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L-theanine, a constituent in tea, and its effect on mental state (2008) [pdf]
- thrownblown 8y agoI love the stuff!Improves caffeine absorption and is great for performance anxiety. I use it before bike racing or public speaking. The mental state I would describe as clear, calm, present and focused.
- colecut 8y agoOut of curiosity, do you ever take it on its own, or always with caffeine?
- thrownblown 8y agoi'm almost always drinking coffee. so probably not.
- gameswithgo 8y agohow many watts/kg though?
- thrownblown 8y agoi do track sprinting, so like 7-20 depending on the event
- polskibus 8y agoWhat dosage do you use( coffee and l-theanine), how do you take them (regularly, at standard times or occasionally)? Do you use any other nootropics?
- amelius 8y agoI tried it, several times and at different dosages, but it doesn't work for me. No effect whatsoever. I wonder why ...
- akiselev 8y agoL-theanine is a structural analog of L-glutamate and L-glutamine, amino acids that are common in neurotransmitters, so the effects of taking it will be highly variable by person just like any psychiatric drug - although the effects are far less pronounced so it's much safer (liver toxicity aside). Chances are, your diet already has plenty of those building blocks for your unique brain chemistry so you're at an equilibrium where adding more L-* just gets balanced out by the body or it could be that it's saturated so you have to try other levers (although that is much harder since metabolic pathways are nonlinear and incredibly complicated).
- chillingeffect 8y agointeresting. theanine makes me very frustrated when i take it. ive dialed down the dose a few times, but stil get irritated. your explanation if helpful.
- pasbesoin 8y agoAnd this reminds me of trying Zoloft and a couple of other things. 15 - 30 minutes into one starter dose, and I felt terribly worse. No professional explanation. It was only years later, when I ran across reporting about serotonin poisoning, that I had a possible explanation. The symptoms certainly fit. A friend has used Zoloft for years, to what she feels is positive effect. And in many ways, we are fairly similar -- certainly, our psychological profiles align substantially. Nonetheless, what works for her, does not for me at all.
- bloopernova 8y agoSerotonin syndrome is nasty, nasty, and more nasty. I've experienced it once, after a particularly incompetent new pain management doctor made me try a cocktail of anti-depressants for pain relief. (their reasoning being that "it's all in your head"). I felt utterly awful, pulse racing, severe anxiety and horrible mixing of panic and terror. It's imperative that people on multiple medications take Serotonin Syndrome very, very seriously. I'm very sorry you experienced it, I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. (The pain management doctor was fired a couple of months later by the university hospital. Complaints from patients, nurses, pharmacists and insurers had been mounting.)
- nkozyra 8y agoAnecdotally, I noticed a super mild effect. I drink between 8-10 cups of coffee a day and if I hit that upper limit it dulls the anxiety but not in any pronounced way.
- komali2 8y ago>8-10 cups of coffee a day Is this... Safe? I mean, if I told me dentist this she would slap me, let alone my cardiologist.
- nkozyra 8y agoProbably not, frankly. That said, the body will acclimate. I'm past the "beneficial" range of caffeine consumption, though.
- X6S1x6Okd1st 8y agoIn the metaanalysises that I've glanced over 8 cups is on the high end, but doesn't seem to negatively affect mortality. One of them: https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/180/8/763/2739131 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/180/8/763/2739131
- kpil 8y agoYes probably. I think the warning against coffee haven't really been based on anything else than "common sense" and possibly that it's a recreational drug. Maybe it's border line if you already have arrhythmia, but recent studies seems to show positive effects up to that limit, and it doesn't seem to cause arrhythmia. Might upset your stomach though, but I'm pretty sure your dentist will be happy to polish your teeth for a modest price... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26394673?otool=karolib&tool=karolinska https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26394673?otool=karolib&t... There seems to be several positive effects on breast cancer , diabetes, Parkinsons, ms, and stroke. https://breast-cancer-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13058-015-0521-3 https://breast-cancer-research.biomedcentral.com/articles/10... Etc...
- cryoshon 8y agofrom one caffieneist to another, you may want to cut your consumption in half. at minimum, it saves on bean costs.
- PascLeRasc 8y agoL-Theanine fixed my mild stutter and has helped me tremendously in the gym with focusing on every rep. It's a wonderful supplement. I especially love biking after having some, I get into a great flow state and can go much longer.
- kup0 8y agoI've used it before job interviews and it kept me much less anxious throughout.
- speeq 8y ago> Gail Owen is an employee of Unilever, which markets food products some of which contain L-theanine and caffeine. It's interesting how many brands Unilever owns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unilever_brands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unilever_brands
- BayesStreet 8y agoThis outcome looks positive for their Lipton brand. They might have a good viral marketing department, but that's none of my business. Unilever's tea beverage market share worldwide is estimated to be 11.1 percent in 2016. Source:Statistica
- jimmy1 8y agoThe only question I have with some of them is what role outside of marketing does Unilever play with some of these brands? Also, wow I am surprised at how much of the Ice Cream industry they own.
- Jach 8y agoThis image and variants showing how basically every food brand rolled up into one of ten companies was pretty viral around 2012: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/75/0a/0a/750a0a2ae95cc27a45cefd269bef6a45.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/75/0a/0a/750a0a2ae95cc27a45ce...
- yasp 8y agoSeems to help me sleep, anecdotally.
- SurrealSoul 8y agoI take before bed as well, it helps calm those crazy before-bedtime thoughts and just lets me dooze off
- big_youth 8y agoThe best working melatonin supplement I've taken has l-theanine in it.
- rufio1 8y agoFor me, Coffee + L-Theanine = Super Focus. 200MG serving.
- jklinger410 8y agoWhat is your coffee to theanine ratio?
- zolthrowaway 8y agoNot OP, but me 2.5:1 theanine to caffeine. 500mg theanine, 200mg caffeine. It really does wonders for me personally.
- rufio1 8y agoSomewhere around 1:2 Caffeine:L-Theanine. I think a standard cup for me is around 95MG Caffeine: 200MG L-Theanine
- theonemind 8y agoI noticed an effect when taking it with coffee, too. I just had some l-theanine as a supplement. I just drink coffee, so I didn't think much of taking it with coffee, so I didn't expect anything. It seemed to "smooth out" the effect of the caffeine. Rather than jittery, it turned it into smoother focus.
- 40acres 8y agoAre you taking the caffeine from coffee in pill form or in a cup? Also how long does this seem to last?
- rufio1 8y agoI purchased the powder on amazon (Nutricost L-Theanine Powder). It comes with a 200MG scoop and I just mix that into my cup of coffee. For me, it lasts around 2 -3 hours, doesn't impact the taste, and eliminates the jitters that I receive from caffeine.
- marmaduke 8y ago
- mkirklions 8y agoAssuming the data is good and there wasnt bias, the question becomes-Does this frequency between 8-13hz matter for performance? Is having a 0.3mV2 difference in alpha waves significant? Ive tried taking lTheanine and it doesnt seem to do much, even if I take many pills.
- bluntfang 8y agoI've heard and read about the 10hz frequency inducing altered states of mind [0]. I've also heard anecdotally that both water and fire resonate/flicker at 10hz, which is why people focus and get lost in flame and water. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4990355/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4990355/
- satsuma 8y agocursory research led me to believe that l-theanine on its own doesn't do much of anything. adding caffeine seems to be the ticket to the proposed improvements. wonder if there's a way to package l-theanine and caffeine together into one supplement. maybe that's what those gas station "super focus!!1" pills use? i might give it a try this upcoming semester, i generally don't mind being a supplements guinea pig.
- andrey-g 8y agoNot marketed crazily, but widely available, e.g. http://nootropicsdepot.com/caffeine-100mg-l-theanine-200mg-capsules/ http://nootropicsdepot.com/caffeine-100mg-l-theanine-200mg-c...
- jdietrich 8y ago>wonder if there's a way to package l-theanine and caffeine together into one supplement It's called "tea".
- kup0 8y agoThere are plenty of caffeine+theanine supplements available. I take them in capsule form, available from Amazon from all sorts of brands. Beware though, some really overcharge for them.
- Cynddl 8y ago> The control solution was 100 ml of cool potable water and the L-theanine solution was prepared by dissolving 0.5 mg powdered L-theanine (Taiyo Kaguka Co. Ltd., Yokkaichi, Japan) per Kg participant body weight in a tea infusion (total L-theanine 50mg/serving). So, there was a statistically significant difference in brain activity between participants who drank cool water and participants who drank (hot?) tea with added L-theanine. Curious setting.
- amluto 8y agoI find drinking a good cup of tea or other tea-like infusions to be quite relaxing. More so if I get to step it myself. I suspect that there’s a meaningful non-chemical effect, and this study has no ability whatsoever to discern whether L-theanine is involved.
- staunch 8y agoTry drinking just the hot water by itself. It's surprising and amusing how much of the effect you get. Pretty sure it was a Paul Graham tweet that pointed this out to me.
- colechristensen 8y agoHot water with lemon, morning or night, is excellent.
- 21 8y agoBrain waves were fine-tuned over many thousands years of evolution. Stuff which modifies them greatly as this study seems to show probably has some sort of side effects. Otherwise nature would have boosted them already.
- darawk 8y agoNature optimized them for hunting and gathering. I don't know about you, but I don't do much of that these days.
- VLM 8y agoBiochemistry doesn't interact with higher cognitive function, and its very common to describe tasks like software bug hunting, or sitting in a loud open office grinding out boring code monkey stuff like very light agricultural work. Certainly for the average office drone today, spear chucking muscles are atrophied, yet the thrill mood of hunting down and eliminating software bugs remains, pattern matching previous hunts, soaking in the environment, looking for signs, tracking, going in for the kill, the happy drudgery of dragging the kill back to the tribe or the paperwork of closing the bug out in the tribe's bug tracker and doing some git merges. Or tapping out calm tranquilized grind of endless lines of boilerplate java code feels like harvesting endless rows of cultivated berries. I wouldn't say the mood of labor has changed very much in some millennia, although the exact ratios of who's permitted the thrill of the hunt has varied over economic eras.
- darawk 8y agoSure, there are analogies between the two. But they're also different in meaningful ways, and evolution has not optimized us for their differences, which refutes the notion that we shouldn't mess with our biochemistry because we are perfectly evolved for the modern world. We're not.
- nissarup 8y agoWhy? It's not exactly "survival of the fittest" but more like "survival of the good enoughs". If there is no pressure, it probably will not be improved.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoSo in order to get to this level without taking supplements, it would be about 2.5 cups of tea? Or more? (Since they seemed to have added L-theanine to a cup of tea.)
- rellui 8y agoLooking at what's contained in black tea, 20 mg, yes. I wonder if this helps explain the popularity of tea and the general idea that drinking tea helps you calm down.
- Portlande 8y agoIndeed, and different types of tea contain different levels of L-theanine. I believe shade-grown green tea (many japanese greens) can have 40-50mg.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoThough the other study I looked at found (for their samples at least) that black tea had more L-theanine than the green. (But I've seen the opposite claimed as well. So perhaps it depends on the particular variety and other factors.)
- hinkley 8y agoWikipedia suggests that longer brewing time is necessary to get the full dose of l theanine, for which I'd recommend a quality loose leaf tea, and reuse the leaves a couple times (make several cups consecutively in the same day). My fancy loose leaf tea habit is about $6 a week, or about one latte with tax and tip. It's cheaper, fewer calories, and I don't get agitated like I occasionally do with coffee on an empty stomach. You still get away from your desk (which I think is half the point of going for a coffee anyway), but not for as long. My dealer knows that some teas will keep you awake and some that won't. Some will have that info but maybe not know the connection with l-theanine.
- pard68 8y ago
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- merinowool 8y agoL-theanine never worked for me. Even tried large doses and felt no difference. Maybe reading such articles causes placebo effect?
- 89vision 8y agointeresting anecdotal response to the well cited research
- wolco 8y agoThese comments represent many anecdotal opinions. That's the value of comments around this article. Science has proven this can have an affect. But even the study doesn't conclude this is 100% for everyone.
- cJ0th 8y agono way! When I drank my first cup of Japanese green tea I didn't even know what l-theanine was. Since I felt very euphoric and relaxed after said cup I had to google the components of sencha to find out what caused this very pleasant sensation. However, the intensity of the effect does vary from day to day for me.
- Leary 8y agoPeople are different.
- notyourloops 8y agoL-theanine completely destroys my ability to sleep. I've tested a few times now. Dosage used was 100mg, taken early in the day. It's like I get stuck in super light sleep where I'm practically dreaming but awake.
- revx 8y agoAgreed. N=1 anecdotal evidence, but I generally can't get to sleep after green tea in the afternoon.
- ceedan 8y agoGreen tea does have caffeine, so I'm not sure if your side effects are related to L-theanine. I also have trouble sleeping as well when I have afternoon caffeine. I don't feel awake, but I just cannot sleep. It took a while for me to associate this with late caffeine.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- thegabez 8y agoI've tried it in the past with coffee. It's an interesting additive as it gives you the relaxed tea feeling but with the focus of coffee. Within a few uses the body adapts and more is needed to get the same results. After a few usages I found it not worth the extra effort.
- syntaticSugar 8y agor/nootropics
- delbel 8y agoIf I take L-theanine and L-glutamine, I get a euphoric high. Anybody else notice this? How to screw up and up regulate GABA receptors 101...
- fizixer 8y agoL-theanine does nothing for me, when I take it with coffee. If I have to very charitable, it probably reduces jitters that I otherwise get from coffee-only. But I'm not sure if it's a real effect or a placebo.
- ninjakeyboard 8y agoIn case anyone is curious about L-Theanine, it's very often used by people with interest in Nootropics for focus along side caffeine. The Theanine-Caffeine stack is considered to be the sort of entry or gateway into nootropic territory.
- matznerd 8y agoYes typical dosing ratio is 1:2 caffeine:theanine. With typical dosing being 100mg caffeine:200 mg l-theanine You can buy l-theanine pills and take it with coffee. If you'd like it from nature, Matcha has the highest L-theanine content. This is because L-theanine is an anti-oxidant made in the roots and sent to the leaves to prevent against damage from the sun. Matcha tea plants are kept in the shade for the last couple of months, so they build up the theanine and it is not used up. The full leaves are then ground up, but will only contain around 40 mg per serving, which is why I generally recommend supplementing it. Suntheanine has a patented form that is made in a biofermentation process that yields nearly 100% pure L-isomer theanine. Also interesting is that, while L-theanine the molecule wasn't "discovered" until 1949, the Japanese ceremonial tea scale has been for hundreds of years, organized by increasing levels of theanine content.
- adrianN 8y agoThere are some cheaper tea varieties than Matcha that were also kept in the shade, e.g. Mecha, Kabusecha, Gyokuro.
- PascLeRasc 8y agoFor some reason Suntheanine has no effect at all on me, though regular L-Theanine pills and even iced matcha or regular green tea all have huge effects.
- evincarofautumn 8y agoOut of curiosity, is there much discussion in that community of other xanthine stimulants like theophylline, theobromine, and 8-chlorotheophylline? I take dimenhydrinate = 1:1 diphenhydramine + 8-CTP to relieve nausea, and from the feel of it I’d like to try 8-CTP on its own (or in conjunction with L-thea) because (like theobromine) it seems to be nicely stimulating while give me less anxiety than caffeine. Seems to be fairly cheap at around USD 65¢/g from chemical supply companies, but I don’t know how much I really want to get into that “just buy it and try it” world if it (or something like it) is available OTC.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dokka 8y agoUnfortunately, it's yet another GABA agonist, and after it wears off, I get severe brain fog. Also, it has diminishing returns. If I take it more than 3 days in a row, it does nothing. So many of the supplements and nootropics that I've tried for programming are the same way. The only three that I take now are caffeine(daily), nicotine(rarely) and adderall(very rarely).
- ianai 8y agoI see caffeine as a net negative for mental acuity. Just makes people want to punch to the deadline or skip from topic to topic.
- wozniacki 8y agoSo many of the supplements and nootropics that I've tried for programming are the same way. What have you taken so far? Could you expand? Especially nootropics.
- rednerrus 8y agoHave you tried Ar/modafinil?
- nomel 8y agoThere are too many deaths linked to modafinil for me to try it.
- john_minsk 8y agoLink?
- krageon 8y agoArmodafinil is bad for your liver.
- ClassyJacket 8y ago"The control solution was 100 ml of cool potable water and the L-theanine solution was prepared by dissolving 0.5 mg powdered L-theanine (Taiyo Kaguka Co. Ltd., Yokkaichi, Japan) per Kg participant body weight in a tea infusion (total L-theanine 50mg/serving). " Why wouldn't the L-theanine solution be L-theanine in water? Including tea would introduce other chemicals, including caffeine, no? Also: "AUTHOR DISCLOSURES Gail Owen is an employee of Unilever, which markets food products some of which contain L-theanine and caffeine."
- Oddstrider 8y ago"These data indicate that L-theanine, at realistic dietary levels, has a significant effect on the general state of mental alertness or arousal."
- yani 8y agoI have tried supplementing with the amino acid in the past. I have tried with 50 100 200 and 400mg The best dose for me was 200mg It makes me very sleepy and it does not help with concentration. I tried to combine it with caffeine but the result was not good. For concentration, coffee is the best for me. For sleeping I use melatonin but only if I pull a long night
- nopinsight 8y agoL-theanine appears beneficial to mood and attention with negligible short-term side effects. I wonder, though, what long-term side effects L-theanine supplement might cause. I searched several times but most information on long-term consumption is anecdotal. The best site on the Web for summaries of studies on supplement efficacy appears to be: https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/ https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/
- cies 8y agoToo bad that tea contains so much fluoride. Outlined in this paper "Risk Assessment of Fluoride Intake from Tea in the Republic of Ireland and its Implications for Public Health and Water Fluoridation" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808922 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4808922
- hadeon 8y agoNot if you live in New Zealand with naturally low fluoride levels!
- n4r9 8y agoThe study found that the fluoride already present in the tea leaves was the main source of exposure. Those tea leaves were mostly imported from East Africa, as is the case for many cheap tea bags. Therefore drinking a lot of cheap tea bag tea in New Zealand is potentially not much better.
- willio58 8y agoSeems to me that this just says the water used to make the tea has fluoride. And Ireland just has significantly more fluoride than most places.
- gpvos 8y ago> The Republic of Ireland (RoI) is the only European Country with a mandatory national legislation requiring artificial fluoridation of drinking water So, only a problem in countries that do fluoridation. (I didn't know that that was the case in Ireland. This definitely reduces the chance of me ever moving there.)
- tiatia123 8y ago“If you are cold, tea will warm you; if you are too heated, it will cool you; If you are depressed, it will cheer you; If you are excited, it will calm you.” ― William Ewart Gladstone