Should you quit caffeine if you have anxiety?

The short answer is no, you don’t HAVE to, but let me explain based on my experience.

It is without a doubt that caffeine is associated with increased risk of anxiety, as demonstrated by this recent meta-analysis published in Psychiatry Research (2024), which found a dose-dependent relationship between caffeine and anxiety levels, even in people without anxiety disorders. But this study does not establish a direct causal relationship between caffeine and anxiety, as it does not go into the reasons WHY there may be an increased risk of anxiety. If you understand how anxiety works, you understand that often our interpretations, assumptions and reactions have a role in how we experience anxiety relating to different experiences, both physical and mental.

Let me explain:

What caffeine does is mimic the physical sensations that many of us associate with anxiety: racing heart, shallow breathing, jitteriness, restlessness. And for someone who’s already hyper-aware of those sensations, someone who fears them, monitors them, or tries to avoid them caffeine can act like gasoline on a fire.

Even for someone without an anxiety disorder, these symptoms can be uncomfortable and usually associated with being in a ‘stressful state’ (as they as caused by a stimulant, caffeine), so it makes sense that they would be associated with increased anxiety levels.

For the sake of this blog post, let’s assume caffeine definitely increases anxiety levels 100%, here’s why that STILL does not mean that you need to quit:

Because overcoming anxiety is never about avoiding or getting rid of anxiety, it’s about facing it, accepting it, even embracing it, because what we resist, persists, and when we walk towards anxiety, no matter how counterproductive it feels, we break the cycle and become more resilient.

In my experience, and in working through anxiety using acceptance-based approaches and exposure therapy, I’ve learned that my fear of those sensations was actually doing more harm than the sensations themselves. In fact, once I stopped interpreting the effects of caffeine as a "danger signal," my relationship with caffeine and anxiety changed.

I quit caffeine for years during the worst of my panic disorder with agoraphobia, and I can say that my anxiety was much worse then, than it is now, as I’ve reintroduced caffeine.

The difference is that I am not trying to avoid anxiety or the symptoms of anxiety, and I don’t see them as an imminent threat, therefore I am less at risk of the raised anxiety levels that caffeine can bring. All down to my reaction and interpretation of the symptoms.

That said, I still believe caffeine can be a useful tool or a harmful trigger depending on how you relate to it. If you're deep in the throes of panic, cutting it out might help reduce your baseline reactivity so that you can work on other aspects of anxiety.

But if you’re actively working on changing your response to bodily sensations, it might actually be helpful to keep small amounts of caffeine in your life as a form of exposure.

The way I see it, there is nothing wrong with cutting out caffeine to a get a grip on your anxiety, but if you enjoy it, then the goal should not be to eliminate it forever.

Cut it out to get the baseline anxiety back to a healthy level, and then reintroduce it gradually, until you’re comfortable with the symptoms and feelings that caffeine brings on, because avoidance itself can be quite a powerful maladaptive safety behaviour that actually worsens anxiety long term.

I recently made a video about this here, and this comment sums it up perfectly:

PS: In my Anxiety Fitness Community we’ve had members share powerful wins mentioning reintroducing caffeine, not by eliminating their anxiety, but by changing their relationship to it. They drank the caffeine, accepted the sensations willfully, and it didn’t spiral into fear. That’s what this work is all about.

It’s a private space where we focus on growth, not fear, free from toxic support group habits like reassurance-seeking, symptom-checking, and spreading worry. We celebrate wins, hold regular live events with guest speakers, and support each other in building genuine resilience.

If that sounds like what you’ve been missing, we’d love to have you inside.

So, no, I don’t believe that you have to quit, but there is one thing to remember, caffeine is a stimulant, so if you drink LOADS you will feel those effects and have to deal with it!

Personally, I don't like those effects even if they don't scare me, so I stick to the occasional soda, but there is no reason for me to avoid caffeine completely, in fact as I've explained I think that would be counterproductive in facing anxiety head on!

So if you decide to drink caffeine, do so in moderation, and enjoy!