[HN Gopher] Self-experiment with L-theanine: effect on sleep and...
___________________________________________________________________
Self-experiment with L-theanine: effect on sleep and cognition
Author : sheefrex
Score : 24 points
Date : 2024-10-07 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (metasophi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (metasophi.com)
| jvans wrote:
| fitbits and similar are fine for measuring awake vs asleep but
| really terrible at breaking up the stages
| taeric wrote:
| I've been curious about this. They all are reporting it,
| nowadays. I'm assuming they have reason to think they are
| getting better at it?
| pintxo wrote:
| I have reason to believe product management wants not to be
| left behind by the competitors, independent of the quality of
| their implementation.
| jvans wrote:
| metrics sell, even when they're not that accurate, and even
| when people know that.
| sheefrex wrote:
| They're not as accurate as polysomnography but there is some
| correlation which should allow these measurements to serve as a
| useful proxy over 100-180 days. See this review for example:
|
| "The findings of this systematic literature review indicate
| that the devices with higher relative agreement and
| sensitivities to multistate sleep (ie, Fitbit Charge 4 and
| WHOOP) seem appropriate for deriving suitable estimates of
| sleep parameters. However, analyses regarding the multistate
| categorization of sleep indicate that all devices can benefit
| from further improvement in the assessment of specific sleep
| stages."
|
| Source: https://mhealth.jmir.org/2024/1/e52192/PDF
| wslh wrote:
| It is great the author highlights that green tea already includes
| L-theanine where it is common to read about buying supplements.
| sheefrex wrote:
| Indeed, but you would really need to drink a lot of green tea
| to get the same amount of L-theanine you would in a supplement:
| "2.5 litres of brewed green tea would be needed to get 200mg of
| L-theanine". Also a question of how much dose you want of
| course...
| wslh wrote:
| And matcha tea?
| sheefrex wrote:
| That has a lot more L-theanine, but even then seems very
| variable so could be the same or way off.
|
| For example, in one study "the final dose of 1 gram of
| Matcha green tea was taken on the testing day and contained
| only 12.4 mg of L- theanine." Source: https://www.ffhdj.com
| /index.php/DietarySupplementsNutraceuti...
|
| Another study: "According to Kaneko et al., the content of
| l-theanine in matcha tea infusions amounts to 6.1 mg/L
| [50], while Unno et al. [9] found as much as 44.65 mg/g of
| that compound in matcha tea samples." Source:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7796401/
|
| I'm not sure, but I guess one would use around 4 grams of
| matcha in a cup? So then at the upper bound you would come
| close to 200mg. But matcha has a lot of caffeine so
| probably not suitable to improve sleep.
| ssebs wrote:
| I've taken L-theanine for anxiety before, and it seems to help.
| I'm not sure if it's a placebo or not, but either way it seems to
| help
| biomcgary wrote:
| Same here. I find that I am less likely to wake up in the
| middle of the night. Based on the post, my guess is that I'm
| less likely to wake up during REM from anxiety.
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| > This study was not blinded so there could be a placebo effect.
|
| Saved you a click.
| sheefrex wrote:
| My view on this is if you don't find any effect or a tiny
| effect (the case here) that is already useful information. For
| most supplements, my bet is that you won't even benefit from a
| placebo effect.
|
| And if you do find an effect, then you should do a more high-
| effort self-blinded test.
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| This seems reasonable to me too -- first test feasibility,
| and then if it's feasible let's go do a more in depth study.
| But still, the feasibility result isn't very interesting to
| external folks like us, and probably shouldn't make the news.
| I think it should _just_ motivate the new study you mention
| andkenneth wrote:
| bold of you to assume I'd ever read an article rather than just
| skimming the comments
| marmight wrote:
| I would have liked to have seen if there was any difference in
| the effects over time. I think it is easy to find something that
| helps with anxiety in the short term, but over enough time
| habituation, tolerance, and dependence can develop to most
| substances.
| sheefrex wrote:
| Yes, you are very right: this is something I will definitely
| add eventually.
| bagful wrote:
| For my biology, L-theanine (200 mg) rounds out caffeine by
| stamping out the anxiety-inducing effect. By itself it just gives
| me a headache sometimes.
| sheefrex wrote:
| Indeed, one of the studies cited supports this view.
| hisnameisjimmy wrote:
| I don't even notice it without caffeine (coffee), but it has
| transformed coffee for me from something I had to be super
| careful with to something that is incredibly enjoyable and
| productivity-inducing without feeling sick and insane.
| mentos wrote:
| I once was sitting at my desk and had this overwhelming calm come
| over me. I was trying to figure out what I had eaten that
| morning/afternoon and then realized the 2-3 'Just Chill' sodas in
| my trash my mom had gotten me contained L-Theanine. Was a pretty
| blind test but I wasn't able to reproduce it effectively with
| L-Theanine supplements I found on amazon.
| sheefrex wrote:
| Very interesting: maybe it could have been something else in
| the sodas? Alternatively, the quality of the amazon supplement
| might not have been great (unless you tried from multiple
| sources)
| huuhee3 wrote:
| I tried an L-theanine supplement for anxiety. It had a notable
| short-term effect, but when I was off it my anxiety significantly
| worsened. Got better once I stopped taking it, so I guess it was
| a dependency kind of thing.
|
| So, I would say that it definitely has an impact. Perhaps it
| would have worked better with a smaller dose.
| oigursh wrote:
| gwern.net has entered the chat
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-07 23:02 UTC)