Sunday, May 19, 2024

"Skipping Coffee is the Latest Humblebrag"

From The Wall Street Journal via MSN, May 19:

The new power move for celebrities and executives is getting through the day without caffeine. Some say they’re more productive: ‘I think sleep is the new coffee’

A person’s cafe order can be a kind of personality cipher. Black-coffee devotees are hard-core. A single espresso evokes sophistication. Then there are those who don’t drink coffee at all.

Superhuman? Alien?

Or maybe they just know something we don’t. These days, more and more public figures are proudly proclaiming that they don’t touch the stuff—and say they’re more productive as a result. Supermodel Gisele Bündchen starts her mornings with room-temperature water with a bit of lemon and Celtic salt. NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo opts for a smoothie. Actor Sydney Sweeney said she’s never tried coffee. Investor and television personality Mark Cuban drinks decaf in lieu of the hard-hitting variety.

“I think sleep is the new coffee,” said Bryan Johnson, founder of payments platform Braintree Venmo and nutrition program Blueprint, who has been working on ways to slow and reverse aging. “New social norms are emerging.” Instead of turning to caffeine when dealing with jet lag recently, he did cryotherapy for three minutes.

Amid a wellness boom, people are finding ways to perk up without the anxiety and crashes that can come with a cup of brew.

Li Haslett Chen, founder and CEO of the social commerce marketplace Howl, gave up coffee three months ago. Though she used to drink a cappuccino in the morning, and black java in the afternoon, it started to make her jittery and more tired. Her quitting symptoms? “Just grumpiness.”

“I’m not puritanical about it,” she said. “For me, it’s about listening to what my body wants. Sometimes that’s a whole-milk cappuccino, but most of the time, it’s too much caffeine.” In the mornings, she now drinks samahan, a Sri Lankan ayurvedic tea she discovered at a spa in Kyoto....

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