Don’t quit drinking coffee

Quit drinking coffee? Madness… literally madness! The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders recently announced that caffeine intoxication and withdrawal are considered mental disorders when they impair a person’s ability to function in daily life.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “To be diagnosed with caffeine withdrawal, a patient must experience at least three of five symptoms within 24 hours of stopping or reducing caffeine intake: headache, fatigue or drowsiness, depressed mood or irritability, difficulty concentrating, and flu-like symptoms such as nausea or muscle pain…
The symptoms… must cause “clinically significant distress or impairment” that affects your functioning at work, home or in a social setting”

What exactly does that mean? It means that 1. If you experience 3 of these symptoms of more… get help! 2. alternatively just drink a cup of coffee (it’s good for you in any case) and 3. I hear the straight jacket look is all the rage in fashion nowadays 😛

Okay but on a serious note… I’m thinking that this new “mental disorder” is a complete waste of time. One critic of the manual says “We shouldn’t medicalize every aspect of life and turn everyone into a patient”. I completely agree… especially because those symptoms seem to be a part of every heavy coffee drinker’s morning (minus the flu-like symptoms) until their first cup of joe.

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324904004578537263312778902.html