The decision

This chapter asks you to decide something. It comes late because at the start it would have sounded like the advice you've always been given, which is to drink less coffee. By now you've seen why that advice never landed, which is that the morning cup really does work, and why it's right anyway. The cup returns you to a level that a non-drinker wakes up at. The afternoon low is partly made by the morning cups. The night is paid whether or not you drop off quickly. Withdrawal is real and lasts days, not weeks. Coffee is fine for most people, and the argument is about the pattern.

Here's the rule I'd suggest. Put it in your own words if you like.

I drink coffee because I like it, before the cut-off, and I don't use it to get through the day.

It has five parts, and each answers a chapter.

I count everything. Tea, cola, energy drinks, the coffee-shop large. I know the size of the habit in milligrams, not in cups.

I keep the cut-off. Two o'clock, or whatever line I've set, and nothing with caffeine in it after that. Decaf and water instead.

I bring it down slowly. A cup's worth every few days, with the morning cup last, to a level I chose because I like it.

I answer the dip without a dose. The break, the window, daylight, water, the dull job. And a proper night, which is what the dip was asking for.

I keep the coffee I love. In the morning, made well, sat down. That coffee isn't the habit.

It helps to plan for the moments when the habit will try to restart. Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran pooled ninety-four tests of plans in the form "when X happens, I'll do Y" and found that they make people more likely to follow through. A plan like this works because you've decided what to do before the moment comes. Three are worth writing down.

When I feel the fog at three and start towards the kettle, I'll make a decaf and stand at the window for the same four minutes.

When someone offers me a coffee after the cut-off, I'll say "I'd love a decaf if you've got one, or a tea," and not explain further.

When I catch the sentence "I can't function without it," I'll remember that the fog is the shortfall, and that it ends when the shortfall does.

I'll be honest about what to expect, and this is my expectation and not a finding. The first week of the cut-off will have some flat afternoons, and you'll feel the loss of the half past five cup on the drive home. The taper will bring a few days each step where you're foggier than you'd like and possibly a headache. Somebody will call you a convert, and you'll mind it slightly, and you'll say you still drink coffee, which is true.

Against that, the morning score should start moving within the first week or two. You should notice, somewhere in the third week, that you woke up before the alarm and felt fine, and that the coffee at seven was a pleasure and not a rescue. The afternoon should shrink to a dip you can walk off. And the evening should acquire an end, a drowsy hour before bed that you haven't had in years, which was there all along, under the caffeine.