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Are you a coffee addict? Are you wondering if caffeine is good for your skin and getting rid of acne?
Watch the video to find out what I think about caffeine! I also share some tips about drinking green tea.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEagUjdJK9o
Do you drink coffee? Tea? What about green tea?
Blog author Tracy Raftl used to have severe acne — now she teaches thousands of women how to take back control of their skin through natural, holistic, and mind-body methods.
The following is a repost of an interview with me by Beautiful with Brains (click here for original). Read on – I share all
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Hi, my name is Krista and I am a recovered acne sufferer after a 5 year battle. I have tried for months to bring myself
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34 Responses
[..YouTube..] your so pretty and you have a flawless face 🙂
Thanks! 🙂
What about cocoa powder? Is there too much caffeine?
Theres caffeine in fruit – isnt there?
mm I don’t think so! I’ve never, ever heard that fruit has caffeine in it
what are your thoughts on peppermint tea?
It’s great! It doesn’t have caffeine and it helps with digestion. Just try to get it organic.
Chamomile tea is supposed to be EXTREMELY anti-inflammatory when drank or applied to the skin. Whenever I used to get those annoying cystic acne on my jaw I drank a cup of chamomile tea and applied the teabag to my acne and it went down so fast. It’s actually good for pretty much any type of skin irritation. My lip swelled up randomly once and my grandma made me some chamomile tea and poured it on a towel and told me to hold it against my lip.
Only thing about chamomile tea is that it’s a sedative so you definitely don’t wanna drink it in the morning before work or class or whatever. It makes me so sleepy and pretty much knocks me right out.
ooh, thanks for the tip, Sampson!
I started cutting back on coffee afew weeks ago, now I drink a small cup in the morning. But to replace the lack of coffee I started drinking green tea instead. I have to say that I believe the combination on cleansing with honey + eating lots of apples and berries + leafy greens and drinking the green tea is the reason why I haven’t gotten any large pimples in about 3 weeks, in fact i’v only gotten the odd tiny little white head which I believe is from my makeup.
I went to a healthfood store and got loose green tea leaves and a tea ball and it tastes stronger then the organic green tea bags but I dont mind the taste, I just drink it straight. It tooks awhile to get used to but I know it’s helping my skin, and it’s healthy 🙂
Cool! It’s awesome to hear your skin is getting better!
Hi Tracy, I’m curious on whether caffeine or the stimulant theobromine in chocolate and cocoa powder is significant enough to do any harm? I’ve given up caffeine in all forms since January and have definitely noticed an improvement in my skin. I’m wondering if cocoa is something I should continue to steer clear from. Thanks!
Theobromine is a lot less stimulating than caffeine (apparently chocolate doesn’t actually contain caffeine), and doesn’t have all the same negative effects. Cocoa is actually good for you, it’s the milk and sugar that makes it so bad. A dark chocolate treat once in a while is fine, and if you’re making your own cocoa drink or something, make sure its pure cocoa without sugar and add your own honey or stevia to sweeten it 🙂
I don’t wanna make you worry or anything, but the day I ate 50g of 99% chocolate I first had a huge energy boost, felt extremely good (seriously extreme, like I was on drugs), and 15 minutes later I felt sad and tired, but I couldn’t go to sleep. It took me a lot of time to get it out of my system (my mum said I looked yellow, and that seems to be normal with a caffeine overdose).
I’m not saying cocoa is bad, but I try to eat only foods that aren’t processed in any way. On the other hand, if you like chocolate, and you feel like getting some, why not, it’s not gonna break you out unless you binge on it. Do what you feel is right, listen to your little voice.
Like Tracy says, it’s easy to make tasty healthy food, so with a little bit of dedication you can improve your lifestyle a lot.
Hmm… actually I’ve heard that from a few other people now as well that they’ve had bad reactions to chocolate like that! I don’t know if it’s the theobromine, allergic reaction, major blood sugar swing… I don’t know. I guess it’s case by case for each person!
And yes, it IS easy to make really tasty food, buuttt… for some reason chocolate is the only thing I really crave. It might be a woman thing hahaha. But yeah. Don’t go overboard.
What do you think if decaffeinated coffee?
Thanks for the great blog!
Hmm… well, it’s not the greatest. It’s still quite acidic and irritating to the stomach. If you’re not doing it for the caffeine kick, it’s much better to just drink herbal teas or green tea… but if you just really, really love the taste of coffee, I’m sure that a cup of decaf isn’t a big deal once in a while
I used to drink lots of green tea, but I’ve recently switched to white tea, which apparently has a concentration of antioxidants that is three times higher than in green tea. It also contains less caffeine than green tea, about 15 mg per serving compared to the 20 mg for green tea, you should check it out if you haven’t already 😀
Very interesting! I will definitely look into that!
I ususally don´t drink more than one cup of coffee in the morning and never thought it was a big deal, also knowing that it would be really hard for me to leave out that one cup, because I love it so much. But since I´m often nervous and tired and after reading your post I decided to try and stop. So my coffee withdrawal started 7 days ago and it really really sucks!! Everywhere I read that the worst symptoms disappear after 3 days..not for me..on day 5 I still felt beaten up and foggy in my brain. Yesterday (day 6) was so bad that I had to lie down two times and take an alka seltzer. Every morning I hope it´s better, but it´s not! So this morning, when I woke up, again feeling like crap and craving nothing but a coffee I decided to give in and had a very little one. I´m feeling a bit better now, also had an organic green tea.. but still..I`m tempted to have another one..just to be able to start my day! I really would like to go all the way with that withdrawal, but wonder how long it really takes, as I don´t find any good advice on the http://www…and I really suffer.
one good news: my skin looks pretty okay these days..no visible pimples..just a bit bumpy in some parts..which is mainly I think because I try to leave it alone most of the time. which is hard! and I eat healthy..and I do yoga..and I try not to get upset so much..which is difficult since the coffee withdrawal, coz I´m really really grumpy..so does anyone out there know when these symptoms really do stop? don´t tell me it´s only three days!
Wow! I’m sorry you’re going through such a terrible withdrawal. To be honest, I was never much of a coffee fiend, so I don’t really have any advice on how long caffeine withdrawal can really last, as I’ve never experienced it! However, the fact that you’re going through such a miserable time is a clear indication of just how much caffeine affects your body, and may be affecting your skin! Just from one little cup per day! Crazy hey. Well…. I hope you find a way to get through it and make it to the other side! Much love and light and good thoughts going your way from me!
thank you so much for your supportive warming words, Tracy!
I have to say, I´m a bit shocked myself how strong the symptoms are, only from that one cup. I wasn´t prepared for that. But I´m willing to get through it..I´ll let you know how I succeed and what my skin says!
note: it took about 2 weeks until my physical withdrawel symptoms disappeared. I´m feeling better now in general, but psychologically it´s still difficult, as I´m still craving coffee sometimes, especially in the morning. And I have to admit I just had a coffee again this morning..but I drank only half of the cup and I don´t like the way it makes me feel nervous and how it affects my digestion. I slowly start to understand that coffee is really not so cool.
Wow…. two whole weeks… I’m glad you managed to get through it to the other side! I understand the mental addiction is still there, because your brain probably still associates it with pleasure. You need to replace the idea in your brain that coffee is pleasurable with the idea that it’s really not. You can do mental exercises to accomplish this, and within three weeks or so, it will stick!
I don’t wanna bore everyone with this coffee topic still, but it is really causing some confusion for me: I’m back on my morning cup of coffee..Why? Because after two weeks of withdrawel my mornings still sucked. I felt confused and more hungry in general, so that I started to eat bigger breakfast meals, although I was never much of a breakfast eater before, as, when I eat in the morning I just wanna lie down again, no matter how healthy the breakfast is. Not being able to drink coffee I just ended up eating more and more and of course I started to gain some weight, which wasn’t really my goal. So now, back on coffee, feeling more normal, but skin got worse.
So I still wanna quit and get over that caffeine addiction, but I still don’t know how…and researching more I just found this interesting article: http://www.absoluteacneinfo.com/breakfast.html which suggests that leaving out breakfast could help you cure your acne. Which I find very interesting as ususally everyone is preeching that you should have a proper breakfast no matter what. I never felt comfortable with having breakfast, it just makes me hungry all day and I wanna eat all day..so now I have two problems: quitting coffee means more craving for breakfast. leaving out both is going to be a very hard one… and..I haven’t mentioned that green tea in the morning also does not work for me, because if I drink it on an empty stomach I feel totally sick afterwards. And herbal tea is great throughout the day but in the morning I just find it very boring. So if anyone has some cool advice for me who suffers from similar issues I’m looking forward to hearing about it! My only hope is that I’m going to get deeper into my yoga/meditation practice so that these issues might dissolve at some point..
I don’t know what I think about eating breakfast vs not…. I usually like it because I think a light breakfast of a green smoothie gives me more energy. But I don’t think it’s essential though, the way they say. Especially if you feel better not eating it and that’s an individual thing. “Intermittent fasting”, they call it, can be healthy because it gives your body more time to detoxify your body without having to take that energy away and give it to digestion. So yeah…. don’t feel like you have to eat breakfast if you don’t want to. And I’m sorry you’re still going through all this caffeine stuff :/ You’ll get through it though, I know it!
Eva,
Have you tried changing up what you eat for breakfast? Protein and fat would keep you satisfied longer so hopefully you wouldn’t want to eat much more than normal. If you are eating a lot of dense carbohydrates in the morning it could be setting your body up to depend on them all day long. This would leave you with mood swings and a lot of energy imbalances. I would try some eggs and a fatty meat (bacon, ham, sausage). Not a lot of food. Maybe an egg or two and a couple pieces of meat. Just something to get you satisfied and going for the day. You could also pair the eggs with an avocado and some non starchy veggies to really hold you over.
Also, try drinking more water. Most people think they are hungry but really they are thirsty.
Hope that helps!
Have shoulder,& back,acne. I believe I’m going to wean myself off of dairy products,& coffee drinks.My wife & I go to Starbucks alot. I think I’ll start drinking their organic green tea drinks,if they have any!! Thanks again for your wisdom,& information on caffeine,& how it can contribute to your getting acne.I’ve got to eliminate the most obvious for myself,& that’s the dairy,& the caffeine. Sincerely, Chris Perna
Hi Tracy,
I was wondering what your thoughts were about Organic Rooibos Herbal Tea…?
Thanks,
Maeghan
That should be fine to drink! 😀
Hi checkout here if you are wanting to exit caffeine ; 170+ pages of comments from folk
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Hi Tracy, should I keep away from Green Tea if I have candida even though it helps to clear acne?
You can always try putting the tea bag in hot water for 30 seconds, dumping that out and rebrewing it… apparently most of the caffeine is released in the first 30 seconds (plus green tea is naturally lower in caffeine anyway), so I’m sure after that it would be no big deal
Thanks Tracy, will do that in future