←back to thread

My 16-month theanine self-experiment

(dynomight.net)
817 points dynm | 1 comments | 09 Mar 25 03:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.28s | source
Show context
AequitasOmnibus ◴[09 Mar 25 04:34 UTC] No.43306268[source]▶
From the discussions I've seen about theanine, the real benefit supposedly came when it was taken alongside caffeine. The thinking being that theanine moderated some of the jittery effects of caffeine, allowing the user to take higher doses of caffeine, which itself has some benefit on task concentration and focus.

I wish the author had spent time addressing that theory specifically.

replies(10): >>43306355 #>>43307025 #>>43307163 #>>43307378 #>>43307653 #>>43307867 #>>43307959 #>>43308958 #>>43312274 #>>43312526 #
1. justlikereddit ◴[09 Mar 25 11:01 UTC] No.43307959[source]▶
"The journalist effect" is at play here.

When you're a professional in a field or having deep insight of something, and then a journalist comes by, does a 5 minute write-up or it and misses almost every point of it but have such a cocksure presentation, backed by a big corporate media name, that a hundred year later an urban myth will persist based on the journalists hatchetjob, while ignoring every significant facet that enthusiasts spent lifetimes on refining.(Okay it's a little bit tempered by the length and efforts of the experiment, but for an n=1 monostudy I feel this presents itself with more certainty than it should)

So henceforth in all realms of the web, Theanin will be an inert compound.