this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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My more-hardcore theanine self-experiment (dynomight.net)
submitted 1 month ago by dynomight@lemmy.world to c/dynomight@lemmy.world
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[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

thoughts:

  1. I thought theanine helped with jitters, not anxiety? Maybe worth clarifying exactly what theanine is supposed to be doing (and why we think this - who are making the claims and why do we take them seriously in the first place?).
  2. often drugs have a dose-dependent response, and doubling a dose isn't necessarily the best way to guarantee the expected response
  3. humans have lots of natural variation, you can't extrapolate much from an n=1 self-experiment about whether theanine helps or not - we need actual studies with many participants, ideally with quantitative & objective measurements (not just subjective reports)
  4. yeah, supplements are mostly a scam - that checks out
[–] dynomight@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

All fair points!

  1. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure of the difference between stress and anxiety and jitters. For me they're closely related, and I guess I tried to measure some combination of them.

  2. True, more isn't always more. But more does tend to be more, and this is one of the suggestions people made from the first experiment.

  3. I agree. However, I see this in the context of the first post—the scientific literature has tested theanine and found basically nothing! I was originally convinced that the internet was onto something, but now I tend to think the boring scientific literature had it right all along.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 month ago

ah, yes, boring science is right again 😅

Interesting re jitters vs stress vs anxiety - I experience all of those separately (though they obviously can relate). In my experience those symptoms are more dependent on the dose of caffeine I take than anything else (and whether on an empty stomach or a full one).

Re taking 400 mg vs 200 mg, in my mind it's more about building a better experiment - it seems like testing the actual doses at which the drug is being used, rather than designing the experiment to test cases that are less common, is beneficial (at least for understanding the potential effects in the average case).

Not that I necessarily fault taking a larger dose, that could glean useful information too.

Anyway - I enjoy this kind of experimentation, thanks for sharing your results!