Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My 16-month theanine self-experiment

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–447 of 447 posts

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#441

Post by TimByte »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #123
TimByte wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have a strange relationship with psilocybin where microdoses reliably give me an almost unbearable headache, but a large dose will reliably get rid of a headache (even a migraine in one case). I haven’t tested it in many years (boring parent mode engaged) but that was my first experience with bizarre dose response relationships where one effect was very acutely inverted. It took me months to figure out the source o…

I wonder if it has something to do with different receptor activity at low vs. high levels. Must have been frustrating trying to figure that out, though!

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#442

Post by deinonychus »

mmmmmbop wrote: post #384
deinonychus wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Stimulant medication, the kind prescribed by the doc, easily makes me jittery, too. How do you treat your ADHD then?

I do take a stimulant but it's a lower dose and it's delayed-release in a way that makes it easier to tolerate.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#443

Post by genewitch »

energy123 wrote: post #45
vazma wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, ok I get it for coumarin but just out of curiosity, what can introduce heavy metals in this mix?

Turmeric and cinnamon are both notorious for lead contamination. In many locations it's legal to sell consumables that have disgustingly high ppm of heavy metals as long as the recommended daily dose is small so that the absolute amount of heavy metals stays below a fixed threshold. Also many companies just flagrantly violate the regulatory levels. Getting clean turmeric extract is possible by knowing which brand to…

> The acute hepatotoxicity caused by turmeric appears to be due to an idiosyncratic injury, perhaps immunologically mediated.

idiosyncratic means they don't know why (because they're idios?), but it happens to some people for unknown reasons. The chances are very slim that you'll have whatever pre-condition to be affected by this.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#444

Post by genewitch »

instagib wrote: post #99
energy123 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not careful and diligent, this is a recipe for liver damage from coumarin and heavy metal toxicity. You can take all those things safely but it requires knowledge and care.

Appreciate the response. I took the turmeric combo a couple of times and had to stop due to stomach irritation from the pepper. Can’t edit my comment. Were any of the downvotes and responses related to the Theanine with relora pill for stress relief?

I don't downvote, so i don't know.

but regarding theanine, i can't tell if it is useful for me, i bought it because of this thread's commentary. Sometimes it makes me jittery, and some times it doesn't, n=1, five trials so far ;-)

I bought the bottle so i'll take it. i really ought start writing down vibe/mood journals with a list of supplements i took that day, if any.

oh and i avoid taurine. I don't recall why, offhand; but i do, so i'll have to look into those other chemicals, i see "GABA" often - and you didn't specify what type of magnesium!

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#445

Post by Forgeties79 »

Jerrrrrry wrote: post #307
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…

The strawman sentiment of "no medication ever" is a pretty easy take to herald against. The nuanced truth is that our medical industry is flawed; since most illnesses are defined by their set of apparent symptoms (with most root causes not fully understood) the standard approach is to treat "symptoms" with medicines with sides effects rivaling the original ailment! What if the lack of proper diet ('proper' varies wil…

I think calling my comment a strawman is a little unfair given the way he wrote it seemed pretty unequivocal at first. Once they clarified their stance I understood it better and was perfectly fine accepting that’s not what they meant.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#446

Post by angg »

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_…

> https://www.gibney.org/a_syntax_for_self-tracking

Loved reading this as I have been on a similar self tracking journey of my own.

I am curious about your thoughts on mobile support? Specifically, have you implemented anything to make adding/editing events while away from your computer easier? Or perhaps you feel it is not important for your use case?

Personally, I've found that being able to log an event in an instant, or just on a whim, is invaluable for capturing the sort of data I care about tracking the most (like what I just ate or my mood), and I find too much friction causes many events simply go unlogged as they almost always feel too unimportant or mundane in retrospect to keep a mental note of and track later.

I started out with a text file system similar to yours but I've since begrudgingly resorted to google forms for most of my tracking needs. It's nice that I can arbitrarily add and remove fields while still keeping everything relatively structured and parseable, and it does have (albeit inferior) revision history. But I dislike not having ownership and control over where my data is stored and absolutely *dread* waiting for the form to load every time I want to log an event, especially on mobile.

Re: My 16-month theanine self-experiment

#447

Post by webninja »

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…

An air purifier has the same effect and doesn’t require inhaling chemicals. With one i’d back to breathing through my nose instead of through my mouth.
Post reply on HN