4 replies to this topic

[BlueBerry1234]

Now, I no longer know what supplements I can take.

For example: Yesterday I drank lots of coffee which made me exhausted, tired and nervous jittery at the same time.
After I drank my coffee after lunch, I again felt the jitteriness and could not focus. So after 15 minutes, I decided to take L-Theanine (Suntheanine). I felt very calm, my focus improved. I thought that is what I should take now with coffee. Also I experienced NO CRASH, so I had energy at midnight too. Otherwise I would experience the crash after 2-4 hours (although I don't drink lots of coffee).

Today, I drank coffee after breakfast (I didn't took Theanine because I wanted to experience the caffeine rush). After few minutes I felt the caffeine kicking in.
After an hour or so, I no longer felt the rush and was a bit tired.
During lunch I drank coffee and took Theanine 10 minutes later. I felt a bit calm but after an hour I experienced the CRASH. My hands were also shaking which I often experience when I take Theanine with coffee.

I decided to take a pill which contains Rhodiola Ashwagandha ginkgo and other stuff. (https://www.ringana....t/caps-cerebro/)

I don't know what this pills actually do to me. Sometimes I experience headache and fatigue after taking them.
Rhodiola is very weird. It might decrease the Sympathetic nervous system (which is good because I often feel the fight-flight-response), but sometimes I feel weird in the brain more.

I only want to improve my verbal fluency, energy, calmness, memory.
Why does nothing work???

Why does coffee sometimes trigger anxiety symptoms (although there is nothing to worry), sometimes I feel extreme confused after coffee and makes me more introverted and sometimes actually depressed.
But sometimes I become slightly clear in my head and makes me more outgoing, euphoria, good mood.
What is causing this??? Why could the effect of coffee not be good always?
I don't want not to drink coffee. After I feel tired I actually need something. And everybody drinks coffee so I can drink it too!!

The most important thing is that coffee improves my attention to surrounding and the ability to multitask!! Without coffee I don't recognize my surrounding, f.e. like writing this text on my mobile phone and listening to my family at the same time. With coffee I could do that (sometimes, but I think Rhodiola decreases the ability to multitask).

[Andey]

If you continue to overstimulate your adrenals things would became weirder day after day.

 

My advice (one that you would not follow ) to switch for some time for decaf coffee, wait until things would became normal and than reintroduce it again. Slowly.

 

[Duchykins]

Caffeine crash and jitters are caused almost exclusively by sudden drops in magnesium and potassium.  Theanine can only mitigate the effects a little bit, if at all.  Caffeine increases magnesium and potassium loss proportional to dosage; magnesium is the first to go, then potassium, as magnesium helps maintain potassium inside the cell.  This is why the aftereffects of caffeine are so predictable and phasic like that.  Your body starts dumping the electrolytes out through your urine.  When the potassium starts going, that's when the shit hits the fan.

 

High doses of taurine are added to energy drinks specifically because it helps keep magnesium and potassium inside the cell, aside from being mildly GABAergic.  Otherwise almost nobody would be able to tolerate drinking the stuff and would send a lot of people to the ER with hypokalemia and arrhythmia.  But taurine can only mitigate so much by itself - it's not a one-shot.  You need the magnesium and potassium back.  Especially the potassium.  Several hundred milligrams of both and about a half hour before it gets into your system.

 

You are tired despite the caffeine because you have become temporarily but mildly hypokalemic, the symptoms of which can mimic intense anxiety.  Being overstimulated puts your whole body in a state that is physically exhausting.  Adrenal glands have little to do with it (eg adrenal fatigue is not a real thing).

 

The reason you sometimes get the anxiety and sometimes not is because of whatever you have eaten that day - if you ate something with a good amount of Mg and K, and are hydrated, then you can weather the caffeine a little better.  If not. then you will have a very bad day.   If you experience the anxiety more towards the nighttime, then you definitely know you are quite low on potassium.

 

You are also experiencing some placebo effect with the theanine, since it takes about an hour (taken on an empty stomach) to reach peak efficacy; this is why you take theanine about one hour before doing whatever activity you took it for.

 

When you say that you experience hand shaking an hour after taking theanine with caffeine.  This is most likely because of excess glutamatergic activity - theanine does not always have identical effects on all people because of how it interacts with glutamatergic system.  One of the reasons people love caffeine is because of the glutamate and histamine bursts in triggers in the brain - these are two of the major excitatory systems in the brain (the other being dopamine).  The theanine molecule is structurally similar to glutamate and this is why some people find it anxiolytic and some people find it stimulating - it depends on how the individual's brain is wired to deal with glutamate.

 

Lesson of the day: never stim while neglecting your electrolytes

Edited by Duchykins, 12 March 2017 - 05:43 AM.

[Duchykins]

This is what I like to do with coffee since I'm sensitive to potassium loss  - I get the Bolthouse Farms Chocolate Protein Plus and just mix it with coffee.  Each serving of that drink has about 600 mg potassium in it.  Or I just get the Bolthouse Farms Blended Coffee protein drink.  Works like a charm every time.  But coffee by itself?  Two hours later and I'm a damn mess.

[Captain Obvious]

"If you continue to overstimulate your adrenals things would became weirder day after day."

If you are referring to the so-called "adrenal fatigue", that common myth has already been debunked.