sorry this experiment setup suffers from the photon dual slit experiment problems. How anxious am i really if i am observing my stress levels, noting down pre and post measurements? Placebo or not, this level of mindfulness is probably the biggest anxiety affecting factor so it invalidates the experiment.
My 16-month theanine self-experiment
371–380 of 447 posts
Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Correct me if I'm wrong, desloratadine won't pass the BBB so I guess it shouldn't cause dementia
Desloratadine is considered to have a low anticholinergic burden, and of course not crossing the BBB readily should reduce risks further.
But it is one of the more anticholinergic second gen antihistamines, make of that what you will, still miles behind something like Benadryl. Fexofenadine is apparently a less anticholinergic alternative.
Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
I jumped on the idea but then immediately came to the same conclusion. Now I’m thinking I stick with the vac(s) I have, but get a separate UV. And UV the bed while I’m working. Maybe? Your thoughts?
Get a mattress encasement, it's like a HEPA filter bag for the mattress (cuts off the mites food supply and preventing allergens becoming airborne). Skips the whole trying to clean porous foam problem.
This causes mold on mattresses due to humidity. I had to throw out a latex mattress.
Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok. What do you put between the plastic and the sheets? A standard mattress cover? Won’t the mites just go there as that’s where the dead skin, etc will be? The plastic would also trap heat between me and it.
As someone who uses a plastic mattress cover I can answer your question: yes, if you let dust build up, mites can and do start to live on the fitted sheet that you put around the mattress cover. However, it is of course easier to wash just the fitted sheet than to remove dust from within a mattress, so I think that a cover is still beneficial. I'm not sure what you mean by trapping heat - once there are two normal co…
This causes mold by trapping humidity. Had to throw out a latex mattress be careful with full plastic.
Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand what people refer to when they say "jittery effects". I don't feel anything when taking caffeine, no matter the dose. Or I want to think it helps me wake up but the effect is so small that I can't be sure. It's basically just a ritual for me.
Do you have ADHD? Most neurotypical people seem to experience jittery effects and being extremely alert while for people with ADHD it can actually make them sleepy. Of course everyone's brain is different, it is just a correlation with many exceptions. So yeah, caffeine works differently on different people. Personally, as someone with ADHD, I have a crazy caffeine tolerance. It helps me somewhat with focus but I don…
I have ADHD and caffeine very easily makes me jittery. Ordering my cappuccino 'half-caff' has terrifically improved my life. Stimulant medication, the kind prescribed by the doc, easily makes me jittery, too.
The narrative that 'stimulants calm down people with ADHD but make neurotypicals wired' never sat well with me. But I totally believe that it makes you and many other people calmer without any friction.
There must be a wide range of physiological causes and behavioral circumstances that lead to an ADHD diagnosis, such that people like me take a baby dose of methylphenidate or else I get paradoxically overstimulated and distractible and physically uncomfortable.
Or maybe my stimulant tolerance is unrelated to the ADHD and it's just enzymes. I think I had a flag for one of those SNPs that makes me sensitive to caffeine...
Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment
#376For 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…
You should consider a dust mite vacuum with UV. I bought one on Amazon (this one but you can check YouTube reviews for others). https://www.amazon.com/JIGOO-Vacuum-Cleaner-Dust-Sensor/dp/B... I was surprised how much dust this thing picked up (my sheets get washed often, but it’s hard to clean the mattress itself). Back in the day people used to sun dry their mattresses but no one does that these days. This dust mite…
In my country we used to use woolen matresses, which would be completely emptied and washed twice a year, and the wool would be dried in the sun for a good two days, then whipped with a long stick for couple hours, and then filled back in the washed cover again. Nowadays it's very rare unfortunately.
Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment
#377Since no one has mentioned it yet, given the author felt like Japanese tea was providing a calming / anti-anxiety effect but with a much lower potential dose of Theanine....I wonder what would happen if he repeated the experiment with a sub-lingual dosing mechanism?
It seems like this would be closer to taking the tea in your mouth and savoring it over multiple sips across a few minutes, and could explain the smaller apparent dose having an effect (some of the Theanine goes straight into the bloodstream and bypasses the digestive tract).
Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a data point. I have a mattress encasement which has never been removed (I got it to protect against bedbugs). Dust (dead human skin) still accumulates on the surface. It might not go into the mattress, but it will be on the surface. Since the encasements are never meant to be removed, vacuuming the mattress (with encasement on) still makes sense.
I asked above as well, but since you have direct experience, what do you have between the plastic and you? Aside from the fitted sheet? Wouldn’t a regular mattress cover just attract mites as well?
It’s just the fitted sheet.
The encasement I have is actually not a plastic wrap but a zippered tight weave synthetic fabric (polyester).
It’s suppose to prevent bedbugs and others from setting up shop inside the mattress but the surface is fair game. The idea being it’s easier to clean the surface than the insides.
I have had the encasement for years. No problems with humidity but I also live in a less humid area (41-45% rh all year round).
So a dust mite vaccuum still makes sense.
Also interesting fact: dust mites themselves are harmless to humans. It’s their fecal matter (after digesting our dead skin) that are allergens.
Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have ADHD? Most neurotypical people seem to experience jittery effects and being extremely alert while for people with ADHD it can actually make them sleepy. Of course everyone's brain is different, it is just a correlation with many exceptions. So yeah, caffeine works differently on different people. Personally, as someone with ADHD, I have a crazy caffeine tolerance. It helps me somewhat with focus but I don…
I have ADHD and caffeine very easily makes me jittery. Ordering my cappuccino 'half-caff' has terrifically improved my life. Stimulant medication, the kind prescribed by the doc, easily makes me jittery, too. The narrative that 'stimulants calm down people with ADHD but make neurotypicals wired' never sat well with me. But I totally believe that it makes you and many other people calmer without any friction. There mu…
As I said, there are many exceptions. It is just a correlation.
There are people with ADHD for whom meds don't work at all, some for who it works in very low doses, some that need very high doses, everyone is different. Same with reactions to coffein.
Diversity is the norm in nature when talking about individuals. ADHD is super complex and how stimulants work is also super complex and the interactions, well we barely have any idea. It doesn't really say anything about your ADHD that you are more or less sensitive to stimulants other than that your are more and less sensitive to stimulants.
Like you wrote, it could be just some enzymes or whatever. Humans are just crazy complex. It is still useful to talk about fact that a statistically significant subset of people with ADHD react differently to caffeine than most neurotypicals.
For what it is worth, I envy you a lot being more sensitives. I can kill five, six, seven cups of coffee and not feel anything. It sucks.
Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment
#380This 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…
> This is an N=1 trial
Sure, OP addressed that and said it would be especially useful more people did it and "if we find a way to collectively interpret the data".