There's nothing better than that first sip of a latte on a chilly Wednesday morning as you walk down College Avenue to get to your first class of the day. You feel the energy, motivation, and the will to live, all encapsulated in a grande paper cup with a weird green statue of liberty lady printed on the side of it. This is a great start to your morning, making you ready to begin your day.

Caffeine is very common on college campuses. You see a Starbucks logo everywhere you go (unless you want to try gourmet coffee, in which case I recommend Saint's on Beaver Ave). But there are many issues that come with drinking a lot of coffee. And for those reasons and more, I am making a conscious effort to slowly lessen the amount of coffee I drink in a day.

I know. It sounds like I'm setting myself up for failure/disappointment/days where I walk around like a zombie because I haven't so much as smelled coffee beans in weeks. Let me explain.

Coffee is a stimulant. This is a known fact, and for many of us, that's why we drink it. It wakes us up, gets our day started, and we view it as a necessary ingredient to a well-balanced morning. There are also people who drink coffee because they genuinely love how it tastes (cue the Cappuccino people who ask for so many additives and substitutions that the Starbucks employee definitely spits in their cup). Some people can't go even a few hours without the magic that is cold brew running through their veins, and I don't blame them.

See also: 6 Times It's Actually OK To Be Rude To Your Starbucks Barista

However, I've noticed within myself that along with all of the great benefits that coffee brings me, it also has a lot of cons that I wish it didn't. For example, once I'm on my second or third cup within a few hours, my hands begin to shake and my heart races faster than I ever could (cue my 11 min mile). I hate how anxious all that caffeine makes me feel. So a challenge that I am going to be attempting this winter is to lessen my caffeine intake as much as I possibly can. I'm at a point in my coffee career where I can't just stop cold turkey because then I get these awful headaches, completely defeating the purpose of cutting it out in order to benefit myself. So my plan is to trick my body with one cup a day, then maybe half-and-half, until I get to a comfortable point where I don't feel like my body is dependent on it anymore.

We'll see how this goes. Somebody get a stretcher ready.