My 16-month theanine self-experiment

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.)

There's no need to invoke a placebo effect as an explanation for any of the results. He took it in response to acute stress, which is a local maximum in stress. The decrease in stress afterwards is to be expected.

Take a look at the stress vs day graph, though: it sure looks like stress was lower during that period. But maybe this is because the measurements were at a different time of day?

He talks about this mean-reversion effect.

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)

> that theanine works slowly — over the course of a few days, not hours

This was my experience. I'm not sure if that's "typical", although I've never really tried to take it like that.