My 16-month theanine self-experiment
352 comments
·March 9, 2025mg
matthewdgreen
This is an N=1 trial. Dressing your N=1 trial up with lots of pseudo controls and pseudo blinding and data collection does not make it better. In fact: putting this much effort into any medication trial makes it much more likely that you’re going to be incentivized to find effects that don’t exist. I think it’s nice that the author admits that they found nothing, but statistically, worthless drugs show effects in much better-designed trials than this one: it’s basically a coin toss.
robwwilliams
Complete injustice to this lovely study. Why do you say unblinded? Why do you insult a time series study as “dressing up with lots of data”? Would you rather see less data? Or are you volunteering to be test subject #2? Show us how to do it right Dr. M.!
In my opinion this is an exemplary N=1 study that is well designed and thoughtfully executed. Deserve accolades, not derision. And the author even recognizes possible improvements.
Unlike most large high N clinical trials this is a high resolution longitudinal trial, and it is perfectly “controlled” for genetic difference (none), well controlled for environment, and there is only one evaluator.
Compare this to the messy and mostly useless massive studies of human depression reviewed by Jonathan Flint.
grafmax
I think social media discussions of science would be better informed by the concept of a ‘hierarchy of evidence’.
Anecdotal data, n=1 trials of varying quality, correlations studies, double blind studies (with small and large cohorts), studies without attempted replication and studies with heavy replication - they are all provide evidence of varying quality and can inform the holistic scientific picture. They can all serve a purpose such as inspiring further research, providing fodder for meta analyses, etc. It simply isn’t true that gathered evidence ought to be casually discarded if it doesn’t attain the highest levels of the hierarchy of evidence. Neither is it true that some small study showing (or not showing) some supposed effect should drastically change all our lifestyle habits. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. The concept of a hierarchy of evidence can help us navigate these apparently mixed signals so prevalent in popular science discussions.
jrootabega
If he said unblinded at some point, it could have been because the study author looked into the cup to determine which substance had been taken too soon. The subject should have had no knowledge of what was taken until the entire 16-month trial was over.
We should avoid extreme polarization of our judgments in general. The study deserves some amount of praise for things it did somewhat well (like the method of blinding which is clever, but not applicable to everyone), and criticism for things it did not do well, such as designing your own study methodology for your own mood. That alone will affect the results. Simply RUNNING an experiment can affect your mood because it's interesting (or even maybe frustrating). The subject probably felt pride and satisfaction whenever they used their pill selection technique, which could improve mood on its own. Neither accolades nor complete derision are appropriate, although trying to claim too strong a result from this study is kinda deserving of derision if you claim to be science-minded.
The study was well-meaning and displayed cleverness.
levocardia
Because....
>While I was blinded during each trial, I saw the theanine/D result when I wrote it down. Over time I couldn’t help but notice that my stress dropped even when I took vitamin D, and that I was terrible at predicting what I’d taken
That is not blinding
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brothrock
N=1 is addressed, see outcome predictions. N=1 comes with caveats, of course, but a study like this, with a proven harmless supplement, should be welcomed and praised.
It is clearly a step forward from what you can watch about theanine on YouTube or TikTok. I consider this a work of citizen science. While it should not be taken for more than it is, it’s a great example of how someone can experiment without a high burden.
matthewdgreen
N=1 studies aren’t evil. They’re just pretty close to the entire history of pre-modern medicine that led us to bad evidence. My concern here is not that someone is sharing their opinions, it’s the fact that the person doing this explicitly heaps derision on the “placebo people” (or some other phrasing) and then heaps praise on other people doing N=1 studies and proceeds to do one. This stuff all needs to be treated with humor, good faith, and then extreme skepticism about any result it produces.
ryandrake
That's a pretty low bar though. OK, it's one step up from a monetized YouTube video that boils down to "It works--Trust me, bro." I still wouldn't really call it citizen science.
derlvative
Noooooo you can’t just run independent experiments you need institutions and phds and bureaucracy and gold plating nooooo
CamperBob2
These smug pilots have lost touch with the down-to-earth lives and concerns of ordinary passengers like us. Let's see a show of hands: who thinks I should fly the plane?
smohare
[dead]
jrootabega
Hell, I'd say it's an 0<=N<1 because it involves subjective mood reporting, and there was no participant who was not contaminated by flaws in the methodology.
altcognito
Why do you say pseudo blinding, it seems like it is blind in that the author doesn’t know if he is taking the test or not.
Now you can argue that there isn’t enough time between samples, or he needs more subjects but he was blind to whether he was taking it that day or not.
jrootabega
If the author felt good on a particular day for whatever reason, and then learned they had taken the active substance, their reports are contaminated forever. It works the other way, too. It works any way you slice it.
tomrod
Aye. Completely agree. Path dependence matters, which is why you can't just look at pre/post action.
wslh
In science, an n=1 experiment isn’t discarded; instead, it adds information that can guide future experiments.
K0balt
Citizens science used to be much more common and there were several publications initially built around the concept. Unfortunately, the idea has all but been obliterated by inadequate public education and the chronic lack of time that now embattles the middle classes.
luqtas
fortunately* citzen science was replaced by solid methods... this is a long fancy self reported post on a metric that is easily figured out by biomarkers (stress levels). what's the consequences if the author decided to make some claim about a substance?
luqtas
couldn't edit but here it's how science measure stress: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8434839/
kqr
> So what does it mean? What was the goal of collecting the data? What would the interpretation have been if the data would show a significant positive effect of Theanine?
I think what the author is saying is that for them to bother with theanine on a permanent basis, it would have to have shown an effect large enough to be apparent just from plotting.
In other words, they mean technical significance as opposed to clinical significance. A small effect can be statistically verifiable without being meaningful in practice.
mg
an effect large enough to be
apparent just from plotting
But before we take the measured effects at face value, I think it's important think about them more. They report significant p values of their success in predicting if the capsule holds Theanine and also for the effect of the capsule when it holds Theanine. Both negative correlations. My first thought reading this is that the Placebo tasted more like Theanine and thinking they took Theanine had a positive effect on the outcome.
jvanderbot
Really fantastic.
I've been using theanine for a long time, but never for any of these purported benefits. And the benefits I do use it for would be near impossible to measure. I just use it to make a over-caffinated monkey brain state tend toward a "lock-in" mental state. That's super hard to measure, and just as likely the theanine is a trigger for a mental deep dive that could just as well be sugar. But the ritual works, and that's what's important to me. It just took the intial "It helps mellow out caffeine for deep focus" idea to establish the ritual.
Science? No. Effective? Yeah, I think so.
quijoteuniv
I think is great that folk self observe, and that is a key to a lot, everyone ought to find what works for themselves, however there is a tendency to want to fix things with pills. There is a fundamental error there, if successful you might damp your symptoms but then you start a Whac-A-Mole (whac-a-symptom) but you are not looking at the root. The problem will come in another form. Have you consider that the symptom is a defence mechanism ?What about Taichi, mindfulness ness practices, yoga why not a study on that? It is definitely more work… than taking some pills. No I am not against taking supplements. But ultimately is a workaround you are not fixing the bug
BolexNOLA
I’m not sure if this is your intention, but I take issue with the implication that “pills” (aka “medication” and “medicine,” “pills” has a generally negative connotation) aren’t often the solution to the root problem.
It is great if you can solve things with diet, mindfulness, etc. But sometimes you need medical intervention and yes sometimes that means you need to take medication in the form of pills. There are millions of people who need that regardless of how they change their lifestyle or regulate their emotions/mental health without them.
Basically I don’t like the idea that you are implying medication is a bandaid and not ever the actual solution. If I misreading your comment my apologies
quijoteuniv
This is good point, thank you, lot of people needs medicine, and i am glad they are accesible. My point goes more towards this: Imagine someone runs a marathon everyday, after a couple of months, start experiencing pain and inflammation. Do they need painkillers or do they need to ask themselves why they are running a marathon everyday? I am not against taking some painkillers as long as you also ask yourself the question. Do i really need to run a marathon everyday? I do not want to cure disease with yoga, no, but you should give it a go, whatever works for you, self observe, train a bit, walk in the forest, surf, meditate. Wellbeing cannot be achieved only with medicine.
Jerrrrrry
The strawman sentiment of "no medication ever" is a pretty easy take to herald against.
The nuanced truth is that our medical industry is flawed; since most illnesses are defined by their set of apparent symptoms (with most root causes not fully understood) the standard approach is to treat "symptoms" with medicines with sides effects rivaling the original ailment!
What if the lack of proper diet ('proper' varies wildly with populations), drugs/alcohol, sleep, stress, and exercise were the originating cause? Rushing to the medication treatment without fixing those vitals first eliminates the opportunity.
Our bodies have much more adaptive self-healing resilience properties innate to our species development than our own species hubris seems to acknowledge. And most people severely underestimate the importance big four.
robwwilliams
“Technically” here could imply “not corrected for multiple tests”. But the typical qualifier I use is “nominally significant” when I don’t apply an correction for multiple tests.
Or “not using a one-way t test”.
The most appropriate null hypothesis in this lovely study is “does theanine REDUCE anxiety”, not “does theanine change anxiety either up or down”.
What impressed me most is the suggestion for an improved experimental design to remove his temporal drift by using 100 pre-loaded envelopes and only decoding the results at the end.
azalemeth
> The most appropriate null hypothesis in this lovely study is “does theanine REDUCE anxiety”, not “does theanine change anxiety either up or down”.
I disagree with this. You have a prior belief that theanine might reduce anxiety; if you wanted to you could codify that subjective belief and perform some variety of Bayesian hypothesis test [1] and compute a Bayes factor. The main reason that one-sided tests are advocated for is power; that is often the same as having a prior belief in disguise. Why not quantify it?
However, scientifically, if the data conclusively show that "theanine increases anxiety" that is a meaningful, non-artefactual result: it is hugely important to be sensitive to the answer 'you are wrong' and may well ironically spur development in a direction to help understand what is going on. I personally think that one sided tests are best avoided except in the case where it is physically impossible to have an effect in the other direction. Examples of this are rare, but they do occasionally exist.
[1] https://mspeekenbrink.github.io/sdam-book/ch-Bayes-factors.h...
robwwilliams
Sure. I can see your point, but the most reasonable posterior probability of the null given the biohacker community’s belief is one-tailed. This also gives more power to reject the null.
ac29
> The most appropriate null hypothesis in this lovely study is “does theanine REDUCE anxiety”, not “does theanine change anxiety either up or down”.
Neither of those is a hypothesis, which require a prediction not just a question.
The null hypothesis for this experiment would be "Theanine has no effect on stress".
kortilla
Well the issue is that an experiment with 1 person can’t prove much because you can’t have a control group.
Too much other stuff is changing in a single persons life that could account for all observed side effects.
You also have latent side effect issues. A person could smoke for 10 years, not smoke for another 10, and then conclude that smoking doesn’t cause cancer. Then they get lung cancer 20 years later.
Excellent data and statistics is not sufficient for a good experiment
mg
An experiment of 1 person can very well produce useful data.
It depends on the setup of the experiment.
Imagine an experiment where a person's thumb gets randomly hit with either a hammer or a feather once per day. And they then subjectively rate the experience. After 1000 days of collecting data, I doubt that we would wrongly come to the conclusion that the hammer treatment leads to the nicer outcome.
The setup of the Theanine experiment which is the basis of this thread looks good on first sight. I have the feeling that the interpretation could use more thought though.
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chkgk
A problem I see is that you can never be sure that it also works for other people. Just because one person reacts to a specific treatment does not mean that people on average react to the treatment in the same way. That’s the problem of having a sample size of 1. In other words: We cannot say much about whether the effect generalizes to a larger population from knowing that it has an affect on just one person.
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pbhjpbhj
Then you find {imagining scenarios} that the bruising causes some effect that 'inoculates' against heart disease, or the feather carries a pathogen that later induces dementia??
VerdisQuo5678
i hope your 1 person isn't a masochist
chiefalchemist
Yes and no. The issue with a self-administered experiment is that becomes part of the experiment. Does the self-administration and the associated thoughts and beliefs affect the results? It’s not like the experimentor can issue a placebo to themselves.
tomalbrc
What a weird take, in 99.999% of cases you don’t have such a black/white contrast
Zak
The experiment answers a useful question: does theanine have a strong, acute anti-stress effect on the experimenter?
Effect size is the key element of this question. If the substance was alprazolam (Xanax) instead of theanine, we would almost certainly see a strong effect here. The same would be true for heroin, ethanol, or cocaine.
It's not trying to test whether there might be a strong effect for most people or whether there are any side effects. Other experiments have been done with theanine seeking to answer those questions; the answers appear to be no and no.
stevage
They were looking for a clear effect. they did not find one.
grvbck
While this may not be a perfectly executed study, the "N=1 trial" part is not the problem.
There have been numerous medical and scientific studies with N=1, known as N-of-1 trials. These trials are very useful in chronic conditions where symptoms are stable and measurable, allowing for multiple crossover periods to assess treatment effects accurately.
Also…don't forget all the medical discoveries based on self-experimentation:
Werner Forssmann performed the first heart catheterization on himself. He got the Nobel prize.
Barry Marshal injected himself with heliobacter pylori to prove that it causes stomach ulcers. Also got the Nobel prize.
Jessie Lazear allowed himself to be bitten by mosquitoes infected with yellow fever to prove his hypothesis that mosquitoes were the vector for transmission. No Nobel prize, but he did contract the disease, thus proving his hypothesis…before dying from yellow fever two weeks later.
me-vs-cat
Nobel candidates cannot be deceased.
grumpy-de-sre
For anyone looking for a sleep supplement, before you go down the rabbit hole of Theanine, Mg, etc. Try an OTC Azelastine or Fluticasone nasal spray for a month.
Turns out my chronic poor quality, restless sleep was a dust mite allergy that I should have figured out and treated a decade ago. Would wake up with a stuffy nose and very dry mouth but didn't have too many issues during the day. I was allergic to my bed.
Been using antihistamines, and a dehumidifier for several months now and sleeping better than I have in years. Given how extremely common mite allergies are there's got to be a lot of folks with undiagnosed issues here.
wenc
You should consider a dust mite vacuum with UV. I bought one on Amazon (this one but you can check YouTube reviews for others).
https://www.amazon.com/JIGOO-Vacuum-Cleaner-Dust-Sensor/dp/B...
I was surprised how much dust this thing picked up (my sheets get washed often, but it’s hard to clean the mattress itself). Back in the day people used to sun dry their mattresses but no one does that these days.
This dust mite vacuum picked up half a canister of gunk from my dead skin and environmental dust that has accumulated over the years (and it has a light scattering sensor that tells you how much dust is being sucked up). My nose was clear after sleeping on a vacuumed bed. I now vacuum my bed once a week, and it has really helped.
Vacuuming your bed and other fabric surfaces also feels therapeutic. For me, it’s like watching one of those powerwashing videos. You feel cleansed after.
seabass-labrax
Vacuuming one's bed makes complete sense to me, but what is special about the model you linked to that makes it specifically a 'mattress' vacuum cleaner? Many canister vacuum cleaners are more powerful and can be used elsewhere in the home too (with a different attachment for hygiene, of course). There's the UV light, but I can't see how this is effective when used only for short periods of time. The dust won't be removed with it and the mites will withstand it too.
Not wanting to make you feel bad about your purchase, but is there something unique about this kind of device that gives it an edge over conventional vacuum cleaners?
wenc
You can use a conventional vacuum if it has enough suction (most of these dust mite vacuums are rated at 13 kPa, a sweet spot for extraction without damaging fabric), and if you don’t mind using the same vacuum attachment on other surfaces. These also have rotating polyurethane fins that go close to the surface which helps in agitation — most vacuum attachments have plastic brushes which I suppose will do the job but possibly slightly less effectively.
It’s not a mattress vacuum so much as a dust mite vacuum that can be used on couches, fabric chairs etc. It’s also handheld and is specialized for the job, so it’s more ergonomic to hold.
The UV I can’t really vouch for but can’t hurt. I personally would not run a conventional vacuum on my mattress because I use the same vacuum on less hygienic surfaces, but if you have a dedicated attachment why not — I feel it would be less effective (because in my experience, the suction is often diminished when you use an attachment) but have no data. If you have a high end vacuum this is less of a factor, but most low end vacuums like Hoovers aren’t designed to deliver full suction with attachments.
I’m happy with my purchase because I feel that given it’s small size, I’m more likely to vacuum more frequently. I’m less likely to want to bust out the big vacuum.
chiefalchemist
I jumped on the idea but then immediately came to the same conclusion. Now I’m thinking I stick with the vac(s) I have, but get a separate UV. And UV the bed while I’m working. Maybe?
Your thoughts?
grumpy-de-sre
Got to say after figuring this out I am tempted to ditch the western style mattress and replace it with something like a Japanese futon. I assume it'd be much easier to wash.
In the meantime I need to purchase a mattress encasement, I put one on my pillow and that alone helped a bunch.
Long term maybe desensitization is an option but I'm too lazy for that atm.
MaKey
I did a desensitization and it helped a little bit. Despite the regular washing and using a dust mite vacuum I'm still having a hard time getting good sleep though. At least my nose isn't bloody in the morning anymore, so I guess that's something.
cassepipe
It's just a vacuum with an HEPA filter, correct ?
I had the same experience, it just occurred to me that I could vaccum the mattress with the for-textile head and was really surprised with the amount of dust and its texture (transparent dust holder is satisfying hehe)
strontian
nice! I recently got dust mites out of my home completely, and it was a miraculous upgrade to my health, including several symptoms that are outside the definitions of allergic asthma/eczema/rhinitis.
One important thing people are missing about dust mite allergy is the many ways in which they directly damage your immune system and body, outside of the usual frame of "allergies" which is based on type 2 hypersensitivity.
This article is a great introduction to the harms they cause at the molecular level: https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(18)30848-0/ful...
I also wrote a free guide to help people get dust mites out of their house:
ovalanche
I’m really glad to see this side discussion on dust mite allergy happening here. I’ve had dust mite allergy since childhood, and I even had adenoid removal surgery at age ~7 to address it. Nothing seems to help.
I think dust mite allergy imitates some of the symptoms of sleep apnea, because your nasal passage gets blocked at night, waking you in a similar way to choking.
I’ve reached my mid-30s, largely ignoring the symptoms, but over the past few months I’ve been experiencing a truly terrible bout of insomnia.
I think it’s time to take the allergy seriously again. I’ll follow your guide and make some changes. If I could suggest an improvement to your guide: it may be useful to have a section (perhaps chapter 5?) on symptom relief. I’ve had friends say that a neti pot works wonders, for example.
Either way thanks for posting!
grumpy-de-sre
There's an interesting "subcategory" of sleep apnea under the moniker of UARS. I'm pretty confident that a big chunk of folks in that community actually have allergenic rhinitis (or structural issues).
I actually had a home sleep study done before I figured out it was allergies. Came back negative for OSA but my RIP [1] band data showed a lot of paradoxical breathing and flow limitation indicating significant respiratory effort. So more or less struggling to breathe all night long.
The poor sleep quality really destroys your quality of life.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_inductance_plethys...
yard2010
I have to write this here it might help someone: I had the worst case of mite allergy since childhood - no smells let alone no breathing from my nose. 5 years ago I started immunotherapy - my good dr basically injected me with the allergen every week for 1-2 years. After that, I got a monthly injection with the max dosage for like a year. I haven't had this allergy ever since. I can smell again and breathe from my nose. My dr has healed this awful disease.
Modern medicine sometimes works like magic. If you have this disease know that you don't have to suffer this bs. Try to fix it with the help of your dr.
Aurornis
> Would wake up with a stuffy nose and very dry mouth
I would suggest people look for this symptom first before jumping onto nasal corticosteroids.
Fluticasone and others have low systemic absorption and low side effects in theory, but there are several studies that found some suppression of the HPA axis similar to taking small doses of oral corticosteroids like prednisone. The effect is small, but I wouldn’t suggest trying it out as a 1-month experiment unless you have specific symptoms of stuffy nose in the mornings.
hammock
“Before trying a basic mineral with no side effects, try a corticosteroid for a whole month”
??? You have that backwards.
riedel
Antihistamines could even work without any allergy since they are typically used as mild sleeping aids. They are also used often off-label for stress reduction. [0]
[0] https://fherehab.com/learning/surprising-antihistamine-anxie...
amelius
> Prolonged use can lead to increased tolerance, reduced effectiveness, and potential side effects.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/should-i-worry-...
> Theoretically, these drugs might increase the risk of dementia by blocking a particular brain neurotransmitter or increasing brain inflammation. In the past decade, several studies have suggested that these pills might increase the risk of dementia, while other studies have found no risk. And all the studies are inherently flawed.
grumpy-de-sre
Only Anticholinergic drugs appear to be associated dementia (but as noted the evidence is very weak).
Older first generation antihistamines such as Diphenhydramine (Benadryl), Doxylamine (Nyquil) have substantial Anticholinergic activity.
A lot of the second generation antihistamines have no significant Anticholinergic activity, eg. Azelastine.
Benadryl and Nyquil are terrible drugs. Why they haven't been phased out is beyond me. At least Azelastine is now OTC in the USA.
grumpy-de-sre
I find the steroids even more effective but they seem to exacerbate my anxiety after a few days though. Still haven't figured that out.
With regular use antihistamines quite quickly lose their drowsiness effects. But it's definitely a nice side effect for sleeping challenged folks. Azelastine is a second generation antihistamine so not particularly drowsiness inducing.
One of the interesting Azelastine quirks, is it's apparently somewhat antiviral [1].
piombisallow
Cortisone is the main stress hormone, of course it makes you anxious
vharish
Wouldn't changing the matress help? Also, if you using a pillow, consider keep them under the sun every few days. You can even keep the matress under the sun, maybe on the terrace if you have access to it. Pillows can also be washed as well.
Telling you from my own experience. It could work for you if you haven't tried already.
grumpy-de-sre
There's sweet FA sun for six months out of the year here in central europe so not a viable option.
IlPeach
Thanks, but I'm still missing how I would properly diagnose myself. These symptoms might be all too common ... Anything more reliable?
grumpy-de-sre
You can always go to an allergist for a skin prick test.
I'd say hallmark symptom would be chronic night time congestion worsening while in bed (an area of the house that has a very high density of mite allergen).
But running a bit of differential diagnosis on this,
* Inflammatory & Allergic Conditions (allergic/non-allergic rhinitis, chronic rhinosinusitis, turbinate hypertrophy, nasal polyps).
* Obstructive Sleep Apnea (do a STOP-BANG).
* Structural Blockages & Airway Obstructions (deviated septum, adenoid/tonsil hypertrophy, nasal valve collapse, turbinate hypertrophy).
* Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD/LPR).
collin128
An allergy clinic can run these tests for you.
Been doing immunotherapy for allergies for 3 years and it is a complete game changer. Last year was the first year I could breathe through my nose for the entire year. No more stuffy months.
FollowingTheDao
I have asthma triggered by Volatile Organic Compounds. I good activated charcoal room air filter did wonders for me.
cassepipe
Incidentally, the author made an (counter-)review of air purifiers : https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/
I got the IKEA purifier with the activated charcoal filter after reading that
grumpy-de-sre
Indoor air quality these days is particularly awful.
Was reading that house dust is actually a major source of microplastics aswell.
AequitasOmnibus
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.
MichaelDickens
The author had caffeine "90% of the time", see this comment: https://dynomight.substack.com/p/theanine/comment/98488776
satvikpendem
Correct, this is why tea and especially ground tea leaves like matcha induce the feeling of focus for longer, they already naturally have higher levels of L-theanine with caffeine.
disqard
While reading, I was wondering about matcha, and then I saw your comment -- which jives with my personal experience too! Thanks for chiming in :)
FollowingTheDao
The theanine stimulates the NMDA receptors so it is possible that the glutamate you get from the Caffiene is not enough to stimulate your NMDA receptor. It might be that you are a fast metabolizer of Caffeine.
Jolter
The author was apparently not interested in that hypothesis. Why don’t you do a little self-experiment, now that a method has been laid out?
(Personally, I think the existing literature by itself should be more than enough to convince anyone that orally taken theanine most likely has no effect. The reason more scientists don’t explore theanine is probably because they don’t think it’s likely to produce an interesting result.)
twalla
I enjoy caffeine but also take some medications that exacerbate the feelings of irritability/jitteriness when combined with caffeine - anecdotally, extended release theanine taken with my coffee alleviates it.
Kiro
I don't understand what people refer to when they say "jittery effects". I don't feel anything when taking caffeine, no matter the dose. Or I want to think it helps me wake up but the effect is so small that I can't be sure. It's basically just a ritual for me.
cardanome
Do you have ADHD?
Most neurotypical people seem to experience jittery effects and being extremely alert while for people with ADHD it can actually make them sleepy.
Of course everyone's brain is different, it is just a correlation with many exceptions. So yeah, caffeine works differently on different people.
Personally, as someone with ADHD, I have a crazy caffeine tolerance. It helps me somewhat with focus but I don't get jittery.
not_a_bot_4sho
I do.
I think there's another dimension of temporal tolerance to consider.
There have been times in my life where I consumed a lot of caffeine, and it brought on the paradoxical sleepy effect.
And other times where I tried to eliminate caffeine, and a fallen-off-the-wagon strong dose gets me jittery, but acclimation happens in 24-48 hours.
kubb
Im on the other side of the spectrum. With a small dose of caffeine I get really wired, my blood pressure rises, my head hurts, I feel stressed, anxious and I can’t sleep at night even if the coffee was in the morning. With matcha it’s a similar effect but it’s less anxiety and more headache.
tiborsaas
I got my teeth whitened and I was forbidden to drink coffee for a week or so. I thought the same that coffee was just a ritual for me, but apparently I got really weird (moody, annoyed easily) when going cold turkey, so I had to go to the pharmacy and buy caffeine tablets :) That settled it for me, that coffee does have and effect on me despite not feeling these "jittery effects" as well.
dwaltrip
Part of that is probably withdrawal, I would think.
drilbo
experiencing withdrawal symptoms seems to me quite different than regular use having a positive benefit
cassepipe
My feeling is it either does nothing at a low does but does make me feel anxious when drinking, an uneasy feeling in my chest.
I don't have that problem with energy drinks (even it is the caffeine equivalent of something like 8 espressos) and tea (hasn't happened ever and I drink a lot of tea)
maccard
have you tried a pre-workout style dose (it’s about 8-10 coffees in one)? The first time should give you a pretty good idea of what the “jittery” feeling is.
Novosell
I googled some pre-workout and it seems to be about 200mg of caffeine, same as a can of Monster. I've drank 2 cans of Monster back-to-back a few times in my life and still not felt jittery.
I largely share experience with Kiro, I don't feel like caffeine makes me perk up at all really. I just drink Monster cause I love the flavor of some of them.
ctrlp
This has been my experience with it as well. It appears to regulate the spike of caffeine from coffee. I recall reading it had to do with an enzyme that helped the body process caffeine so it attentuates the effect of the stimulant. Whether that's true, I often take one with coffee. I've also experienced similar effects chasing my morning coffee with green tea.
herbst
It's not only the jittery but caffeine also tends to make people more anxiety, l-theanine mostly takes that away.
mattmaroon
That one's been tested. It's why it is in a lot of energy drinks. The stuff isn't cheap, you wouldn't add it for no or unsure benefit.
pazimzadeh
> I’ve long found that tea makes me much less nervous than coffee, even with equal caffeine. Many people have suggested theanine as the explanation, but I’m skeptical. Most tea only has ~5 mg of theanine per cup, while when people supplement, they take 100-400 mg. Apparently grassy shade-grown Japanese teas are particularly high in theanine. And I do find those teas particularly calming. But they still only manage ~25 mg per cup
It's not uncommon for a substance to have different, even opposite effects at different doses. For example high dose melatonin can keep you up, and stress you out, whereas in most people you only need up to 1 mg to promote sleep.
JackMorgan
About ten years ago both my wife and I had to switch to extremely low caffeine coffee because we would get panic attacks. It still happens now, just this week we were accidentally served caffeinated coffee at breakfast diner and both were having panic attacks by 4pm.
It's absolutely wild that I can drink a mug of a beverage that everyone else drinks by the liter but be crippled with anxiety. Brain chemistry is weird.
calmoo
Do you not think it’s interesting that if affects both of you the same way, as far as to cause panic attacks in both of you? For an individual I could just about accept that it’s just how you react to caffeine, but the fact both you and your partner have the same result suggests some sort of influence on each other?
kqr
Assortative mating. Partners' genetics are not independent.
FollowingTheDao
I am the same way. I cannot even eat chocolate before bed or I am up all night.
I have Bipolar Disorder with an Anxiety Disorder and drinking coffee triggers a lot of paranoid manic thoughts as well.
But Tea is even worse for me, because, I think, of the theanine. I think I am very sesitive to Glutamate and really glad the blogger talks about it. It is one of the most under utilized neurotransmitters in psychiatry.
Also, cutting out foods with some certain additives helped me as well. Like isolated pea protein, autolyzed yeast extract, and malted barley flour to name a few. Theyare all flavor enhancers that contain glutamate.
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ibaikov
I read a study about athletes given either a strong coffee, placebo, or a caffeine in capsule form. The study suggested that even if coffee had less caffeine than athletes got directly in a capsule (and measured in their blood) strong coffee boosted their performance more. This suggests that we might be getting a boost from sensing strong flavor by our receptors. Not sure how else to interpret it, but I really wish there would be more studies on this.
mgfist
Anecdotally I feel way more productive while I'm sipping coffee than I am once I've finished my cup. This is true even after my first sips.
I think we humans just really really like ritualistic practices.
x86x87
there is more in coffee than caffeine? maybe another substance?
dylan604
I would also look at other ingredients in teas as a knock on effect vs straight supplement extracts. Sometimes the extract as a supplement isn’t the same once separated from the rest of the plant it’s found.
vanderZwan
One proven property of tea (especially green tea prepared at a slightly lower temperature) is that it increases arterial flexibility. Contrast that with coffee, which increases blood pressure. I wouldn't be surprised if the effects on the cardiovascular system plays a large role in the calming effect of teas, and the anxiety-increasing effect of coffee.
Which leads to my other point: these experiments always focus so much on the brain without taking into account that the state of the body has a profound impact on the brain too.
cluckindan
How about other ingredients in coffee?
IggleSniggle
One obvious one to consider is the diterpenes in filtered vs unfiltered brewing methods. Filtered methods will remove most of these. Diterpenes will help reduce inflammation and may enhance the flavor of the coffee for some, but the ones in coffee are unfortunately also linked to increased LDL (bad cholesterol), so as a drug choice, there's not a clear winner in whether filtered or unfiltered coffee (as in French press, for example), will result in a better black coffee.
From my own anecdotal experience, lower inflammation has a wide variety of cognitive benefits, regardless of the means, while things that increase my inflammatory response (for example, allergies), make it much harder to think clearly.
Side notes: I don't drink milk so can't speak to the lipids that might further influence intake. But even the heat of coffee will have an effect: if it's scalding hot, some of the caffeine will be absorbed in the mouth, and if it's very cold, it'll wind its way further through your system before being absorbed.
I'm just a coffee drinker, so take all of this information with a grain of salt, unless your sodium is too high? Caveat emptor
kerkeslager
That's certainly an interesting thing I wish we knew more about. My qualitative experience is that coffee gives me more anxiety than any other form of caffeine I've tried, including ones that don't contain L-theanine.
iamflimflam1
Coffee and tea are very interesting. I can drink caffeinated tea without any issues. But for some reason caffeinated coffee will trigger an acne break out several days later. It took a long time for me to connect this link.
quintushoratius
Are you sure it's the caffeine and not another substance in coffee?
TimByte
That's a great point. Dose-response relationships can be really weird
steve_adams_86
I have a strange relationship with psilocybin where microdoses reliably give me an almost unbearable headache, but a large dose will reliably get rid of a headache (even a migraine in one case).
I haven’t tested it in many years (boring parent mode engaged) but that was my first experience with bizarre dose response relationships where one effect was very acutely inverted.
It took me months to figure out the source of headaches. I felt certain it couldn’t be the psilocybin because it was so good at fixing my headaches prior to that. Sure enough, I could turn the headaches on and off like a switch by taking a tiny dose or not taking it.
scotty79
This reminds me of hydrogen sulfide that at low levels smells awful but at little higher doesn't smell at all, because it just fries receptors.
ajb
That's true, but melatonin is probably not a very representative example, (unless you're only talking about sleep) as its mechanism is really idiosyncratic.
It seems (from [1]) that the body has a day-clock which is synchronised to the actual day by the release of melatonin. Taking melatonin (at the right time) reinforces the signal; taking too much swamps it completely. It seems unlikely that many other body chemicals are part of the signal chain of a biological PLL (phase-locked loop).
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/07/10/melatonin-much-more-th...
davidanekstein
If anyone is interested in running their own self guided experiments, I made an app for this called Reflect [1]. You can run self guided experiments for anything you can model as a metric in the app. We got in the top 3 on ProductHunt not too long ago [2], and I just wrote about an experiment I did with nootropic coffee [3].
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id64638...
[2] https://www.producthunt.com/products/reflect-c052fea3-a982-4...
[3] https://open.substack.com/pub/reflectapp/p/my-experience-wit...
hombre_fatal
Does your app make you randomize the when you do the intervention you’re tracking?
If not then almost everything you track is just a proxy for something else like how someone might only take melatonin on nights they knew they were going to sleep badly, or read in bed on nights they were already feeling good, not stressed.
Or they only take their meme supplements on days they aren’t stressed out by other things in life that make you neglect yourself, so the meme pills always correlate with good things.
It’s a major problem with Whoop’s insights feature. It needs a way to make you coin flip an intervention to be useful.
davidanekstein
Yes, you can choose a random intervention schedule and also ABAB schedules with configurable number of phases and phase length.
Reflect integrates with Whoop and so can act as an augmented or relacement Whoop diary feature.
Aaronmacaron
This sounds exactly like what I want! Alas, no Android app it seems, anyone aware of apps that do the same and are available for web or Android?
davidanekstein
What is the feature set you're looking for? There are symptom-specific apps and track anything apps, but I'm unaware of any that combines both into a generic solution. We have a roadmap item to implement things on Android. https://changemap.co/ntl/reflect/task/9239-android-version-o...
bbstats
Android app?
davidanekstein
Android is on the roadmap, but we haven't started yet. Please comment on and upvote the issue!
https://changemap.co/ntl/reflect/task/9239-android-version-o...
jaggederest
This is actually a thing I wish existed, but I don't have time and energy to make it right now. I'd pay $25 a month or more.
Basically it's an application that lets you do self-experiments like this, properly blinded and with good statistics. A challenge-dechallenge-rechallenge study is one of the ones I like, but if you want to do one you essentially have to design the study anew each time, and it would be convenient to run multiple at once if that's possible.
I'm not interested in generalizing, I just want to know if (for example) taking Vitamin D every day at 1000 iu is enough, or whether I should be taking more or less. I can get labs done on this, of course, but again I'm more interested in subjective wellbeing than blood levels beyond avoiding deficiency or hypervitaminosis.
Maybe such an app exists and I simply don't know about it.
davidanekstein
I made this, it’s a lot less than $25/mo. Happy to take suggestions. It’s called Reflect.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id64638...
dmix
While not exactly the same https://examine.com/ is doing this sort business and seems to be popular. They aggregate and meta analyze research for pills like L-Theanine and people pay $30/month to access it
https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/?show_conditions=tr...
npunt
I've been thinking the same thing! The app should have protocol templates for whatever intervention I'm testing, what outcomes I should track, and what confounds might be. And if it isn't part of the templates, help me develop the protocol, including being able to set what level of confidence I want. It should tell me what actions I should take to improve confidence (e.g. bloodwork). It should hide the results from me until the overall intervention is complete.
All the other health apps and tracking systems I've seen are operating at one level of abstraction too low (just the data itself and its direct insights), or try to find patterns from p-hacking passive signals (it looks like when you work out you sleep better, did you know your HRV is 1.1 higher when you do [unrelated thing]). There's no buy-in or sense of direction in these products, no pushing me to do more to acquire data, no laser focus on a targeted test / intervention.
davidanekstein
I made an app for this called Reflect [1]. There aren’t templates yet but you can run self guided experiments for anything you can model as a metric in the app. I just wrote about an experiment I did with nootropic coffee [2]. I think you have a point about sense of direction and premade templates being targeted and useful. Reflect is very much generic and untargeted.
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id64638...
[2] https://open.substack.com/pub/reflectapp/p/my-experience-wit...
walthamstow
I think this is an awesome idea. You get two boxes of daily pills labelled A and B, you take A for a month then take B for a month, and log your feelings throughout. At the end the service reveals which month was Vit D (or whatever) and which wasn't.
I guess you could get your partner or a friend or family member to do it for you?
mathgeek
While this is a wonderful idea in theory, a key reason it's often not used for experiments is that there are just too many variables to control for (including, for example, the ongoing effects of spending a month wondering if you're taking something that's affecting you... which affects you in and of itself).
walthamstow
I agree it's not perfect, you're right to cite the Hawthorne effect. The vitamin D one for example would be affected by weather and seasonality. But I still think it would be really cool and a good product.
amelius
Yeah, even watching the news can make your stress levels go up.
akoboldfrying
Don't those effects cancel with the effects on those participants who take the same 2 treatments but in the reverse order?
1penny42cents
I’m actually working on this now, starting with sleep quality and cognitive performance (memory/attention/fluency) as dependent variables.
The vision is to have an index of protocols that people can try for themselves and see whether and how broader claims apply to their own minds and bodies.
If you or anyone else is interested, please send me an email at camhashemi (at) gmail.com. I’m looking for early adopters!
jeanofthedead
I use Bevel for this. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bevel-health-performance/id645...
walthamstow
That's not blinded though right, you'd know if you were taking Vit D or not and that would corrupt the experiment
fragmede
you want a service to: mail out a 30-pack of daily pills, there's an app where you record your mood/whatever, and then at the end of it, reveal which days were VitD and which was collagen?
how much would you pay for this?
adt
Skip the app. Make the pills.
djfivyvusn
Skip the pills. Make the app.
fragmede
how do you blind the contents of the pills unless someone else does it?
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Aurornis
Gwern has a large collection of blinded self-experiments. The only reason I suspect it’s not a more valued resource is that his results often contradict the popular wisdom in supplement communities.
His experiments with magnesium showed negative results: https://gwern.net/nootropic/magnesium#experiment-1
He tried LSD microdosing when the internet was convinced it was a miracle, but found no benefit and some concerning negative effects: https://gwern.net/nootropic/nootropics#lsd-microdosing
Contrast those results with some of the unbelievably positive anecdotes you read about magnesium, fish oil, B-vitamins, or even LSD micro dosing causing life changing positive effects.
It’s well known that placebo effect is a strong driver of perceived effects of most supplements. The placebo effect becomes much stronger when people are primed to expect large effects. Not coincidentally, the people who report the most dramatic effects are often those who consume large amounts of podcasts, YouTube videos, or social media influencer content about those supplements. If someone listens to a 3-hour Huberman Lab episode where he explains how a “protocol” or supplement will do amazing things while using (and frequently misusing) lots of neurotransmitter names and underpowered mouse studies, that person might become so primed to expect those effects that they’re nearly guaranteed to happen. In a weird way, that means it does actually work for them, but it’s not necessarily because the supplant is producing the outcome. It’s because they’re so deeply primed to expect the outcome (e.g. feeling more energy, relaxing to fall asleep) that they placebo themselves into making it happen.
ovalanche
This site, Gwern, is really fascinating but I found it initially rather difficult to navigate and understand.
I do wish the author had provided a clear, layperson conclusion/results portion for each nootropic. For example, having read the section on fish oil, I still haven’t grasped whether the author observed positive results or not. Perhaps he is being rightfully cautious in drawing conclusions?
danielbln
Their microdosing experimentation was questionable. Not methodically, it was quite thorough, but iirc they used unknown strength street blotters and derived all further experimentation from that.
gwern
As I always point out, all of the anecdotes claiming microdosing works are usually using street blotters as well, including the research papers which draw on crowdsourcing to circumvent the obvious problems with using schedule I psychedelics; and the research papers which do use better-validated dosages... don't usually turn up anything more than I did. Plus, it's 2025. If LSD microdosing really worked, after all this interest over the past 15+ years, why is there still so little good evidence?
danielbln
I can't tell you why, but the fact that LSD is a schedule 1 drug with a strong stigma and that it's a drug that can't be patented will severely hamper any study efforts.
Some current theories re: microdosing efficacy that I've seen are that people who report benefits from microdosing (beyond placebo) are inadvertently self medicating ADHD symptoms, which seems plausible, given LSDs stimulant effect and 5HT2A affinity.
teekert
This is nice. I love that people can be so rigorous and honest as well.
I just want to add that what brings my stress down (although I didn’t research it so thoroughly) is small rituals. Things to focus on, to do well, to “take a moment”. For me it’s making morning coffee. Making/baking bread, filling the dishwasher.
Maybe I’m borderline OCD. But maybe many people are and just the rituals of taking pills (actually) relieves some stress. It seems so based on the study.
Edit Fwiw, being about 20 years into my scientific career I’ve also come to prefer just looking at the data.
ripped_britches
I know what you mean here, but valuing small rituals is normal and not anywhere in the same ballpark as OCD.
teekert
True. But for me sometimes when I’m stressed (usually related to some lack of control) I may get very precise about how the dishwasher is organized among others. It’s annoying for people around me, but at least it’s not hard drugs.
Jolter
That doesn’t sound like OCD at all to me. It sounds like you have a personality that values order and control over details. Annoying perhaps, but normal.
If it’s getting to the point where it impedes your social life, you could see a psychiatrist, but I’m pretty sure the diagnosis wouldn’t be OCD.
OCD is characterized by strong feelings of anxiety which can only be temporarily subdued by compulsive, repeated behavior. The classic example is “can’t leave the house without washing hands 20 times, sometimes 40”. The anxiety is still there but slightly dampened by the compulsive ritual. If you don’t have crippling anxiety, you don’t have OCD.
maccard
I have a sensitive stomach, and I’ve found peppermint oil to be a fairly good supplement to help. I’ve also noticed that my stomach is more irritated when I’m anxious and stressed. The act of taking the peppermint oil, whether my stomach is acting up or not seems to be one of the biggest anxiety relievers to me.
4gotunameagain
> It seems so based on the study.
I would argue that it does not, as we have no "no pill" baseline.
All it shows is that if the author is stressed, chances are he is less stressed one hour later.
teekert
Hmm indeed. But the no-pill is very hard to placebo.
pnm45678
> I think these are the possibilities:
> Theanine works, but I got fake theanine. <…>
I’d add one more possibility: “Theanine works but I need a higher dosage to feel the effect.”
FWIW my purely anecdotal findings are that supplier does matter. Natural Factors Suntheanine gave me a noticeable effect. Nature’s way L-Theanine did not.
MichaelDickens
OP took 200 mg. Tea contains 5–20 mg and people commonly report beneficial effects from tea. If 5 mg is enough for some people then surely 200 mg would be enough for anyone?
Arch485
Not necessarily, there are a lot of drugs that have reduced or no effect for certain individuals. Think caffeine or alcohol tolerance.
slama
I thought I was crazy/imagining things, but I had a similar experience. Maybe I should try Suntheanine again
dworkr
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wraptile
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.
mastax
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.
brandonasuncion
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.
AlecSchueler
> 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.
esperent
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.
TimByte
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
dworkr
[dead]
FollowingTheDao
> 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.
chesterche
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!
rplnt
The title says "my experiment", it couldn't be any clearer and open it's about a single person's experience.
chesterche
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.
drakonka
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.
galaxyLogic
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?
bayindirh
As a person who drinks tea for 30+ year old in a country which is top 3 in world tea consumption, I can say that theanine works. The biggest advantage of it when compared to caffeine, it doesn't create that tension in the body. You just work and concentrate. While it's not as powerful as caffeine, it allows one to work very efficiently and for long hours, if they choose to do so.
Also, against the popular myth, black tea / theanine doesn't affect iron absorption that much (if any), if it was, the whole country would be anemic, and we are not.
This is great. The author defines their own metrics, is doing their own A/B tests and publishes their interpretation plus the raw data. Imagine a world where all health blogging was like that.
Personally, I have not published any results yet, but I have been doing this type of experiments for 4 years now. And collected 48874 data points so far. I built a simple system to do it in Vim:
https://www.gibney.org/a_syntax_for_self-tracking
I also built a bunch of tooling to analyze the data.
I think that mankind could greatly benefit from more people doing randomized studies on their own. Especially if we find a way to collectively interpret the data.
So I really applaud the author for conducting this and especially for providing the raw data.
Reading through the article and the comments here on HN, I wish there was more focus on the interpretation of the experiment. Pretty much all comments here seem to be anecdotal.
Let's look at the author's interpretation. Personally, I find that part a bit short.
They calculated 4 p-values and write:
I wonder what "Technically" means here. Are there "significant results" that are "better" than just "technically significant results"?Then they continue:
So what does it mean? What was the goal of collecting the data? What would the interpretation have been if the data would show a significant positive effect of Theanine?It's great that they offer the raw data. I look forward to taking a look at it later today.