Tea day

Re-running an experiment from the past and not being able to keep quiet about it has led to a heightened interest from some non-Estonian-speaking friends, which is why I decided it was time to jot down another post about it and switch the language while I'm at it. Find the second old mention here.

Tea day, as opposed to the tea time, is a particular day where the only thing I eat or drink is pure green tea (or as was the case this last time, also herbal teas due to the need to fight off another cold virus, no honey included). Minimal duration I allow myself is 24 hr, typical is longer, for example the last food at 23.00 on Sunday and the next meal at 8.00 on Tuesday (so 33 hours if I am not mistaken).

By this point most people go sth like "Why? No way, it's impossible!" so time for a leap a few years back when H was doing (and praising) some sort of no-particular-food-all-day-only-teas-with-lemon-and-sugar-eat-in-the-evening things every week. Mind you, at that time I was very meticulous about eating at what I called "the correct time" basically snacking sth every few hours because otherwise I'd just get violently nauseous and headachey - a tremendously (food- or pill-)dependent way to live, promise you that. So naturally my reaction was that it cannot be done, no way. But I did get curious...

So about half a year after getting back to Japan and struggling with some food-caused-heavy-feeling (apparently, I had to read that old post to remember that), I decided to try... but as ever, I'd go the whole way with not a single solid morsel nor calorie passing my mouth the entire day. And once my mind was made up, it, of course, happened. First effects were charted, approved of, and a schedule of doing that (and liquids-only days) monthly marked into the calendar and followed for maybe half a year until for reasons lost to the monster of forgetting things, I stopped. Until this Monday.

List of some relevant effects here:

I don't get hungry!! If I go the way of bringing a bento from home on a regular day, I tend to eat it way earlier than what would be the half-way mark of the working hours, no matter whether I've eaten proper breakfast or not. And (forgive me, ya all) all my friends know that complaining about being hungry is something I do often. However hunger on a tea day just doesn't seem to exist, as peculiar as that sounds. (This is unlike the not caring enough or not being able to eat that tends to take over when in a depressive hole, mind you.) Well, I've also figured out a couple of plausible explanations. First, when skipping breakfast and even the morning tea, the digestive system doesn't get booted up, meaning that neither will it start sending out hunger signals. Secondly, often what I tend to want to eat in the morning contains tons of carbs, especially the short ones that sharply raise the blood sugar levels to who knows where followed by a sharp decline that results in another set of signals being sent out making the body believe that it's now hungry again, no matter that in reality the time after last meal might be short and stomach is, actually, still full. And last but not least, the most powerful factor in this is actually the mind. Because as soon as I've really decided to have a tea day (usually a while in advance, need to time it with all sorts of events clogging my calendar), the body goes "ah, no food today, huh, ok then."

Time slows down and not only because you're waiting for the time when eating (that IS a pleasant activity, I admit) is allowed again. It has more to do with the fact that the mind speeds up so in comparison everything else seems slower (insert a Jewel of Judgement reference here ;)). This can partly be amounted to the effect of the undiluted green tea (and the caffeine in it) but also it might be that the extra blood and oxygen usually sent to the digestive system gets rerouted into the brain. Most likely there is also a connection to an ancient survival mechanism of "no-calories-ingested-need-to-find-food-to-survive-therefore-need-brain-to-work-better". Except that in this part of the modern society where I'm able to write this, not eating for a day doesn't mean you have to spend that extra brain power on finding your fridge but rather it can be used to tackle tasks ranging from creative to strenuous. Honestly, it is amazing how much I get done. Another side of this, of course is that you're actually not spending time on thinking what to eat and to keep it all balanced, going to a shop, shopping for food and getting distracted by everything else, cooking, the actual eating and then finishing watching that video or reading that chapter you started as a background while doing that, washing the dishes, putting the dishes away again, (and in my case writing the consumed stuff down in endless excel tables or going into a blog-writing spree about a strange improvised meal that worked out brilliantly) - it's pretty amazing how long all of that actually takes... three times a day...

So a ton of time is left over, which is a really good thing because in addition to the surprising level of mental energy, I also tend to get physically hyperactive - it became something of a rule to go jogging or travelling or dancing for the night after putting in a full lab day at work during each of my tea days. (Note - this effect wasn't so prominent this time around, most likely that energy got sent to the immune system to fight off the attackers... oh, also I feel heaps better in that regard a day after the tea than a day before the tea but don't dare draw any conclusions about that yet, more testing needed).

Another cool side-effect, freshly noted - my already crazy good sense of smell got upgraded to unbelievable levels - could smell cookies from another room yesterday (admittedly, the door was open but still..) and that with a half-runny-half-stuffy nose of the past almost-a-month. "Just because I’m resisting the wine doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the bouquet." ;P. Again, most likely this has to do with some evolutionary leftovers as smell is a really good way to detect food sources like ripe berries etc.

So what is all of this good for?

Well, first and foremost, it's a self-control challenge to complete and boy-oh-boy does it feel good to be able to pull it off resisting all the temptations etc. Pretty close to "I did this, I can do anything!" So building character by ignoring all the omiyage that people irrefutably choose that day to bring to lab and share. Or getting shopping done in freshly-baked-bread-smell-filled supermarkets knowing that whatever you buy will have to be stored and wait until the next day... Or going to a party and declining any and all offers of snacks and drinks (and then spending some fun minutes of watching unbelieving faces after you explain why you did that followed by many trials by everyone to get you to eat or drink something to break the promise. Haha, as much of a chance of that happening as a wax cat has in hell - dragons are rather stubborn.)

Then the actual physical world fact that you can do it (and know you can without any problems of becoming incoherent, dizzy, angry) when you need to. Think the ban on eating and drinking before a surgery under general anaesthesia. Or just super-busy days when you do not have even the five minutes to grab an onigiri but still have to function and keep firing on all cylinders. Also works as a good preparation for somewhat unusual conditions / meal schedules like hiking in the wild etc.

In addition to that, the cleansing (gosh, I hate that word) effect should also be mentioned. Basically you're giving the part of your body that's under constant stress (from dealing with all the too fatty and sweet and chemical stuff we've begun to call food in this day and age) a day off - any bloating-, rumbling-, gas-, burping-, etc-related issues calm down as the reset button is hit.

That being said, there are two difficult points of time in the process for me at least - one is a half-hour a few hours after waking up when the body does realise that something is irregular and responds with slight nausea (but seriously really low-key, in no way comparable to what I used to get when just missing the correct eat-every-two-hours time). The second happens in the evening before going to sleep because "I mean, it’s almost done, it’ll be 00.00 soon, so technically a different day, I can totally eat a slice of bread, right." been there and done that too occasionally, but it's way better not to, just to give the restart more of an impact.

Also without the excess energy influx, things do get cold, which is nothing some planned extra layers of clothes when going out (or also indoors if you happen to live in Japan in winter) and hot tea cannot fix.

The only adverse effect I've detected, in fact, is a slight headache for a few hours in the afternoon that passes when continuing with daily business (especially when that includes some meditative activities or sth). But even that is not as severe as the ones I get during irregular eating on regular days (nor the ones I get from lack of sleep or the low air pressure during cyclones, not to mention the, thankfully, super rare migraines) - the power of the mind really is incredible. Any dizziness or weakness or stomach pain that I feared before first dabbling in this is still to be seen by me. Oh, the backlash of eating way too much of all the good stuff the following day is a real threat, though, and yes, this is a trap I have stumbled into a few times, will try to figure out a bypass when I have a chance.

All in all, I'm now at the point of daring to recommend this to everyone despite the "No way, it definitely won't work for me, because..." I was right there, claiming all the same things with what my body never having had much reserves attached and generally in weak health to top it off...

So try at least once. Decide to and do it, no cheating - you'll learn a lot. ;)

Bonus round: it's a given that half of your friends send you food-related messages/pics that day ;P

Cheers,

Hedi

Edit: The curious moment when the Net is very aware of the fact you have decided to have a tea day and tosses relevant articles at you the same morning - this popular article and for all my buddies with ability to critically read actual science, this.
Edit2: No particular importance in this, but it IS nice to look at the naturally flattened (since for a change nothing in it expands in volume) belly in the evening.. haha, starting next morning with a glass of coke should most likely be left undone, though ;)