My 16-month theanine self-experiment • Hacker News Board

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#321

Post by ac29 » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

robwwilliams wrote: post #214

mg wrote: post #126

This is great. The author defines their own metrics, is doing their own A/B tests and publishes their interpretation plus the raw data. Imagine a world where all health blogging was like that. Personally, I have not published any results yet, but I have been doing this type of experiments for 4 years now. And collected 48874 data points so far. I built a simple system to do it in Vim: https://www.gibney.org/a_syntax_…

“Technically” here could imply “not corrected for multiple tests”. But the typical qualifier I use is “nominally significant” when I don’t apply an correction for multiple tests. Or “not using a one-way t test”. The most appropriate null hypothesis in this lovely study is “does theanine REDUCE anxiety”, not “does theanine change anxiety either up or down”. What impressed me most is the suggestion for an improved expe…

> The most appropriate null hypothesis in this lovely study is “does theanine REDUCE anxiety”, not “does theanine change anxiety either up or down”.

Neither of those is a hypothesis, which require a prediction not just a question.

The null hypothesis for this experiment would be "Theanine has no effect on stress".

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#322

Post by ppetty » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:43 PM UTC

I’m not sure, but seems like there should be a difference between someone conducting research while testing theanine versus someone just consuming theanine to battle anxiety. That’s probably been said in other comments in a more scientific way. But it also seems like consuming yummy hot tea that happen to have theanine would be another relevant method for comparison. Maybe placebo, theanine pill, and tea drink (or other naturally occurring food source)? It just seems like the tea or act of drinking tea and the time it takes might be relaxing??

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#323

Post by kayodelycaon » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:44 PM UTC

I think the experiment is based on a fundamentally flawed assumption the time to metabolize medication is identical to time for the body to return to baseline.

Regular Vitamin-D supplements can taken once a week or daily and have the same long term effect.

And for a sample of N=1: The L-theanine side effects of one dose last several days. Taking it daily makes the side effects significantly worse.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#324

Post by ac29 » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

secunit wrote: post #25

baby wrote: post #12

I tried it and it never did anything, I tried all sorts of CBD products as well (while in SF) and I never noticed a thing. The only thing that worked was microdosing shrooms which I've done twice in SF. I felt very calm and had a lot of novel ideas during these two days. Would recommend trying. Never microdosed LSD.

L-Theanine has a noticeable effect when I drink my morning coffee, it totally eliminates the jittery effects and smooths it out. I've tried a lot of CBD products and some work VERY well (Feals, Soul) and some might as well be gummy bears (Cornbread Hemp). I generally disbelieve "internet" PR claims as well, but the two I mentioned are legit. I'll eat 3 Feals gummies or 1 Soul "Out of Office" quad, and it rocks me. (M…

> I'll eat 3 Feals gummies or 1 Soul "Out of Office" quad, and it rocks me

I imagine you know this, but you do realize both of those products have THC, right?

Calling them "CBD products" is a bit misleading, even though they do also have CBD.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#325

Post by kayodelycaon » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 5:02 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #13

I was surprised that the author’s conclusion didn’t mention another model that looked consistent with the data: that theanine works slowly — over the course of a few days, not hours. (I have no idea whether it would work like this. A placebo effect only is also consistent with the data.)

According to my doctor, Vitamin-D can be taken once a week or daily have the same long term effect. This matches up with 15 years of blood tests. (N=1)

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#326

Post by danielbln » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

gwern wrote: post #320

danielbln wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their microdosing experimentation was questionable. Not methodically, it was quite thorough, but iirc they used unknown strength street blotters and derived all further experimentation from that.

As I always point out, all of the anecdotes claiming microdosing works are usually using street blotters as well, including the research papers which draw on crowdsourcing to circumvent the obvious problems with using schedule I psychedelics; and the research papers which do use better-validated dosages... don't usually turn up anything more than I did. Plus, it's 2025. If LSD microdosing really worked, after all thi…

I can't tell you why, but the fact that LSD is a schedule 1 drug with a strong stigma and that it's a drug that can't be patented will severely hamper any study efforts.

Some current theories re: microdosing efficacy that I've seen are that people who report benefits from microdosing (beyond placebo) are inadvertently self medicating ADHD symptoms, which seems plausible, given LSDs stimulant effect and 5HT2A affinity.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#327

Post by wbharding » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 5:09 PM UTC

Wish more people would report their placebo experiments. I have periodically run them on myself, and am consistently surprised how I have been unable to differentiate substances I thought were helpful (adderall, kratom) end up indistinguishable from placebo over 20+ trials. I guess that my main takeaway was that it is hard to pinpoint when subtle drugs work. My second takeaway was that the data I generated would prob be useful to share, but with no examples anyone cared I opted against. This story inspires me to potentially revisit some of my past placebo tests and show my data.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#328

Post by episteme » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #312

malfist wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not too me though. Especially not to me if I'm trying to decide to supplement l-theanine

Right. The only N that you can draw any conclusions about is the author himself. So, why even publish it? The "results" are not applicable to anyone reading it. This is the health version of the software industry's "It works on my system!"

Publish it is quite a loaded word here. Almost every blog or post you read is from the point of view of a single person. There's nothing wrong with him putting his experience out into the world.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#329

Post by ovalanche » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 5:14 PM UTC

strontian wrote: post #317

grumpy-de-sre wrote: post #138

For anyone looking for a sleep supplement, before you go down the rabbit hole of Theanine, Mg, etc. Try an OTC Azelastine or Fluticasone nasal spray for a month. Turns out my chronic poor quality, restless sleep was a dust mite allergy that I should have figured out and treated a decade ago. Would wake up with a stuffy nose and very dry mouth but didn't have too many issues during the day. I was allergic to my bed. B…

nice! I recently got dust mites out of my home completely, and it was a miraculous upgrade to my health, including several symptoms that are outside the definitions of allergic asthma/eczema/rhinitis. One important thing people are missing about dust mite allergy is the many ways in which they directly damage your immune system and body, outside of the usual frame of "allergies" which is based on type 2 hypersensitiv…

I’m really glad to see this side discussion on dust mite allergy happening here. I’ve had dust mite allergy since childhood, and I even had adenoid removal surgery at age ~7 to address it. Nothing seems to help.

I think dust mite allergy imitates some of the symptoms of sleep apnea, because your nasal passage gets blocked at night, waking you in a similar way to choking.

I’ve reached my mid-30s, largely ignoring the symptoms, but over the past few months I’ve been experiencing a truly terrible bout of insomnia.

I think it’s time to take the allergy seriously again. I’ll follow your guide and make some changes. If I could suggest an improvement to your guide: it may be useful to have a section (perhaps chapter 5?) on symptom relief. I’ve had friends say that a neti pot works wonders, for example.

Either way thanks for posting!

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#330

Post by trashface » Sun, Mar 09, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

I have taken a lot at times, up to 1-2g per day in powder form. I mix it with my tea, which also has theanine.

However I can't say it really helped with anxiety. TFA says some people claim its more effective than xanax. Maybe it works like that for some people, but not for me - it doesn't even put a dent in my anxiety - which can be pretty bad (struggling to leave the house). I've never taken xanax either, although my doc once gave me 10 pills of lorezepam for acute anxiety situations. Those basically had no effect on me too.

Theanine does reduce caffeine jitters although I usually only have that problem with coffee. These days I take 200mg most days mostly out of habit.