bunch of stuff on my bathroom mirror,
But one of them is a big,
In big letters,
I am enough.
Okay.
I see it every time I go in there every morning,
Every night,
Every during the day,
What does that,
What does it do?
It reinforces my subconscious.
It says no matter what you're doing,
Because especially in the environment I'm in right now,
I have a lot of pushback.
Now there's a lot of people that want to know,
Okay.
But baby steps.
We,
We've got to take this slow again.
I have no desire to even tell you to quit.
Okay.
But if you look at deeper into some,
And I'm going to send you some resources,
You know,
That you,
You can look at and your listeners can look at and you can put in your show notes,
This is free will and free won't baby.
Okay.
You know,
I,
I do what I do.
I'm 68 years old.
I'm a nomads.
I feel really good.
I have a lot of energy.
Okay.
Why?
Because I take care of myself.
Now,
A lot of that had to do with my wife.
When she got sick,
We had to eat healthy.
Okay.
And when I say that organic and non-GMO fresh,
You know,
No processed foods.
Okay.
You know,
And,
And this is hard work,
Josh.
Okay.
So anybody that thinks they're just going to be healthy,
It just doesn't work like that.
Especially in America,
It's easier in Europe.
When I live in Europe,
Way easier in Europe,
But yeah,
Definitely worth it.
I'm a huge GMO,
Non-GMO and organic opponent.
Absolutely.
Right.
And so,
You know,
You look at all these different factors and you say to yourself,
Can I do this?
You can do anything.
There is no,
No.
If you have the passion and the desire.
I mean,
There's,
Again,
There's exceptions.
Rarely,
You know,
You can quit caffeine.
You can quit alcohol.
You can quit drugs.
You know,
I I've done a number of podcasts with recovered alcoholics and drug addicts.
And we talk about it because there's,
There's similarity.
Okay.
They're not the same exactly.
You know,
Physically quitting caffeine is,
Is fairly easy,
Especially if you taper.
But staying off of it and that social pressure and that that's like,
You know,
What do you do when you've normally had that energy drink in the middle of the afternoon?
If you don't have a plan,
You're going to have that energy drink.
Okay.
You just are.
It it's,
It,
You can't,
You can't stop it.
And so you have to have a plan.
So,
You know,
One of the things we talk about,
We talk about breath work.
We talk about meditation.
We talk about affirmations.
We do hypnotherapy is a,
Is a good thing to reprogram your subconscious.
Right.
But,
And you,
You can do that through affirmations and meditation.
You can,
I mean,
I've done,
I don't think I'm at your level,
But I've done enough research to know that we can program our reprogram,
Our subconscious mind because,
And if you can do that,
Your life is going to be better.
Absolutely.
I think another thing here worth mentioning is like the ritual that comes around with some people in their morning coffee routine.
You have a really good replacement for that.
You know I also wanted to mention here the,
The what's called the high end coffee world.
And I've talked about this to some of my friends,
But I just want to mention that now you can go into certain high end cafes and they will do,
You know,
A pour over.
And then there's huge amounts of like marketing material and really highly conscious companies that will go to the coffee plantations themselves in Europe.
They will overpay the coffee in order to get the people to do it.
You know,
They'll weigh out the bean by the gram.
They will select the grind and this is,
And then they will have different pour over systems and the water temperature just right in the first bloom,
You know,
And it gets down to a science and then the right,
The right amount.
And that's not to say everything that goes into the roasting process now after the first crack.
And so,
See,
I mean,
All this stuff,
I mean,
I recognize that I've turned into like a coffee snob,
Even though I don't feel I know enough about it.
So like there's a culture and a lifestyle and kind of art,
Art,
Artisan aspect to it,
You know,
And,
And a worldly aspect and a sense of like sophistication and culture when it comes to this niche,
You know,
And Europe hasn't even caught onto this yet.
They're just,
They're espresso drinks.
Right.
And I just kind of blow those off.
No,
I'm not having Americano because that's,
No,
Just give me,
If I have to do that,
I will just have an expresso and a cup of water,
You know,
But so there's,
There's all these ideas and rituals,
Habits and ideas and opinions.
So,
So yeah,
This,
It's not really that easy.
And I,
You know,
I've hunted around people,
Drug people in the past.
And part of it is just this anticipation of scoring the drugs.
Not so much as doing the drugs,
You know,
In the whole culture.
And then there's the habitual part of it too.
Right.
And substituting healthy habits.
There's titration,
But there's also substituting healthy habits for the,
For the old habits.
And yeah.
And like you mentioned that the kindness aspect of our,
Of our hearts too,
And the belonging.
So it's a really multifaceted,
Almost multidimensional thing we're talking about.
There's so many different causes and conditions that come in here.
And you've mentioned quite a bit,
But I'll,
I'll let you address a few of these here before maybe we start wrapping up then.
Well,
You need to have a plan.
And you know,
As an entrepreneur,
If you have a good plan,
You generally can have a really good chance of succeeding.
It's the same with quitting caffeine or anything else.
And so,
You know,
One of the,
One of the resources I'm giving you is you have trackers,
You've got journals.
It talks about,
You know,
How do you feel when you wake up?
How do you,
How do you feel when you go to bed?
You know,
If you,
If you are getting off of caffeine,
You know,
What,
What are the,
What,
Why are you doing it?
And how are you doing it?
You know,
My daughter is a natural health practitioner.
I talked,
Talked about her briefly.
Okay.
She's a chronic caffeine user and she went to a seminar in New York City a month ago and the guy,
A guy tested her and said,
Caffeine is your second highest sensitivity.
So she came home.
I'm going to quit.
I'm going to quit.
She was going to go way down.
We,
We,
We realized that she was drinking way more caffeine than she realized.
And I saw her two nights ago and she is struggling.
She went down to 150 milligrams.
She went down to a hundred and now she can't go to that next level.
She just,
She can't make herself do it.
I think eventually she will.
Okay.
And she knows what I'm doing.
I mean,
I,
I see her,
She's got a natural health clinic.
She's my caregiver.
We talk every,
Almost not every day,
But you know,
Three days,
Five days a week.
And we often talk about how she's doing.
And a lot of it is that ritual thing.
And you know,
Last week she woke up one day and she forgot to have her coffee in the morning.
And 1130,
She had such a splitting headache.
And all of a sudden occurred to her that she hadn't had her coffee.
So she drinks a quick cup of coffee and five minutes later it's gone because the adenosine receptors are plugged again.
Okay.
If you have a plan,
You know,
And you can always reach out to me.
I help people get off of caffeine,
But there's a lot of resources all over.
And it's quitting caffeine is not about quitting a substance.
It's about getting freedom and liberation for your health and your body because you're no longer tied to something to give you energy,
You're,
You're going to get that natural energy and you,
And it's amazing,
I mean,
In the testimonials that I have and I've looked at,
And I've looked at a hundreds,
Okay.
It,
They have so much energy now in the morning and they don't have to have any stimulants.
And this is a big deal because your body now,
Our bodies are beautifully and wonderfully made until we start screwing with them.
Okay.
And you know,
And obviously there's a tool shed of it's really big,
You know,
You got caffeine,
You got nicotine,
You got cap,
You got alcohol,
You got drugs.
Okay.
And then,
You know,
The key is having a certain amount of humility to recognize that you may not be doing the right thing for your body and,
You know,
I can leave it there because that is the key is this is not about me.
This is about you.
And if you or someone,
You know,
Is having a negative effect because realize that cognitive dissonance,
Doctors and nurses have the same thing.
Okay.
And they often drink more caffeine than anybody else because they work along hours and they need that energy.
So when you go in and you have a symptom of chronic caffeine use,
If they don't have that symptom,
They will not look at caffeine.
I just think about that.
And I'm not,
I'm not,
I'm not dissing them.
Okay.
That it's cognitive dissonance.
Okay.
If I don't,
If I'm not affected negatively by caffeine,
Well,
It can't,
That person can't be either.
And,
And so as we move forward in this discussion,
Not now,
But in,
In general,
When you,
When people listen to this,
Do you need caffeine?
Are you addicted to caffeine?
I'll tell you what.
If you quit for 12 to 24 hours,
You're going to know if you have an addiction.
Because in that period of time,
You're going to get a massive headache.
You're going to get brain fog and you're going to get fatigued.
If you're,
If you're addicted to caffeine,
If you're,
If you don't get those symptoms,
You probably are not addicted,
Which means you're not drinking a lot of caffeine.
You can drink caffeine semi-regularly and your body just processes it.
It's okay.
I'm not telling you,
You can't do that.
You can.
I mean,
Our bodies again are made to take care of this.
That enzyme I talked about in the liver,
It just gets rid of it,
But you do it over and over and over again and pretty soon your body's not working well.
You're,
You got pre-diabetes because your insulin spike,
Your blood sugar spikes all the time,
And then your insulin has to spike,
You know,
And you're,
And again,
Your pancreas and your adrenal glands at some point are going to get a little ticked off at you.
And.
What,
Um,
One question that comes to,
Is there,
Do you,
Is there like a universal intake that's,
That's safe for most people?
I mean,
I'm sure we all,
You know,
I would say there's quite a bit of variation on,
Um,
The metabolism of how we metabolize,
Not only caffeine,
But all kinds of other substances.
And then I'm sure it varies a little bit depending on what things we mix.
But,
But yeah,
The,
The,
The,
The amount of milligrams per day.
Right.
Yeah.
Yes.
If you're,
If you're doing more than 200,
You're a chronic user.
Okay.
So if you have one cup of coffee in the morning,
That's generally between a hundred and 150 milligrams.
All depends on how it's brewed and how big your cup is,
Because one cup used to be eight ounces and now it's 16,
Right.
Or 20.
They,
They changed the goalposts.
And so,
You know,
For pregnant women,
It's zero because the,
The fetus is going to,
Uh,
Is going to hold it.
And if you drink every day,
If you drink caffeine every day as a pregnant mom,
The caffeine never leaves the fetus's blood because it takes a hundred hours for a fetus to process it through the blood flow.
So if mom quits,
The fetus actually has the blood,
Has the caffeine for a hundred hours and then it's finally gone,
But that's if she doesn't drink any more caffeine,
But for you and I,
You know,
If we do that first thing in the morning and we have that one cup.
And if you,
If you can do it before 10 o'clock,
That's the best,
Best way,
Because then that gives that half life.
It's no longer a half life is now it's a quarter life,
Right?
Cause that's how it works.
It's exponentially decreases.
And so you are going to sleep and you may not have a major sleep disruption.
If you're just limiting to under 200 milligrams early in the morning.
Once you start messing around at noon or afternoon,
It's going to disrupt your sleep.
So is that safe?
Well,
You are going to sleep.
You're just going to be tired when you wake up.
So,
You know,
You,
You,
And in all my research,
I've looked at a number of different studies.
Many of them are influenced by the industry.
And so,
You know,
My personal advice is if you can do a hundred or less,
You're going to be just fine.
200 or less,
You're going to be okay with air quotes because I can't 200 milligrams is a lot.
Okay.
And it's going to disrupt some things in your body.
And again,
You know,
Is it safe?
Is it good for you?
No.
Caffeine is not good for you.
Okay.
The coffee could be in the tea could be.
So if you can,
You know,
There's,
There's things like your green tea doesn't have a lot of caffeine in it.
So you're,
You're pretty good there.
Okay.
But you start drinking,
You know,
Different kinds and there's caffeine in everything,
You know?
And,
And one of the most blatant abuses is in PMS medications.
Okay.
You know,
People that have very,
Very bad menstrual cramps or have very,
Very tough time.
In some of the over-the-counter menstrual or PMS medications,
There's 30 to 60 milligrams of caffeine in one tab,
One tablet.
Okay.
If you drink two tablets,
It's like having a cup of coffee.
Now,
What it did is it gave you a temporary relief because of the adrenaline,
The cortisol and the dopamine.
What it did is it made your menstrual cramps worse.
It made your whole,
The whole experience worse.
And so,
You know,
I can,
I can only tell you this because this is what I've researched.
These are the studies and you,
You have to,
Each person has to evaluate their own life.
You know,
I'll leave you with a question.
And that is,
And this is a,
This is a theoretical hypothetical question for you to ask yourself and for everybody else,
Do you really know what it's like to be healthy?
You can ponder this for hours or days.
Okay.
And you know,
I,
I'm not telling you I'm,
I'm the picture of perfect health,
But I am healthy.
I wake up in the morning.
I have energy.
30 years ago,
My doctor and I agreed that my left knee would have to be replaced in 10 or 15 years.
Well,
When I quit,
When I quit gluten and grains,
13 years ago,
When my wife got sick,
My knee pain went away.
Why?
Inflammation.
There's no inflammation.
You know,
And you talked about Europe.
Well,
Europe doesn't allow glyphosate in their food.
Okay.
My wife can probably go to Italy and have bread off the table and not get sick.
Yep.
I quit,
I quit,
You know,
And they don't do any GMOs either.
Yep.
So,
You know,
Again,
Cultures are different.
Yep.
Right.
Well,
Steve,
Despite the delay we have here I think the final product that we have here,
So to speak,
Is going to turn out great due to this platform.
And then hopefully it's not too distracting for the listeners.
I really appreciate all your wisdom and guidance today on,
On these topics and the amount of information,
Because I don't normally jump into kind of more the medical side of things.
So I learned quite a bit today.
Yeah.
I'm appreciative for it and like practical guidance too.
I mean,
Some things there's just certain things for certain types of people that they need to hear that they don't want to hear that will be more effective in causing a behavior change or realization,
You know,
Depending on who one is and what their life circumstances are.
So that's,
I like this kind of full spectrum approach that you took to this issue.
I appreciate all of it.
So take the listeners out on a,
On a final message you'd like to leave everybody with.
I'll leave you with this message and that is we need to spread the word on this.
And so if you know someone that could be being negatively affected by caffeine,
Particularly health wise,
But also psychologists and mentally,
Okay.
Please share this information with them.
Okay.
Because then they can make an informed decision about their body and,
And how they're going to move forward.
Okay.
Again,
We can't make anybody do anything.
I have no desire to make any tribe to try to make anybody do anything cause I can't.
However,
I can take them and make them thirsty.
All right.
Very good,
Steve.
And may we all come to know our most balanced,
Optimal,
Natural states of energy.
Thank you all for listening and bye now.
