I decided at the end of November to take a break from caffeine. I settled on a month, who knows, it sounded like a good period of time.

After I graduated from college I took a year-long break from caffeine as a sort of detox from the copious amounts I consumed in order to keep up with everything.

But this time around I decided on the month of December 2017.

I wanted to take a break for a few different reasons.

I was having trouble sleeping through the night, felt really tired in the morning, hit a wall around 2 p.m. and stuff like that.

Lucky for me I decided to go off caffeine at the same time I was sick with a gnarly cold. So, whatever withdrawal symptoms I might have had, like a headache, were all masked by being sicker than a dog to start with.

I know everyone can't align quitting caffeine with being sick. But it just so happened to work for me.

I knew what I would miss about it wasn’t the actual caffeine but the morning ritual of making a mug of something warm and taking that back to my office to sip on while I started my morning.

So, I decided to pick up a few herbal teas. While green and black tea have just as much caffeine as coffee, herbal tea is naturally caffeine free. Woo-hoo!

I first bought a tulsi ginger tea and a sleepy time tea. My mom always has a box of sleepy time tea at her house and I have always liked it for when you need a little something to lull you to sleep.

The sleepy time has chamomile, spearmint and lemongrass. And I love ginger anything.

A few days later I also picked up a tension tamer tea from the same brand as the sleepytime tea. It has eleuthero, peppermint, ginger and lemongrass.

And my most recent addition is raspberry leaf tea. It doesn’t taste like raspberry (obviously, but worth mentioning because I’m not a fruity tea gal). But it’s supposed to tone your uterus, sooth cramps, and is an overall menstrual supporter.

I’m a bit surprised it was so easy for me to go a whole month with no caffeine. I’ve taken a few days off from caffeine here or there in the past but always found myself reaching for coffee really quickly.

I think the trick here was replacing coffee with herbal tea. That way I can get the same sensation without needing the coffee.

And I think once I can find some vegan hot cocoa mix that will just be an added bonus for something delicious and warm to reach for.

Who here drinks caffeine? What’s your drink of choice? And who here has given up caffeine before?

[It's January now, and I haven't had that first cup of coffee yet, I'm waiting for the perfect one to come along.]