Posted by nolvas on August 23, 2009, at 11:50:25
In reply to L-theanine questions !?!, posted by Batman55 on August 23, 2009, at 1:10:20
L-Theanine has a very mild anxiolytic or relaxing quality. You'd do much better to completely remove caffeine from your diet. In fact it's absolutely essential in my view if you suffer from anxiety, lack of sleep etc. Caffeine's principal mode of action is as an antagonist of adenosine receptors in the brain.
http://health.howstuffworks.com/caffeine3.htm
Continue to ingest high levels of caffeine and eventually your body is likely to produce high levels of cortisol, cortisol is an anti stress hormone but it has very damaging effects on your health if you have high levels all the time. Look at cushing syndrome for an example of all the negative effects of cortisol. (Caffiene ingestion is not linked to Cushing syndrome, but stress is now being recognised as a possible factor)
Caffeine causes stress in the body, and will definitely keep you awake. Taking L-Theanine to counteract the effects of Caffiene is definitely not the solution. Part of the solution is to eliminate or drastically cut down the consumption of caffiene.
L-Theanine at least for me doesn't touch my anxiety, it also appears to leave me with an anxiety hangover, as in I generally feel worse after the mild effects of L-Theanine have worn off. As for taking L-Theanine with SSRIs there's not enough information to make a decision either way. Just to be safe I probably wouldn't take it with SSRI drugs.
poster:nolvas
thread:913589
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20090727/msgs/913636.html