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Comment by jvanderbot | Hacker News Reader

Theanine has been shown to have a noticeable relaxation without sedative effect, and a minor decrease in anxiety, within minutes of ingestion.

Yes, there are problems with all studies, and it sure is fun to pile on, but a cursory search of examine.com confirms my own experience and that of amateur noot-ers: Theanine takes the edge off caffeine and helps focus. Caffeine+Theanine is the third highest recommended home treatment for focus (behind exercise and sleep) on r/nootropics for whatever that's worth.

You can find other studies here: https://examine.com/supplements/theanine/

I take it semi-regularly during times I'm over-consuming caffeine, but find that I come to resent its absence when I stop taking it.

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>Caffeine+Theanine is the third highest recommended home treatment for focus (behind exercise and sleep) on r/nootropics for whatever that's worth.

I'm surprised modafinil isn't no. 1

I don't use it regularly to avoid developing a tolerance, but that thing has a profound impact on the ability to focus and power through, nothing else I've tried comes even close. I guess speed/amphetamine but that gets me euphoric and I notice elevated heart rate, I don't feel any different on modafinil other than focused and tiredness being blocked.

I'm sure it's primarily because caffeine and theanine are culturally accepted and available cheaply over-the-counter. Modafinil is prescription-only (at least in the US), and speed/amphetamines are likewise illegal.

Instead of asking your doctor for psychoactive drugs or delving through the dark corners of the internet or dark corners of downtown alleys, you can get caffeine at Walgreens or Starbucks.

But the two aren't even comparable in terms of effect IMO. I already have caffeine tolerance so at this point I'm drinking coffee out of habit and not to go through withdrawal, but even when I reset my tolerance a few times getting back into it does almost nothing compared to modafinil (aside from getting jitters when I overdo it)

I just skimmed r/nootropics and it seems like the side effects and prescription requirement of modafinil disqualify it as a home recommendation.

If the recommendations were purely about effectiveness all recommendations would likely be prescriptions...

Interesting. My anecdotal experience with modafinil is that I get extreme anxiety and elevated heart rate without any additional focus benefits. In fact, it detriments my ability to focus.

Adderall on the other hand, while stimulating and euphoric, gets the job done. But it works so well that I have trouble focusing without it now. I’ve tried tapering off multiple times but always go back to it when my work quality suffers and I’m not contributing to tasks that my team needs done.

I got that the second time I used modafinil and went with whole pill (did half the first time). Later on I did whole pills every time and had no sideffects (a couple of times I would get noticeably elevated HR, but I was awake 12+h at that point and need moda to get through the night)

What dosage? I've tried 25mg, 50mg, 100mg and 200mg doses for Modafanil at different stages for a month. I was really trying to get off of Adderall at the time, but nothing really worked for me.

200mg worked for me, started with 100mg to see if I would get sideffects, but I never used it over 2-3 days in a week.

Different strokes for different blokes, I guess.

Paranoid suspicion was my #1 effect. No thanks.

Modafinil or Methylphenidate? Modafinil never made me paranoid but I know at least one person with psychosis caused by Methylphenidate.

I avoid both nowadays because work isn’t worth risking health.

What are the health risks with either?

For Modafanil or Adderall?

You can try Armodafinil instead of modafinil, it cause less anxiety. Also not popular but apparently effective, amantadine is an interesting dopaminergic.

re. Modafinil, I heard it mentioned by a reputable programmer on twitter and decided to try it. I used it regularly for several years, and it was extremely useful in helping with focus and staying on task. I feel like it helped me in a breakthrough phase of my career. The problem I found was that I could only tolerate it 2-3 times per week over the long term. Any more than that, and the edgy/anxious/irritable side effects would build up to intolerable levels. Not to mention I was buying from questionable sources online, figuring it would be too difficult to talk a doctor into prescribing me some.

Eventually though I worried about the quality of the batched I was getting online and stopped taking it altogether. But I still really struggled with focus on a daily basis and started to wonder if what I was really doing was self medicating for undiagnosed ADHD. Thinking back on my life it did sort of fit. Though I am a "successful" developer and I'm doing fairly well at life, it has always felt like I had to struggle and fight a lot more than the average person just go get through the day and stay on task. So I talked to a doctor, tried ritalin and adderall and have settled on a low dose adderall routine that really works for me. It helps tremendously with focus and motivation, and if I am diligent about maintaining a good diet/exercise/sleep schedule, the side effects are very manageable with daily use. I still think about the modafinil days, because those were good times, and it was fun to have that all day I'm on fire feeling. Adderall is nice, but I can tell that if I upped my dose to get into the realm of intense focus that Modafinil used to give me, I would also be getting pretty "high" and the comedown side effects would probably be more unpleasant.

I daily take modafinil, actually prescribed to me. I have bad problems when I take either ritalin or adderall. Not being able to sleep for over 24 hours, and panic attacks being some of the more annoying ones. Modafinil on the other hand the difference is more subtle, where if I try I can focus but I'm not trying to focus on something.

Highly recommend anyone considering it talking it over with their doctor first. The dose they sell via grey market can be rather high especially if you haven't had it before.

    Highly recommend anyone considering it talking 
    it over with their doctor first.

Do folks generally have luck getting it prescribed for ADHD and its ilk these days?

The doctors I've mentioned it to were not receptive to prescribing it off-label for attention disorders.

They didn't really seem to think it was an awful idea per se but really couldn't endorse it, and naturally they were worried about the risks of ordering it from possibly-unreliable overseas pharmacies.

I haven't been able to get modafinil for ADHD (n=1). I have heard of people getting prescriptions for modafinil because of their work schedules (e.g. being tied to the hours of a stock exchange in a different time zone).

Ah, that's interesting. Maybe I could wrangle something like that.

Have you been at a low dose for a long time? Is there something you do to reduce tolerance?

The nootropics community is usually more about substances with reliable effects across the whole spectrum of neural fauna. Modafinil has side effects that are really bad for productivity in a substantial percent of the population, like it doesn't work or it's really bad for some people with GAD or OCD and people prone to addiction or with ASD.

I'm not a proponent of having drugs be "prescription only", people should be allowed to eat what they want if they don't harm anyone else... but I personally put Modafinil under my list of stuff that you probably may need some help with if you want to try it.

Could you please expand on what you mean by "neural fauna"? I'm not sure I understand what you're referring to.

Everyone's brain is different and substances may don't affect everyone in the same way. Like how some people get addicted to coffee or cigarettes and some don't, some people get the benefits of Modafinil without the side effects and some don't. Cognitive disorders are one way to categorize this but it can be more complex than that. People with OCD or GAD are an extreme example, there's a lot of different personality types and brain structures out there, that's the "neural fauna" I'm talking about.

> I'm surprised modafinil isn't no. 1

Someone shared modafinil with me once. The effect is crazy.

As you say, it lets you focus on single task for quite a long time, without feeling tired. And I'm saying it as a person who can be easily distracted.

I never tried it again, not to mess with my brain.

It has that effect for me... but unfortunately I don't always get to choose the task. Sometimes I'll get really interested in the wrong thing, as opposed to work.

But overall I do find it beneficial and preferable to Adderall.

Yes, same thing, I get distracted easily, but modafinil is like a cheat code to getting stuff done.

-afanils don't work for everyone. Modafinil makes me both jittery and tired, and I can't focus for more than a minute; kind of like I'm badly jet lagged and just need to pass out.

My problem with Moda/Armoda is that I feel like a tweaker when I'm on it, and I only take enough to get an effect. I get sweaty, physically stressed, and just generally feel like I'm taking something that is not in my body's best interests. I have to drink liters of water to avoid a headache. I also have noticed some of the dopamine effects(increased risk taking and addictive behaviors). I'm slightly bipolar though(type II, pretty mild) so maybe it's just not for people like me.

It does work pretty well for focus though, and is really nice for my middle-aged brain which often is tired throughout the day.

Do you have a site you use to purchase your modafinil? And how did you decide dosage?

EDIT... and it looks like this is a controlled substance. I didnt know

I'm not sure about HN policy here regarding linking to such things. For a couple of years I ordered from Afinil Express, who have semirecently changed their name to Shark Mood. You can guess/Google the URL. For security you'll definitely want to use cryptocurrency and not a credit card; apparently the issue is shady overseas card processors and not the merchant(s) themselves FWIW.

As far as dosage, it's really trial and error I suppose. Generally each pill is meant as a single dose AFAIK. You can always dip your toes in the water by starting off with 1/4 or 1/2 a pill.

I generally do 1/2 a pill before breakfast and 1/2 a pill before lunch (on work days) and roughly half that amount on off days.

Gf had a huge stash she ordered from India years back. I almost ran through them over the years so will need to restock but it doesn't seem as big of a deal as getting rec drugs, more like ordering steroids

It’s only schedule IV. The other stimulants are schedule II because they can be abused.

Have you tried Dexedrine? It’s the right handed enantiomer of adderall which has less pronounced effects on heart rate, etc.

Dexedrine is great for me except for two things. I need to drink a tremendous amount of water and I don’t grind my teeth but I sort of lightly chatter them together. Apart from that it enhances just about everything - memory, focus, ability to socialize, executive function.

The mild oral fixation and water thing is a little annoying, but overall it’s worth it for how much easier it makes a lot of things (including for my family).

Awesome, thanks for sharing your experience! How does adderall compare to it? What about modafonil?

I can't compare it to those, but I have tried Lisdexamfetamine. It's supposed to break down slower and more steadily, creating less intense spikes and drop offs in the uptake of amphetamines, but my experience was very poor. I'm not sure why.

It seemed as though I'd increase focus, but not use it as well. Even worse, I'd typically be quite aware of my misused attention. Otherwise I tended to notice physical side effects like dry mouth and perhaps not dizziness but a sort of floating, poorly grounded sensation at times.

I used it for 3 months and stopped using stimulants for close to a year as a result. It works really well for some people, but threw me off fairly badly.

In any case, the active ingredient in these is the same, the delivery is just slightly different.

I always take theanine with my caffeine (that is, I drink tea).

I've recently switched over to green tea and really wish I had earlier.

What did you switch from? Coffee? Coffee has some decent health benefits as well, but probably isn't so great for your anxiety levels. :-)

Yes from coffee. I was almost at a pot/day and it was not helping.

I switch to espresso a couple years ago and never looked back. A double shot latte in the AM is enough to keep me going and I don’t need a full pot. If I’m especially tired I’ll do a straight espresso shot in the afternoon.

Agree. Coffee is a pretty bad drug. I wish there was at least some stigma against drinking it every day, but instead we're bombarded with studies that say it protects against cancers ... but only of you drink min 3 cups every day.

I mean, these studies are scientific and probably true, but I wish coffee's bad effects were studied more.

Interesting. As a Chinese I used to drink tea but years ago I switched to coffee for better flavour. Maybe I should try milk tea instead.

Don’t give up on the flavour, there is a massive range of Chinese tea that’s indescribably amazing. I mean, duckshit oolong, da Hong pao, puerh…

I worked at an American Chinese restaurant that had fantastic oolong tea. Whenever I bought it from Asian supermarkets it was literally the worst quality tea I’ve ever tasted, below the Lipton tea that’s for making sweet tea.

Part of the problem there is that the domestic market consumes most of the best grades of all types of teas. But it's possible to get really amazing Chinese and Taiwanese teas from tea importers in the US[1] and EU. Some of them are pricey, but not all (and tea is generally not too expensive per cup, compared with lots of other beverages).

1: https://www.uptontea.com/teas/c/oolong-tea/pgsize/12/filter/...

Buy online, check out the /r/tea wiki [0] and specifically the user vendor list [1]

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/tea/wiki/faq

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/tea/wiki/vendors/page_01

Look for "Tie Guan Yin" (Iron Goddess of Mercy) Oolong. It's a lovely starting point. Usually good across most brands. Medium-light and naturally floral/fruity quality to it. The amount you use and the temp and time for brewing are also different for Oolong compared to black teas.

I've found Pu Erh tea is a great transition as a coffee drinker. It has that strong earthy/malty flavor, even if it doesn't have the caffeine.

Just make sure you buy it from a brick instead of the loose leaf (which tends to be lower quality imo).

Pu Erh is great but you have to be careful with it if you have low blood pressure. I learn't the hard way after I once brewed some after having a beer and straight down passed out in the kitchen, like fell to the floor passed out. I do have low blood pressure and usually took Pu Erh while sitting down but after that I just stopped taking it allover.

A study of teabags sold in British supermarkets in 2011 found that the teabags containing the most L-theanine per cup (24 mg versus 8 mg per cup) were the lower-quality brands containing black tea, with a supermarket brand of black tea having the highest theanine content. The study demonstrates that brewing time is a major determinant of the amount of l-theanine extracted. Addition of sugar and small quantities of milk make no significant difference, while larger quantities of milk reduced the measured theanine content.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theanine

Hm, i ask myself if the reduction in measured theanine is just by dilution or if the milk reacts with the theanine.

Or put some pure theanine powder in your coffee. I use this brand because there is no cellulose or other non-soluble ingredient in the powder that ends up floating on the liquid:

https://www.iherb.com/pr/metabolic-maintenance-l-theanine-20...

I twist the capsule apart, then pour its contents (the powder) out. Buying the powder inside capsules is a convenient way of measuring out a very small quantity of powder.

I’m addicted to matcha. Just so happens to have high levels or l-theanine.

I have personally observed something similar with black tea but I am not sure if's just the theanine + EGCGs or something else.

A while back, I noticed that 'chai' helps me focus and relax (improved mood, less anxiety, etc.) at the same time. It's made of milk, black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, and negligible/no sugar (personal preference).

I prefer coffee in terms of taste, but of all the things I have tried, this has been the best for me. Black tea alone doesn't have the same effect on me, nor does green tea, or coffee with or without milk/cream/sugar.

So I wonder if it's the combination that matter and not theanine alone.

> A while back, I noticed that 'chai' helps me focus and relax (improved mood, less anxiety, etc.) at the same time. It's made of milk, black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, and negligible/no sugar (personal preference).

I know Starbucks et al market the above as 'chai', but I think 'masala' (as in 'masala chai' [1]) should be the keyword.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala_chai

to keep it DRY: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27916094

> It's made of milk, black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, and negligible/no sugar

Maybe you mean no added sugar? Milk has 1.5g of sugar / oz (about half that of orange juice, as a comparison).

I use l theanine everyday to avoid heart palpitations with coffee. Is there any long term damage I’m doing from this daily combo??

Within minutes? Are you snorting it? can anything get through you that quickly orally? Sounds like placebo

If consumed dissolved in a liquid on an empty stomach, it can be absorbed rather quickly.

Would you also conclude that the study shows evidence that in a caffeinated body the theanine's only work is to reduce the effects of the caffeine?

What conclusions would you draw from that if you want to focus more?

Simple protocol: one coffee cup in the morning to wake up. Green or black tea through the day as needed.

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