My 16-month theanine self-experiment

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 popular in lucid dreaming communities and while I have no particular interest lucid dreaming my dreams are definitely more vivid and most importantly instantly forgettable (like normal dreams are) which is the most desirable outcome imo.

250+mg does have my mind racing a bit and this dose will prevent me from falling asleep effectively (at body weight of 75kg), anything above 200mg seems too much imo for my body weight. So I think the effect is very much observable just through dose variability.

For day use I've tried l-theanine with caffeine in the morning and I'd say the effect is similar to mild adhd medication (I've been told it compares to like ~2mg of Ritallin or pinch of Kratom powder). Tho for me it always comes with side effects similar to a cup of too much coffee would have. I found that just like adhd medicine, it works best with a protein shake.

This is my unscientific anecdote, tho OP's post makes me want to record my own experiences.

Not to put too fine a point on it but if there are blind trials showing no effect and non-blind trials showing an effect, my conclusion would be the effect is a placebo.

It’s almost as if this post is attempting to gaslight the world into thinking that L-Theanine doesn’t work. It’s the exact equivalent of saying “Look at the data, LSD does not make you hallucinate, it’s just conjecture. Look at my data and numbers.”

This entire post makes me think there is either an ulterior motive for writing it to try and discredit the obvious impact L-Theanine has on people, or, the write up is simply an irresponsible take on trying to show that one used data to prove something as false which is unequivocally true, at least for some.

Nonetheless, L-Theanine profoundly impacts some people and others it has no effect on. This post should have language that makes it clear that the results are from one single person who has one single experience which is extremely divergent relative to others who have experienced the life changing effects of L-Theanine.

Without such qualifying language this post seems grossly irresponsible and misleads the reader into thinking there is no effect that L-Theanine has.

That’s my interpretation, at least!

The title says "my experiment", it couldn't be any clearer and open it's about a single person's experience.

That’s fair, however the overall gist of the post seems to imply that the numbers data and numbers produced somehow groundbreakingly prove that everyone who has proclaimed it works is wrong and the data and numbers in the post prove that.

Happy to be told I’m wrong, but that’s how I read it.

What makes you think it is trying to gaslight anyone? The post makes it clear that it just not working on the author is a possibility, but also fairly points out that there are other studies with more participants that weren't really promising either. It then suggests that those who do really believe it works on them also replicate a blinded self-experiment, which seems pretty fair to me - because then surely they'd be able to show results, if they're one of the (apparently many many) people whom it works for.

I also think/thought L-Theanine works for me, and since it's not harmful I'll keep taking it, but at this point I accept that it's likely just placebo effect until shown otherwise.

I've tried different L-Theanine supplements, and there's definitely a difference in quality across companies... which could help explain the variance in experiences.

Unfortunately, there isn't much regulation for supplements in general. Some companies do 3rd party purity testing, though it's not always the case.

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

That's a reasonable take but still depends on the trials. E.G. if the blind trial was 20 college age Americans males, and the non-blind trial was 1000 people from various ages and countries, I'd probably lean towards trusting the non-blind trials (unless I happened to be a college age American male).

Or if all the available trials are n<=20, I'll probably lean towards trusting the anecdotes, at least enough to try the supplement for myself.

When it comes to cheap-to-produce supplements, very limited trial data is the norm, unfortunately. There's no money for running large trials.

> I've tried different L-Theanine supplements, and there's definitely a difference in quality across companies...

This could also be explained by placebo effects.

Placebo is such a curious thing. If you can prove to yourself that your effects are placebo-effects, then those effects should disappear, because you no longer believe in them.

So if it's working for you, you probabaly should NOT start a study to find out if it works or not. It might stop working (for you). What good would that do?

Very little if anything is ever proven to be absolutely true in all circumstances. The author did a decent job of controlling variables and blinding so their evidence for a lack of effect is substantially more robust than any number of personal anecdotes claiming an effect.

We’ve known for centuries now that people are absolutely terrible at knowing if medical interventions work beyond placebo unless you use rigorous protocols to remove bias and account for reversion to the mean. Yet it seems the message just doesn’t get through to vast swathes of otherwise intelligent people.

Placebo only works on self perception though. If there are objective markers of disease they don’t tend to respond to placebo effects at all.

I am hoping my level of self-delusion would be strong enough. When I was a kid and wanted to play sick to get out of school, I'd always quickly develop an actual low-grade fever and begin feeling legitimately sick. Even after I noticed the pattern, it still happened.

I'm hoping I can use this power of deception against myself with L-Theanine if I were to run this kind of study (but, maybe fortunately, have no motivation to do so at this point).

> t 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.

You take it for sleep but you sleep less? I think you mean you take it for "fun sleep".

Theanine is excitatory, that is wht it acts like ritalin for you, which is also excitatory. Period. Which is why at higher doses your mind races. Theanine brings me into psychois becasue I am sensitive to glutamate and I have Bipolar Disorder. Drinking tea give me paranoia and the "fun sleep" you have I have every night.

> The post makes it clear that it just not working on the author is a possibility,

This is my hypothesis. I'm very confident it worked for me, but I'm guessing that there's a certain combination of symptoms and traits that it's effective. If it was a placebo for me, it would be literally a miracle: likely the cheapest thing I've tried and had the biggest effect without requiring me to make a habit out of taking it.

When it comes to sleep quality is as important as quantity. Higher quality 6 hours is better than 8 hours of mid sleep.

It may have something to do with what we say to ourselves inside our heads. If we say something to ourselves it is kind of believing. We believe what we think, we believe what we say. We can of course change our thoughts later. Like when you started feeling sick but when there was no more need for the symptoms, you could say "I'm no longer sick at all" :-)