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My 16-month theanine self-experiment

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Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#291

Post by Arch485 »

MichaelDickens wrote: post #285
pnm45678 wrote: post #266

> I think these are the possibilities: > Theanine works, but I got fake theanine. I’d add one more possibility: “Theanine works but I need a higher dosage to feel the effect.” FWIW my purely anecdotal findings are that supplier does matter. Natural Factors Suntheanine gave me a noticeable effect. Nature’s way L-Theanine did not.

OP took 200 mg. Tea contains 5–20 mg and people commonly report beneficial effects from tea. If 5 mg is enough for some people then surely 200 mg would be enough for anyone?

Not necessarily, there are a lot of drugs that have reduced or no effect for certain individuals. Think caffeine or alcohol tolerance.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#292

Post by Forgeties79 »

quijoteuniv wrote: post #263
Forgeties79 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure if this is your intention, but I take issue with the implication that “pills” (aka “medication” and “medicine,” “pills” has a generally negative connotation) aren’t often the solution to the root problem. It is great if you can solve things with diet, mindfulness, etc. But sometimes you need medical intervention and yes sometimes that means you need to take medication in the form of pills. There are mill…

This is good point, thank you, lot of people needs medicine, and i am glad they are accesible. My point goes more towards this: Imagine someone runs a marathon everyday, after a couple of months, start experiencing pain and inflammation. Do they need painkillers or do they need to ask themselves why they are running a marathon everyday? I am not against taking some painkillers as long as you also ask yourself the que…

Fair point! Thanks for clearing that up for me

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#293

Post by grumpy-de-sre »

amelius wrote: post #282
riedel wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antihistamines could even work without any allergy since they are typically used as mild sleeping aids. They are also used often off-label for stress reduction. [0] [0] https://fherehab.com/learning/surprising-antihistamine-anxie...

> Prolonged use can lead to increased tolerance, reduced effectiveness, and potential side effects. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/should-i-worry-... > Theoretically, these drugs might increase the risk of dementia by blocking a particular brain neurotransmitter or increasing brain inflammation. In the past decade, several studies have suggested that these pills might increase the risk of dementia, whil…

Only Anticholinergic drugs appear to be associated dementia (but as noted the evidence is very weak).

Older first generation antihistamines such as Diphenhydramine (Benadryl), Doxylamine (Nyquil) have substantial Anticholinergic activity.

A lot of the second generation antihistamines have no significant Anticholinergic activity, eg. Azelastine.

Benadryl and Nyquil are terrible drugs. Why they haven't been phased out is beyond me. At least Azelastine is now OTC in the USA.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#294

Post by jrootabega »

altcognito wrote: post #283
matthewdgreen wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an N=1 trial. Dressing your N=1 trial up with lots of pseudo controls and pseudo blinding and data collection does not make it better. In fact: putting this much effort into any medication trial makes it much more likely that you’re going to be incentivized to find effects that don’t exist. I think it’s nice that the author admits that they found nothing, but statistically, worthless drugs show effects in muc…

Why do you say pseudo blinding, it seems like it is blind in that the author doesn’t know if he is taking the test or not. Now you can argue that there isn’t enough time between samples, or he needs more subjects but he was blind to whether he was taking it that day or not.

If the author felt good on a particular day for whatever reason, and then learned they had taken the active substance, their reports are contaminated forever. It works the other way, too. It works any way you slice it.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#295

Post by dworkr »

TimByte wrote: post #112
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

[dead]

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#296

Post by Zak »

kortilla wrote: post #160
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_…

Well the issue is that an experiment with 1 person can’t prove much because you can’t have a control group. Too much other stuff is changing in a single persons life that could account for all observed side effects. You also have latent side effect issues. A person could smoke for 10 years, not smoke for another 10, and then conclude that smoking doesn’t cause cancer. Then they get lung cancer 20 years later. Excelle…

The experiment answers a useful question: does theanine have a strong, acute anti-stress effect on the experimenter?

Effect size is the key element of this question. If the substance was alprazolam (Xanax) instead of theanine, we would almost certainly see a strong effect here. The same would be true for heroin, ethanol, or cocaine.

It's not trying to test whether there might be a strong effect for most people or whether there are any side effects. Other experiments have been done with theanine seeking to answer those questions; the answers appear to be no and no.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#297

Post by brothrock »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #213
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_…

This is an N=1 trial. Dressing your N=1 trial up with lots of pseudo controls and pseudo blinding and data collection does not make it better. In fact: putting this much effort into any medication trial makes it much more likely that you’re going to be incentivized to find effects that don’t exist. I think it’s nice that the author admits that they found nothing, but statistically, worthless drugs show effects in muc…

N=1 is addressed, see outcome predictions. N=1 comes with caveats, of course, but a study like this, with a proven harmless supplement, should be welcomed and praised.

It is clearly a step forward from what you can watch about theanine on YouTube or TikTok. I consider this a work of citizen science. While it should not be taken for more than it is, it’s a great example of how someone can experiment without a high burden.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#298

Post by jrootabega »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #213
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_…

This is an N=1 trial. Dressing your N=1 trial up with lots of pseudo controls and pseudo blinding and data collection does not make it better. In fact: putting this much effort into any medication trial makes it much more likely that you’re going to be incentivized to find effects that don’t exist. I think it’s nice that the author admits that they found nothing, but statistically, worthless drugs show effects in muc…

Hell, I'd say it's an 0<=N<1 because it involves subjective mood reporting, and there was no participant who was not contaminated by flaws in the methodology.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#299

Post by slama »

pnm45678 wrote: post #266

> I think these are the possibilities: > Theanine works, but I got fake theanine. I’d add one more possibility: “Theanine works but I need a higher dosage to feel the effect.” FWIW my purely anecdotal findings are that supplier does matter. Natural Factors Suntheanine gave me a noticeable effect. Nature’s way L-Theanine did not.

I thought I was crazy/imagining things, but I had a similar experience. Maybe I should try Suntheanine again

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#300

Post by hammock »

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…

“Before trying a basic mineral with no side effects, try a corticosteroid for a whole month”

??? You have that backwards.

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