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:

    Technically, I did find two significant results.

I wonder what "Technically" means here. Are there "significant results" that are "better" than just "technically significant results"?

Then they continue:

    Of course, I don’t think this
    means I’ve proven theanine is harmful.

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.

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.

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.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36702864/

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.

Here’s a relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/882/ For the small sample

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.

And that is exactly the point made in the target post by the author. He explicitly raised that criticism himself. Double kudos for self-criticism. You will not find many conventional science publications pointing out: “Shucks, we could have done this a better”.

The ancestor post is neither a "Complete injustice" nor "derision" nor an "insult", and it doesn't warrant a hostile mocking reply. Its tone could have been gentler, but it wasn't that bad. And the study doesn't really deserve "accolades", it deserves to be recognized for whatever it does well. Such polarization of tone and vocabulary doesn't accomplish much, and I'll even propose that it actually prevents good things from happening. It is good that the author is aware of, and acknowledges, the problems in the study. What other studies and journals have done wrong doesn't make the author or study more deserving of praise.

Also, you asked why he said "unblinded", and I think you now have the answer to that.

Yes, perhaps. But please tell me you have read the original post. It is thoughtful, self-deprecatory, careful, well analyzed, and upfront about limitations and possible improvements.

Re-reading such a negative critique of a solid home-brew experiment is unwarranted. There are several word here worth red flags.

>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.

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

I would have taken a well-calibrated photo of the cup each time without looking, maybe with a color card in the bottom, and only entered results at the end of the trial.

Given that there is no documentation of whether the events during the hour of test time were more or less stressful than those before it, and no taking the time of day, diet and exercise, sleep, location (quiet island or next to a construction site), etc into account, the data seems useless.

As a note, I have no idea why he bothered trying to guess what he had taken. What possible value could that have in this type of experiment?

Perhaps the correct course of action would be to ask for feedback in the design phase of an N=1 trial, especially a longer one, to avoid some basic mistakes.

If your sample is blinded yet you consistently guess correctly, then presumably either 1. you failed at blinding or 2. there is a strong and discernible effect, regardless of what your other metrics might say (your other metrics could always be flawed after all).

> no documentation of whether the events during the hour of test time were more or less stressful than those before it, and no taking the time of day, diet and exercise, sleep, location

Assuming the blinded samples are uniformly randomly distributed, and assuming the study goes on long enough, then you'd expect that stuff to average out.

But I agree, it should be recorded nonetheless. That way you can verify at the end that it did, in fact, average out as you expected. If it didn't then your data is invalid.

> As a note, I have no idea why he bothered trying to guess what he had taken. What possible value could that have in this type of experiment?

It gives a hint of how well the blinding worked.

Yes, that is a good point. But it also causes him to continuously think about indicators to determine what he has taken. He is constantly trying to punch the veil on this "blind" study instead of doing everything he can to avoid that. Are they really the exact same weight? Do they really feel the same in his hand, mouth and throat? Does one have a slightly different taste - after all, no filling process will leave the outside of the capsule 100% free of powder, etc? Very subtle differences could manifest themselves over 16 months.

If you ever wonder why some folks with a fair amount of potential and something to offer keep to themselves, this isn't the worst example.

I think most people could criticize the carbon out of a corpse if they themselves weren't being criticized into one.

If we devolved from apes, maybe apes devolved from piranhas.

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.

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.

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.

Noooooo you can’t just run independent experiments you need institutions and phds and bureaucracy and gold plating nooooo

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?

You should link to the source of your quote.

Arguably so, but all I can find are other plagiarized copies. :-P

The New Yorker's paywall has successfully obscured the origin of the joke, so that's on them, as far as I'm concerned.

It’s not about elitism. It’s that there are so many confounding factors that even a well-informed approach makes such a study comtain very little of value

Comments like yours expose a particularly distasteful amount of hubris.

N=1 trial is great if you are trying to figure out what works for you as an individual

You could argue that this N is the only N that matters though.

Not too me though. Especially not to me if I'm trying to decide to supplement l-theanine

Right. The only N that you can draw any conclusions about is the author himself. So, why even publish it? The "results" are not applicable to anyone reading it. This is the health version of the software industry's "It works on my system!"

Publish it is quite a loaded word here. Almost every blog or post you read is from the point of view of a single person. There's nothing wrong with him putting his experience out into the world.

> This is an N=1 trial

Sure, OP addressed that and said it would be especially useful more people did it and "if we find a way to collectively interpret the data".

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.

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.

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.

In science, an n=1 experiment isn’t discarded; instead, it adds information that can guide future experiments.

Aye. Completely agree. Path dependence matters, which is why you can't just look at pre/post action.

Any experiment you perform on yourself has N=1. Self-science isn't as robust as gold standard double blind blablabla PhD trials, but come on.

How else are you going to find out whether a particular diet or medication works for you specifically? It's ALWAYS N=1.

And a honest n=1 is better than a double blind n=1000 but outcome-interested study. It’s so easy to make data tell the story you want.

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.

I think you are ignoring the fact that citizen science was alive and very well up into the 1980s. It was never a replacement for professional science, but rather citizen scientists often observed things that were deemed worth of follow-up by academic researchers.

Citizens scientists rarely post “facts” but rather interesting avenues for research or further investigation. Part of being an educated citizen scientist is to understand the limitations of your knowledge, data, and methods.

Quacks and cranks, on the other hand, are always making grand new “discoveries” lol.

Anyone who has a decent education can make observations apply the scientific method. I say this coming from a family of actual scientists from molecular biology to particle physics, who will tell you the same, and also give credit to the multitude of citizen scientists who have done just that.

As for myself, I’ll stick to engineering.

i think anyone researching whatever in their home is doing 'science'

but this isn't the case! i linked in an answer to my post what science knows when measuring stress... it's far away from a self-reported subjective question

i think the problem is whatever you post on the internet is politic. it may have a huge reach, and so far so good people trying far from lethal doses of theanine. now, what if an influencer wants to make their stuff look intellectual and go buy pure caffeine? how about the people coming after wards?

one thing is a 3D-print project at your garage on keyboards ergonomics, home automation, another is rock-climbing gear and another is substances with reachable lethal doses where the masses can buy (not the case here but again, i cited caffeine but there's much more). the author has a stellar presentation but they seriously researched what science does when measuring stress? they didn't even considered The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), which is used on professional research. i stand against public posts with badly methods (or the complete lack of research) suppressed by fancy graphics on substance use/abuse. i also bet isn't that hard to buy empty pills with opaque color

couldn't edit but here it's how science measure stress: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8434839/

> 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.

    an effect large enough to be
    apparent just from plotting

And how large is that? Without putting a number on it, how do we come to the conclusion that the effect is not large enough? That it didn't show in their sample of data points could have been just random chance.

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.

“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.

> 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...

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.

> 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".

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

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

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.

Fair point! Thanks for clearing that up for me

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.

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.

They were looking for a clear effect. they did not find one.

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.

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.

It’s very possible that some things can be good for one person and not for another. Should we only ever have drugs that can help everyone?

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??

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.

>It’s not like the experimentor can issue a placebo to themselves.

TFA describes a protocol for doing just that. The author randomly selected between the treatment dose and placebo. They didn't reveal the choice until after the effect should be complete so they could record the results.

i hope your 1 person isn't a masochist

What a weird take, in 99.999% of cases you don’t have such a black/white contrast

Sure. But even when you add noise to the described experiment, you get useful data.

That is the point I am making: Experiments of a single person can be useful.

The critics of single person experiments usually come up with examples vastly different than the Theanine experiment described here. With long term experiments which are only conducted once. But the Theanine experiment was looking for a short term effect and can be conducted many times. The hammer experiment I made up would be an extreme example of this type of experiment which leads itself well to be conducted by a single person.

What I am trying to point out is that if you are a skeptic, it would be better to try and find weaknesses in the experiment at hand. Not making up completely different experiments.

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.

> 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.

But that's not the actual experiment here. Your criticism is invalid. The author randomised every day which supplement to take.

That's pretty close to a blocked design.

Your self-tracking syntax looks neat. How do you track if you are not in front of a computer?

I write into a text file on my phone. And later move those lines into the file on my computer.

It's a bit cumbersome, but not too much. But yeah, I look forward to when I finally get around to writing an app for it.

do you use an app and shortcuts (or something similar) to speed this up?

On the phone I don't.

In Vim, I use multiple shortcuts that I made for this use case.

You can use vim via termux, which is nice when you already have things in version control.

Alternatively, may I suggest the DailyLog app in F-Droid?

>Pretty much all comments here seem to be anecdotal.

The entire blog post was anecdotal.

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.

>Werner Forssmann performed the first heart catheterization on himself. He got the Nobel prize.

In case anyone else was confused how it would be possible to perform heart surgery on yourself, he did it through a vein in his arm, which is still incredibly impressive:

>In 1929, he put himself under local anesthesia and inserted a catheter into a vein of his arm. Not knowing if the catheter might pierce a vein, he put his life at risk. Forssmann was nevertheless successful; he safely passed the catheter into his heart.

He also had to trick the operating-room nurse into thinking he was operating on her.

Through the arm, I believe, is still the way it’s performed today!

Nobel candidates cannot be deceased.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

Obviously there are different species of dust mites, but the ones I'm familiar with are nearly invincible. They are able to cling onto smooth surfaces even with a vacuum cleaner right over them. I've noticed that they are 'directional' in their grip though: when the vacuum cleaner is behind their direction of travel, they'll hold fast, but if you move the vacuum in front of them they'll be sucked up. Thus, drawing the vacuum nozzle back and forth repeatedly seems to me to be essential for reliably getting rid of them.

As for UV, I have no idea. They seem to survive on surfaces that get exposed to sunlight though windows, but apparently glass blocks most UV radiation. You'll have to make a new post with your results if you try it :)

Get a mattress encasement, it's like a HEPA filter bag for the mattress (cuts off the mites food supply and preventing allergens becoming airborne).

Skips the whole trying to clean porous foam problem.

I read that mites can't survive temperatures above 60C, and wondered then about just a big plastic bag around the item then fill it from a hot air source (hair dryer, fan heater)?

I think the problem would be temperature control, as you don't want to damage the item, but need to maintain an even, specific air temperature, you'd need turbulence. Then vacuum clean afterwards.

Maybe a wallpaper remover style device with a hot air source instead of steam??

Yeh I've thought about whether it'd be possible/safe to use something like an "overclocked" electric blanket to sterilize the mattress daily.

They also need humidity (~50% RH), hence why I got the dehumidifer, which has definitely knocked them back.

I got the exact same idea sadly most electric blanket i could find on amazon where kinda small and had disappointingly low heating power...

Look into something like flexwatt tape. Maybe run it during the day when your not sleeping. In my mind, they probably use something similar inside heated blankets with some kind of limiter/thermostat.

Do your research though!! I'm not sure if flexwatt tape could ignite your mattress, but you would definitely want to know for sure yourself beforehand!

There are ways to control heat though; I'm familiar with using flexwatt tape with reptile enclosures, hooked up to a thermostat with a probe in the habitat for temp control. Maybe some math, like desired_temp = watts_supplied * feet_of_fw_tape, where the watts_supplied is the independent variable you adjust based on the required feet_of_fw_tape for your mattress to get the dependent variable desired_temp. Probably include a fail safe, but I'm no electrician, proceed at your own risk.

They do sell self contained fire extinguishers you can hang on your ceiling that deploy automatically at a certain temperature, ideally putting out fire sources they are hung above. Nice to have around for things like this.

Pretty much my conclusion as-well.

I guess they just don't want folks giving themselves burns during sleep.

AliExpress as always is tempting [1], but you'd have to be incredibly careful about regulating temperature [2] and adding safety interlocks that'd make falling asleep with it active, or forgetting to turn it off impossible.

1. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007963462500.html

2. Don't blame me when your house burns down, I warned you.

Just a data point. I have a mattress encasement which has never been removed (I got it to protect against bedbugs). Dust (dead human skin) still accumulates on the surface. It might not go into the mattress, but it will be on the surface. Since the encasements are never meant to be removed, vacuuming the mattress (with encasement on) still makes sense.

I asked above as well, but since you have direct experience, what do you have between the plastic and you? Aside from the fitted sheet? Wouldn’t a regular mattress cover just attract mites as well?

It’s just the fitted sheet.

The encasement I have is actually not a plastic wrap but a zippered tight weave synthetic fabric (polyester).

https://a.co/d/3ut09wO

It’s suppose to prevent bedbugs and others from setting up shop inside the mattress but the surface is fair game. The idea being it’s easier to clean the surface than the insides.

I have had the encasement for years. No problems with humidity but I also live in a less humid area (41-45% rh all year round).

So a dust mite vaccuum still makes sense.

Also interesting fact: dust mites themselves are harmless to humans. It’s their fecal matter (after digesting our dead skin) that are allergens.

This causes mold on mattresses due to humidity. I had to throw out a latex mattress.

Ok. What do you put between the plastic and the sheets? A standard mattress cover? Won’t the mites just go there as that’s where the dead skin, etc will be?

The plastic would also trap heat between me and it.

As someone who uses a plastic mattress cover I can answer your question: yes, if you let dust build up, mites can and do start to live on the fitted sheet that you put around the mattress cover. However, it is of course easier to wash just the fitted sheet than to remove dust from within a mattress, so I think that a cover is still beneficial.

I'm not sure what you mean by trapping heat - once there are two normal cotton fitted sheets around it, I don't feel the plastic mattress cover at all.

This causes mold by trapping humidity. Had to throw out a latex mattress be careful with full plastic.

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.

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.

In my country we used to use woolen matresses, which would be completely emptied and washed twice a year, and the wool would be dried in the sun for a good two days, then whipped with a long stick for couple hours, and then filled back in the washed cover again. Nowadays it's very rare unfortunately.

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)

Is there a reason to get this over a waterproof bed bug protector? Which you can wash.

> 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.

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:

https://dustmiteguide.com

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!

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...

Another simple hack is to exit your outside the home outer clothes when you get home. There are virulent extra allergic dust mites, that has really helped my family. And these products can help with laundry at lower temps and harder to launder items. https://elfbrands.com/collections/elf-brands

Appreciate the resource -- I think my biggest question from reading it: How can you actually tell if you have dust mite problems? How can you tell if they've gotten better or not? How can I tell if I've hit a point where things are about as good as they're going to get? etc.

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.

“Before trying a basic mineral with no side effects, try a corticosteroid for a whole month”

??? You have that backwards.

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...

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].

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38140540

Cortisone is the main stress hormone, of course it makes you anxious

> 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.

I think that was Diphenhydramine (benadryl) that may have that long term risk via being an Anticholinergic.

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.

Correct me if I'm wrong, desloratadine won't pass the BBB so I guess it shouldn't cause dementia

Desloratadine is considered to have a low anticholinergic burden, and of course not crossing the BBB readily should reduce risks further.

But it is one of the more anticholinergic second gen antihistamines, make of that what you will, still miles behind something like Benadryl. Fexofenadine is apparently a less anticholinergic alternative.

You are aware of mattress covers for Dust Mites? And there is an enzyme additive for laundry. Finally a hand steamer for upholstered stuff. I had bad hives from allergies to them, and a medical resident suggested a clearing of all fabric in my life, as best as I could.

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.

There's sweet FA sun for six months out of the year here in central europe so not a viable option.

Thanks, but I'm still missing how I would properly diagnose myself. These symptoms might be all too common ... Anything more reliable?

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).

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.

I have asthma triggered by Volatile Organic Compounds. I good activated charcoal room air filter did wonders for me.

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

Indoor air quality these days is particularly awful.

Was reading that house dust is actually a major source of microplastics aswell.

Thanks for this idea. Can you recommend a particular model? A quick search found mostly just vacs. I have a vac(s). Perhaps I just get in the habit of treating my bed with UV?

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.

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.

While reading, I was wondering about matcha, and then I saw your comment -- which jives with my personal experience too! Thanks for chiming in :)

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMDA_receptor

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.)

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.

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.

I have ADHD and caffeine very easily makes me jittery. Ordering my cappuccino 'half-caff' has terrifically improved my life. Stimulant medication, the kind prescribed by the doc, easily makes me jittery, too.

The narrative that 'stimulants calm down people with ADHD but make neurotypicals wired' never sat well with me. But I totally believe that it makes you and many other people calmer without any friction.

There must be a wide range of physiological causes and behavioral circumstances that lead to an ADHD diagnosis, such that people like me take a baby dose of methylphenidate or else I get paradoxically overstimulated and distractible and physically uncomfortable.

Or maybe my stimulant tolerance is unrelated to the ADHD and it's just enzymes. I think I had a flag for one of those SNPs that makes me sensitive to caffeine...

As I said, there are many exceptions. It is just a correlation.

There are people with ADHD for whom meds don't work at all, some for who it works in very low doses, some that need very high doses, everyone is different. Same with reactions to coffein.

Diversity is the norm in nature when talking about individuals. ADHD is super complex and how stimulants work is also super complex and the interactions, well we barely have any idea. It doesn't really say anything about your ADHD that you are more or less sensitive to stimulants other than that your are more and less sensitive to stimulants.

Like you wrote, it could be just some enzymes or whatever. Humans are just crazy complex. It is still useful to talk about fact that a statistically significant subset of people with ADHD react differently to caffeine than most neurotypicals.

For what it is worth, I envy you a lot being more sensitives. I can kill five, six, seven cups of coffee and not feel anything. It sucks.

> Stimulant medication, the kind prescribed by the doc, easily makes me jittery, too.

How do you treat your ADHD then?

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.

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.

Part of that is probably withdrawal, I would think.

experiencing withdrawal symptoms seems to me quite different than regular use having a positive benefit

I would say it's both. "booting up" and starting to be a productive human in the morning happens smoothly as I have my coffee :)

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.

Same story here - few sips of coffee and my heart starts pounding and I can't sleep at all. I have found a plant / drink called yerba mate to give me the beneficial effects without the anxiety though. No headache either. It's higher in caffeine than tea but lower than coffee. Everyone is different but for anyone else out there who gets acute anxiety from most caffeine but wants the focus boost I would recommend giving it a try.

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)

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.

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.

I'm the same. I've taken caffeine pills and not noticed it. I can also just drink tea/coffee and then sleep.

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.

The author had caffeine "90% of the time", see this comment: https://dynomight.substack.com/p/theanine/comment/98488776

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.

It's not only the jittery but caffeine also tends to make people more anxiety, l-theanine mostly takes that away.

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.

Would've been interesting if OP had tested that combo specifically, maybe comparing theanine + caffeine to just caffeine alone in a blinded setup

> 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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis

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.

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?

Assortative mating. Partners' genetics are not independent.

Even more crazy than caffeine interaction.

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.

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.

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.

there is more in coffee than caffeine? maybe another substance?

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.

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.

How about other ingredients in coffee?

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

Polyphenols...

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8601035/

Coffee is a significant source of beta-carbolines.

My high school chemistry teacher claimed that tea and coffee each have different isomers of caffeine and people may be sensitive to one both or none. This was pre internet and some quick googling seems to debunk this claim in that caffeine has no isomers. Though the same searching seems to indicate that there is a likelihood other compounds mitigate or exacerbate its effects.

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.

Are you sure it's the caffeine and not another substance in coffee?

That's a great point. Dose-response relationships can be really weird

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.

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.

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...

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.

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...

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...

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.

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...

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?

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).

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.

Yeah, even watching the news can make your stress levels go up.

Don't those effects cancel with the effects on those participants who take the same 2 treatments but in the reverse order?

That’s why you need multiple participants and why this idea for doing experiments on just yourself doesn’t work well

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!

I use Bevel for this. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bevel-health-performance/id645...

That's not blinded though right, you'd know if you were taking Vit D or not and that would corrupt the experiment

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?

Skip the app. Make the pills.

Skip the pills. Make the app.

how do you blind the contents of the pills unless someone else does it?

Put them in numbered containers at the start of the experiment.

A device that randomly distributes pills into two chutes.

>how do you blind the contents of the pills unless someone else does it?

My idea ( you need to adapt the numbers)

1 you build say 30 paper small bags

2 you then get 15 pills of vitamins/drug you test and 15 of placebo , you need them to be similar in shape/color

3 you put the pills in bags and make two piles, say on left side you have the vitamin and right side you have the placebo

4 you make a script to generate 30 long code numbers , you print the codes and stick them on the bags(or use a pen), my idea is that even if you now see that the code you are sticking on the bag, since it will be some long code you should forget it, or have someone else stick the codes . You save the code nubmers in a file, the first 15 codes are the medicine the last 15 the placebo

5 each day you take a bag, open, take the pill and record the code on the bag

This would work! QR codes would be even more opaque.

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...

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.

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.

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?

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...

Android app?

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...

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.

I know what you mean here, but valuing small rituals is normal and not anywhere in the same ballpark as OCD.

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.

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.

Ok yeah I understand that it must be annoying to people with real OCD to read stuff like my comment. Apologies.

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.

> 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.

Hmm indeed. But the no-pill is very hard to placebo.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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

> 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.