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this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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In my experience at least, nicotine actually does alleviate anxiety. That is, until you become addicted to it and the anxiety you want to alleviate is caused by the substance itself.
Kinda like caffeine.
I've never heard of caffeine causing anxiety. Do you have a source you can share?
For me personally, caffeine in certain doses reduces my anxiety based general OCD and Reading OCD.
No sources on hand. But now that I think about maybe I mean something more like irritability. Idk. When I was younger I would drink caffeinated drinks instead of eating... So it could be that lol.
Caffeine, specifically black coffee, makes me feel like my life is falling down around me whenever I drink it with any amount of regularity. Anecdotal of course but I imagine if it has such a profound effect for me that it probably has the same effect for others even if it's more subtle.
Though to be fair I only noticed this after I was prescribed an actual stimulant medication that for me has way fewer side effects, which significantly reduced my caffeine consumption. So now it's more of a shock to my system.
I actually prefer black coffee because super sugary coffee like Starbucks = AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH especially if it's got that fake sugar shit in it like sucralose, aspartame, etc.
Yeah sugar and sweeteners don't bother me (although you might want to make sure that isn't a lactose allergy or intolerance because I've been there too 😅) but I specifically called out black coffee to mean that like energy drinks for example don't make me feel that way despite having around 4x as much caffeine on average. On the other hand, any drink that is more coffee than any other additive will make me jittery and anxious. So I'm not sure if it's specifically the caffeine that does it for me or some other component of coffee.
I'm not lactose intolerant, but I have been thinking that maybe I've started developing an intolerance ever since I stopped drinking so much milk.
Caffeine is already pretty much a laxative though and I've never had a particularly strong sweet tooth, so large amount of sugar + caffeine O_o. Fake sugar is even worse because it makes my stomach hurt a lot, plus it just tastes awful.
Energy drinks tend to use pure caffeine powder, so maybe you're having a reaction to the other chemical compounds, like Theophylline. If you homebrew, you can reduce them by using various techniques, like using filtered water instead of tap and adjusting the temperature.
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It doesn't alleviate anxiety so much as distract you from it. Anything can do that, that's just what a coping mechanism is. For many people, that might be painting, playing video games, exercise, or anything else. It's just that nicotine is a particularly unhealthy coping mechanism. There are other unhealthy coping mechanisms too—some people gamble, others drink alcohol, and some people stress-eat excessive amounts of junk food.