Why your morning coffee might be to blame for your anxiety symptoms, and how a simple language shift can change everything.

She laughed during our consultation, but more out of nerves than anything else. Anyone with half a brain could tell she was on edge. She told me that her anxiety was worsening, her chest tight, her mind racing, that sense of impending doom forever looming over her. It was so bad that she was now considering medication.

I gently prompted her to tell me about her daily routine and I was not at all surprised by what she told me.

• Coffee on an empty stomach for breakfast.
• Coffee instead of food at morning tea time.
• Another coffee with lunch – her first meal of the day.
• And yet another coffee in the afternoon, to hold her off until dinner.

I then suggested that she do something unthinkable: I asked her to switch her coffee to decaf, and eat more during the day. This time her laugh was real. She shook her head at me but I pressed the issue, “You’re using coffee to suppress your appetite, and with the amount you’re having, I suspect that it’s also contributing to you feeling anxious.”

She was doubtful. But I managed to convinced to go decaf for a week as an experiment.

One week later, she reported back to me. And what she said made us both laugh, this time with relief. “You were right about the coffee. I hate that you were right, but you were right. My anxiety is completely gone. Like, gone gone. Disappeared.”

“It wasn’t anxiety,” I told her, “it was overstimulation.”

Rethinking “My Anxiety”

It’s a pet peeve of mine that we often talk about anxiety like it’s a diagnosis etched into our personality: “I have anxiety.” “My anxiety is really bad.” This language reinforces the idea that anxiety is a permanent part of who you are, something that controls you, something you cannot change.

I refuse to speak about a feeling in this manner. Because it’s just a feeling. Instead, I encourage a subtle language shift. Instead of talking about My Anxiety, try saying, “I’m feeling anxious right now“.

It seems like a tiny change, but it opens the door to curiosity. Instead of telling yourself that, “This is just how I am,” it leaves room to ask, “Why am I feeling this way right now?”

The most overlooked causes of “anxiety”

A lot of my clients come to me with a diagnosis of anxiety that they feel resigned to suffer from for the rest of their lives. But the truth is, their body is just reacting to stressors it wasn’t built to handle long-term. And if we can address these, their anxiety reduces. Dramatically.

Some of the common culprits are:

☕ Caffeine

Caffeine is a stimulant, speeding up messages traveling between the brain and body. It may make you feel more alert, but it also increases your heart rate, can make your breathing shallow, and can heighten feelings of panic that we interpret as anxiety – especially when it’s consumed on an empty stomach. Time and time again, I see clients who are living off coffee for most of the day. Switching to an alternative (at least for the cups they’re having later on in the day), and having that first cup with breakfast will make a massive difference.

😴 Lack of sleep

Sleep debt leaves your brain foggy, reactive, and emotionally fragile. Without enough quality sleep, the nervous system struggles to regulate. It’s just too exhausted. Prioritizing sleep is key. And getting into a routine where you wind down an hour before bed by doing something relaxing, instead of scrolling on our phones, will make it so much easier to nod off.

📱 Social media

Speaking of the scrolling, it’s not exactly calming for the nervous system to be in a state of constant alertness and comparison on social media. Your brain isn’t designed to process that enormous amount of information in one scroll and it can result in your nervous system switching to ‘fight or flight’ mode. Plus, the constant stimulation doesn’t give your brain any down-time

🍬 Blood sugar swings

I say it every 👏 single 👏 day 👏 We need to eat regularly! Skipping meals, having wildly inconsistent meals times, purposefully restricting calories or certain types of food – it all stresses the body out. And the most powerful way to calm the nervous system that I know of is to simply put food on a plate, sit down with it, take a deep breath or several, then eat. It’s showing your body that it can calm down. It’s like saying, “Look, there’s no tiger chasing us, it’s rest-and-digest time, okay?”

🧍‍♀️ Sedentary days

Energy with nowhere to go is recipe for disaster, isn’t it? Any parent knows that! We don’t want that energy to get trapped in our minds, causing anxious feelings. So moving your body in a way that feels good to go is pure gold.

Get the basics right

Too often, we look for complex solutions without addressing the basics. But you can’t meditate your way through four cups of coffee and five hours of sleep… So ask yourself:

• Am I relying on caffeine to get through the day?
• Am I getting enough quality sleep?
• Have I been eating regular meals? And eating enough?
• How much time have I spent on my phone?
• Have I moved my body? Do I need to go for a 10 minute walk?

The truth, sometimes anxiety is just your body waving a red flag, asking for something it’s not getting. And when your body feels safe, your mind can relax. So before you label it “my anxiety,” pause. Try saying “I’m feeling anxious right now.” Then ask: What’s my body trying to tell me?”