Some time ago, a friend discussed his readings on Nootropic. He came to believe that perhaps there are ways to safely increase cognitive capacities of us humans without much harm. I got interested and asked him to give me a very simple starting point. The point I was given was 200mg L-theanine + 100mg caffeine tablets.

My initial thoughts were “Boy that’s a lot of caffeine! No way!”. But the experimenter in me took over. I am going to talk about dosage frequencies and the effects I observed.

Method

Tablets used

https://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B07SZBBP9G

Dosage schedule

| Date  | # of capsules |
|-------+---------------|
| 10/09 |             1 |
| 11/09 |             1 |
| 12/09 |             0 |
| 13/09 |             0 |
| 14/09 |             1 |
| 15/09 |             1 |
| 16/09 |             1 |
| 17/09 |             1 |
| 18/09 |             0 |
| 19/09 |             0 |
| 20/09 |             0 |
| 21/09 |             1 |
| 22/09 |             0 |
| 23/09 |             0 |
| 24/09 |             1 |
| 25/09 |             0 |
| 26/09 |             0 |
| 27/09 |             0 |
| 28/09 |             0 |
| 29/09 |             1 |
| 30/09 |             1 |
| 01/10 |             1 |
| 02/10 |             1 |
| 03/10 |             0 |
| 04/10 |             0 |
| 05/10 |             0 |
| 06/10 |             1 |
| 07/10 |             0 |
| 08/10 |             1 |
| 09/10 |             1 |
| 10/10 |             1 |

Notes

  1. Never >1 capsule
  2. Observe some streaks of no capsules at all for days

Observations

  1. Cognition
    • The distinct “buzz” of caffeine was not present
    • Presence of “tunnel vision”
    • Caffeine-related “hyperactive” feeling was absent
    • Effects stayed for ~2 hours
    • Tunnel-vision supported focus was more “manageable” than with only caffeine (coffee)
  2. Side effects
    • Between 18th to 30th Sept I caught cold, which I now believe to be due to swimming in bad water
    • Having coffee after a few days of capsules seem to cause a reversal of caffeine tolerance - the coffee hit “hard” as though I was not used to it

Summary

In my opinion, the effects of caffeine are “improved” by L-theanine. It removes the restlessness, makes the focus smooth and does not seem to be allowing caffeine tolerance to build up (at least very quickly).