Morning Mocha

Coffee and I have a love/hate relationship. It beckons to me from distant places, and I follow its call like a little lost lamb. Once the craving hits, it can't be satiated by mere substitutions. My cafe drink of choice is the mocha, and it has to be dark chocolate. I love my mocha, and my mocha, well... it tries. It brings me momentary satisfaction, but often only to let me down in the long run.

I suffer from migraine headaches, which I'm beginning to find are more common in people these days, especially in young people close my age. Millennials, we are too heavily caffeinated a generation.

If caffeine helps when you have a headache (even a little one), if you get headaches after a few days without caffeine, if you get headaches regularly, then you may also suffer from migraine (as if you haven't suspected, because you're one smart cookie). These are questions my father-in-law (who is a doctor) asked me when he heard me complaining far too often of my headaches. My mom gets migraines, my sister gets migraines, and I never thought that I suffered from them, too, but as it turns out, I do.

The only way to deal with migraine headache is to try to find what creates it (i.e. caffeine) and basically stay away from that thing. People, even doctors, will talk about "triggers" (red wine, chocolate, red meats), but I've heard mixed commentary on whether triggers really exist or not. Caffeine withdrawal is what normally causes migraines, which I've found by experience when, say, I drink coffee or Dr. Pepper every day for three or more days, then don't drink any caffeine for a day or two. Those are the times I get the worst migraines: first the dull headache, then tightness in my shoulders, nausea that radiates through my fingertips and pounds to my head until it feels like my head will split open. Such an awful experience, and if you can relate, I feel for you.

My husband works hard at keeping me away from caffeine entirely. He implemented a similar tactic that I took in high school, for health purposes rather than avoidance of migraine, but I didn't realize then how much I may have been helping myself.

In high school, I would allow myself only one pop each week, two under special circumstances (I wasn't a coffee drinker in those days, but I did love my Red Bull). I rarely, if ever, experienced migraines, so when they manifested in more recent years, I was shocked to find that migraine is basically a life-long condition. It wasn't until college that I found the magical powers of a morning coffee and started feeling the effects of long-term caffeination. So my dear sweet husband now allows me only one or two caffeinated beverages a week, because avoiding the addiction is the best way to avoid the withdrawal.

So, it is Tuesday, once again, and here I sit with my weekly mocha. The added benefits to drinking less caffeine of course are that it's easier on the budget and the waistline. On Tuesdays my husband and I get up and out the door earlier, and surprisingly, it's actually the weekday I  look forward to the most. I get my blog, I get my mocha, and the day starts off well.

Life is good when you don't have to give up something you love in its entirety. In exchange for my caffeine addiction, I get comfort from being enslaved to it (those who drink caffeine every day and suffer from migraine must drink coffee every day).

 It's about compromise.