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My 16-month theanine self-experiment

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Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#111

Post by brandonasuncion »

mastax wrote: post #93
wraptile wrote: post #59

I've been using L-Theanine for a over a year now and then and it definitely has effects! I use it mostly for sleep 100-150mg in combination of 5HTP which I found it to be an incredible sleep cocktail. I generally don't have trouble sleeping but this cocktail gives me great dreams and increase the quality of my sleep where 6-7 hours is very much enough for me compared to the usual 8-9. Unsurprisingly, l-theanine is po…

Not to put too fine a point on it but if there are blind trials showing no effect and non-blind trials showing an effect, my conclusion would be the effect is a placebo.

I've tried different L-Theanine supplements, and there's definitely a difference in quality across companies... which could help explain the variance in experiences.

Unfortunately, there isn't much regulation for supplements in general. Some companies do 3rd party purity testing, though it's not always the case.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#112

Post by TimByte »

wraptile wrote: post #59

I've been using L-Theanine for a over a year now and then and it definitely has effects! I use it mostly for sleep 100-150mg in combination of 5HTP which I found it to be an incredible sleep cocktail. I generally don't have trouble sleeping but this cocktail gives me great dreams and increase the quality of my sleep where 6-7 hours is very much enough for me compared to the usual 8-9. Unsurprisingly, l-theanine is po…

I've seen a lot of people mention theanine for relaxation, but combining it with 5-HTP for deeper sleep and vivid dreams is a new one for me

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#113

Post by teekert »

ripped_britches wrote: post #88
teekert wrote: post #86

This is nice. I love that people can be so rigorous and honest as well. I just want to add that what brings my stress down (although I didn’t research it so thoroughly) is small rituals. Things to focus on, to do well, to “take a moment”. For me it’s making morning coffee. Making/baking bread, filling the dishwasher. Maybe I’m borderline OCD. But maybe many people are and just the rituals of taking pills (actually) r…

I know what you mean here, but valuing small rituals is normal and not anywhere in the same ballpark as OCD.

True. But for me sometimes when I’m stressed (usually related to some lack of control) I may get very precise about how the dishwasher is organized among others. It’s annoying for people around me, but at least it’s not hard drugs.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#114

Post by teekert »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #89
teekert wrote: post #86

This is nice. I love that people can be so rigorous and honest as well. I just want to add that what brings my stress down (although I didn’t research it so thoroughly) is small rituals. Things to focus on, to do well, to “take a moment”. For me it’s making morning coffee. Making/baking bread, filling the dishwasher. Maybe I’m borderline OCD. But maybe many people are and just the rituals of taking pills (actually) r…

> It seems so based on the study. I would argue that it does not, as we have no "no pill" baseline. All it shows is that if the author is stressed, chances are he is less stressed one hour later.

Hmm indeed. But the no-pill is very hard to placebo.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#115

Post by TimByte »

AequitasOmnibus wrote: post #6

From the discussions I've seen about theanine, the real benefit supposedly came when it was taken alongside caffeine. The thinking being that theanine moderated some of the jittery effects of caffeine, allowing the user to take higher doses of caffeine, which itself has some benefit on task concentration and focus. I wish the author had spent time addressing that theory specifically.

Would've been interesting if OP had tested that combo specifically, maybe comparing theanine + caffeine to just caffeine alone in a blinded setup

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#116

Post by esperent »

mastax wrote: post #93
wraptile wrote: post #59

I've been using L-Theanine for a over a year now and then and it definitely has effects! I use it mostly for sleep 100-150mg in combination of 5HTP which I found it to be an incredible sleep cocktail. I generally don't have trouble sleeping but this cocktail gives me great dreams and increase the quality of my sleep where 6-7 hours is very much enough for me compared to the usual 8-9. Unsurprisingly, l-theanine is po…

Not to put too fine a point on it but if there are blind trials showing no effect and non-blind trials showing an effect, my conclusion would be the effect is a placebo.

That's a reasonable take but still depends on the trials. E.G. if the blind trial was 20 college age Americans males, and the non-blind trial was 1000 people from various ages and countries, I'd probably lean towards trusting the non-blind trials (unless I happened to be a college age American male).

Or if all the available trials are nWhen it comes to cheap-to-produce supplements, very limited trial data is the norm, unfortunately. There's no money for running large trials.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#117

Post by 1penny42cents »

jaggederest wrote: post #46

This is actually a thing I wish existed, but I don't have time and energy to make it right now. I'd pay $25 a month or more. Basically it's an application that lets you do self-experiments like this, properly blinded and with good statistics. A challenge-dechallenge-rechallenge study is one of the ones I like, but if you want to do one you essentially have to design the study anew each time, and it would be convenien…

I’m actually working on this now, starting with sleep quality and cognitive performance (memory/attention/fluency) as dependent variables.

The vision is to have an index of protocols that people can try for themselves and see whether and how broader claims apply to their own minds and bodies.

If you or anyone else is interested, please send me an email at camhashemi (at) gmail.com. I’m looking for early adopters!

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#118

Post by TimByte »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #48

> I’ve long found that tea makes me much less nervous than coffee, even with equal caffeine. Many people have suggested theanine as the explanation, but I’m skeptical. Most tea only has ~5 mg of theanine per cup, while when people supplement, they take 100-400 mg. Apparently grassy shade-grown Japanese teas are particularly high in theanine. And I do find those teas particularly calming. But they still only manage ~2…

That's a great point. Dose-response relationships can be really weird

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#119

Post by ellen364 »

discodonkey wrote: post #76

For a community that prides itself on critical thinking, I'm always surprised to see HN lap this sort of pseudoscientific witch-doctor stuff up. This poorly-controlled, N=1 experiment tells you nothing, not even about the author. There's absolutely no reason to consider these novice self-experiments when professional scientific experiments are available (unless you're hunting for a specific result).

People invented and discovered remarkable things before modern statistics and RCTs (work on puerperal fever, antisepsis and germ theory stand out for me). Humans can make surprising progress with only small scale experimentation and observation.

I prefer the results of large studies. I think modern methods are better than methods from the Scientific Revolution. But people can't always afford to wait a decade or two for solidly replicated results.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#120

Post by TimByte »

rwyinuse wrote: post #110

I tried 200mg L-theanine pills for some days. I noticed a slightly calming effect, but after the supposed effect wore off, I suffered from unusually high level of anxiety. So I guess it can give you withdrawal symptoms. CBD worked much better for me in that regard.

Did you find CBD helped consistently, or did you have to experiment with doses and timing to get the right balance?
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