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| Kelly Clever is listening to Caffeine by Michael Pollan |
One of the perks of an Audible membership is that every month, they offer a few original, exclusive-to-Audible productions and you can choose two of them for free. One that caught my eye this month was the 2-hour Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World by Michael Pollan. Pollan narrates, as well, and he does a great job.
Pollan considers the physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional effects of caffeine, and he even experiments on himself by going off of it cold-turkey and reporting his experience. But in addition, he takes his listeners on a tour of how caffeine "has changed the course of human history—won and lost wars, changed politics, [and] dominated economies." It's no coincidence, he argues, that coffee and tea arrived in Western Europe at the same time that the Enlightenment and Rationalism started to take off, and he gives the molecule credit for making the Industrial Revolution and the night shift possible, as well. It's an entertaining and informative listen that gives one food for thought.
I personally just finished a cup of decaf coffee, which is what I typically drink. My husband and I both "mostly quit" caffeine year and a half ago for various health reasons, though I'll still have a cup of half-caf a few times a week. The first four days were, shall we say, ROUGH, but since then I've enjoyed not needing a hit of a drug to get to baseline functioning. Your mileage may vary!
