Both L-Theanine in tea and nicotine help with different aspects of schizophrenia nicotine helping with the negative and cognitive impairment and L-theanine helping with the positive symptoms. I want a more natural approach to treating my schizophrenia granted my schizophrenia is more mild then other peoples. Please tell me if you think this is possible.
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Probably not for me, as soon as the stress builds up its just another episode for me.
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But do you think it could work for me? It would pretty much be like I was on medicine maybe with psychotic episodes possibly. I know mitragynine the main chemical in kratom is being looked at as a way to prevent psychosis and I was a kratom addict. Maybe I can take L-theanine, kratom extract and nicotine as a makeshift way to treat my condition
I’ve watched people trying this over and over here for years. It doesn’t work and they go off the rails every single time. Stick with your meds unless your doc says otherwise.
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Nicotine is a nasty chemical. It’s all smoke and mirrors like most addictive drugs. Yeah you think your getting some benefit but getting off it you’ll be so much better off. Trust me. I was a hopeless nicotine addict for 25 years and it was singallly the best thing I did for my mental health getting off the stuff.
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I’m not sure it’s that bad if you don’t smoke it and use it occasionally. It definitely makes it easier to use it occasionally if you don’t smoke it also. As with many addictive drugs route of administration is important as it changes the pharmacokinetics. In terms of things which are legally available and importantly easily accessible it has to be one of the most powerful drugs for attention and enhancing cognition. Not necessarily worse then doing adderal but likewise you wouldn’t want to be smoking that either.
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I’m saying it doesn’t. It weakens such things so you need the chemical to get back to normal. I found that personally it totally is the opposite. Exercise is so much cheaper with so much better a profile for health and well being but that isn’t pharma but it’s all brain chemistry as you know.
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Nicotine def helps me. Without it i feel high and can hardly talk or understand people. It helps me think.
Yeah I thought so too. Great for anxiety too but found getting off nictotine most of my anxiety was easily dealt with.
All I am saying is it’s a nasty drug with really catastrophic delivery methods. You are slowly poisoning yourself for gains which aren’t that. They are mostly you keeping up your addiction and hitting those receptors in your head.
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Then I would disagree.
The context of cultural use of nicotine is important here as that then informs the way in which it is used. Nicotine is not solely associated with but is commonly used by people who combine it’s use with alcohol and other drugs. That along with the fact that smoking tobacco is has been proven to cause cancer as make it unsexy in the eyes of popular culture. I would argue that context dependent nicotine is associated with drug culture and cancer. The former not necessarily being a fair wrap. The images we create in our mind of the context in which people use nicotine then informs the way in which we engage with it ourselves as a substance of abuse. Due to the fact that most people’s exposure to nicotine is through smoking especially tobacco I think this provides an unfair characterisation of the molecule itself.
Individual response is important, so is past history. I’m sure if you gave it to a person who had never smoked or had exposure to nicotine before then they would find it highly stimulatory. It’s not necessarily a safe molecule since the jury is still out on it. Yet is is clearly extremely effective as a stimulant and that can be see by it’s ubiquitous proliferation.
Nicotine isn’t necessarily the devil people make it out to be. It’s the route of administration and the relationship people have with it which makes it problematic. Underscoring that it comes back to safe usage and having a healthy relationship with substances. Which admittedly because of our culture basically no one does but that doesn’t give causal reason to ban it nor does it provide good reason to demonise it.
Literally when was the last time somone in public told you the consumed it sublingual. It is possible to have a healthy relationship with nicotine, it’s not as hard as people make it out to be. It’s not necessarily a problematic drug in and of itself.
Still there are probably other ways to stimulate the nicotinic receptors which are better.
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It’s a drug like any other and it’s an nice reply but it’s a poison for the human body. Yeah it does nicotine receptors in your head and it promotes them so you need more. Your not improving cognition your improving addiction.
The only real study I’ve seen is it’s improved prefrontal cortex signals which may be lacking in schizophrenia but please prove me wrong because that was 20 years ago when I was a smoker.
It’s a drug probably more insidious than heroin in it’s legality and it’s availability. Heroin users aren’t really as popular and we all know the problems with opiates.
Do you smoke? It may be clouding your judgement and what I said about exercise is pertinent because all new stuff says that exercise helps heaps and it’s cheap…You can do so much with little equipement and spending where nicotine is taxed out of existence here.
A cig costs you well over a $1 here . It’s like $50 a pack of really narrow cigs because the health cost is ridiculous as your defending that nicotine has any theraputic benefit…
Provide the research.
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You built tolerance for nicotine and become psychological and physically dependent on it. L-Theanine worked for me until it didn’t. Took it just for sleep. Might have needed to up the dose.
I know some people IRL who would get psychologically numbed if they didn’t take hit of tobacco. Could not relieve themselves without chewing or smoking some.
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I think it is fair to say it doesn’t improve general wellbeing if your addicted to something, but that’s also obvious. I personally don’t think being addictive to nicotine is going to make you more productive overall either. However I’m talking about occasional use in the specific context of an important meeting, a speech, a challenging day or meeting a deadline. It could potentially be useful.
Tobacco is really bad but where is the evidence that nicotine is the same?
I’m an ex-smoker not currently using nicotine for cognitive enhancement mainly because of it ability to effect testosterone. I exercise regularly and I’m trying to put on weight so it’s ability to lower testosterone concerns me.
Like obviously exercise, but people can do more and people can do better then simply exercise. The basics are an important foundation but yeah people need to exercise kind of goes without saying. Exercise isn’t strictly the solution to improving cognition. It’s not necessarily bad advice it’s just not relevant to a discussion regarding medication for cognitive performance. It is however related to general wellbeing and a discussion around loosing weight. People already know they need to doing exercise, it’s a given and the message is beamed to so many people, through so many different aspects of their lives, I would agrue that in some instances the message has redundancy. If you told someone with adhd talking about using adderal to boost cognitive performance to go exercise as the solution to their problems, then you are kind of misunderstanding the context in which you are providing advice.
I’m 100% not suggesting anyone smoke cigarettes or consume tobacco as it has been clearly demonstrated to cause cancer! Nicotine however has not and the difference is often lost on people. It a nuanced discussion for most people to navigate and understand. It is also super common to face this of rhetoric from people when you don’t immediately take an anti-nicotine stance. Specifically I’m talking about the use of nicotine lozengers, gum, sprays, patches ect for cognition. Not things you inhale/smoke.
Physical performance
Here is an overview how it improves cognition, you can also see relevant citations in this article.
https://nootropicsexpert.com/nicotine/
Additional information you might find interesting.
I sourced the above paper from examine but it is well known to be a cognitive enhancer.
Your better off without. Glad you went through all that but it’s still an addictive substance and you didn’t address exercise which was my point. It’s way better without the side effects and general nastiness of nicotine.
I’m familiar with the arguements but nicotine replacement isn’t proven to do didly sqaut for a smoker. It’s a pity that more didn’t adopt champix/chanitix because it’s a partial agonist that works so well for most.
Still. It’s not good policy to promote nictotine addiction and I’ll stand by that. IT’s a poisnonous chemical and it’s highly addictive. There is no defending that and you’ve proven nothing with your response because simply I can say I get more cognitive benefits by not taking it. Explain that and you might be on a winner.
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I take nicotine pouches it’s pure nicotine. I wasn’t really asking about the nicotine but the L-theanine I read on here there was a study saying L-theanine helps with positive symptoms but I read L-theanine is only proven to be safe for 8 weeks. I want to take herbs and natural medicine for my schizophrenia. I know nicotine can be bad, but nicotine seems to always be enjoyable at the very least not really helpful
I think both antipsychotics and nicotine are addictive drugs, slowly poisoning you, just hitting receptors in your head, et cetera. There is no difference there. With nicotine perhaps being the lesser evil. It is an interesting thought. But…
- You replace one addictive substance with other addictive substances.
- I doubt the effectivity against schizophrenia. Especially the lasting effectivity, because of tolerance building.
- You still do not solve the underlying problem. My personal opinion, is that schizophrenia is not one disease. But many. With many different causes. Trauma, food intolerance, TBI, (epi)genetic vulnerability, microbiome disturbances, hormonal issues, drug abuse, confusing communication patterns in a family, emotional sensitivity, social exclusion and defeat, and many more. Some of these can’t be solved. Some can. I think it depends on the underlying cause, what solutions you chose. A nicotine addiction would not be my first choice. Same with ADHD: I’d go for lifestyle adjustment, exercise and evidence-based (few food) diet first, before reaching for the Adderall.
- If you want to try, it is your life. I’d recommend you make a good plan first though, with people you trust (doctor, psychologist, wise friend?). What are the risks? How will you deal with a return of symptoms? How do you cope with withdrawals?
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I vape and take about 750mg of L-theanine a day. I can categorically say you can’t replace your antipsychotic with them.
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Before playing around with Kratom, nicotine, l-theanine, herbs or whatever…
I think only death can cure the pain if leaving this body aint sending me straight to hell. Im using already, 6 strong medicines for schizophrenia, my addiction is strong to even cigarettes and coffee, i use all possible drugs and struggling seems endless, so at the end of this life when you take your last breath it probably cures the pain.
I take l theanine daily but it doesn’t help me sleep nor had it helped with my positive symptoms. I use it for anxiety.
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