I intend on running rigorous self-experiments on my health through biohacking and supplements. This blog post will capture my experiments and running logs.
- Feb 13, 2026 at 10:00
- Up to now I finished the zinc tablets and I did not become sick. So that’s awesome. And in fact, at a certain point due to lack of sleep I thought I was at risk of becoming sick, so maybe the zinc helped prevent.
- Since this morning I’ve started taking the magnesium ashwagandha tablets; they supplement for muscle, bone, heart, and relaxation according to the label. So until I run out of them, I will observe if there’s any correlated effects.
- Feb 23, 2026 at 17:46
- Haven’t been relaxed lately so I think the magnesium ashwagandha pills aren’t causaully significant.
- Mar 13, 2026
- I haven’t been taking any supplements since BOM when I ran out of the magnesium pills (not sure if they were helpful, didn’t have any specific observations). Was sick from March 7 to 12—not having zinc then was a mistake. Not sure what the sickness was due to; could have been overeating and also eating food that someone else ate from.
- Apr 26, 2026
- I’ve been taking vitamin D consistently since around March 13th, and now I’m switching to vitamin D gummies from vitamin D pills, but same thing, except these gummies have K2 as well, which apparently is a good combination with vitamin D. Also, I was taking zinc consistently for like two or three weeks in March to the start of April, but then I looked online and the upper limit of zinc per day is like 40 mg for a male, and the tablets I was eating were 50 mg, so I was essentially overdosing on zinc, which is great if you’re sick but I don’t think it’s a good idea long term. I stopped doing that.
- Apr 27, 2026
- Actual product: Solaray VegCaps, with 200 mg L-theanine and 100 mg green tea leaf per capsule. Proposed experiment: take one capsule in the morning for 14 days, while keeping sleep, training, and other supplements as stable as possible. Since this includes green tea leaf, this is not a perfectly pure L-theanine test, but it should still be a clean enough practical experiment if I keep the product and routine fixed.
- What I’m measuring: energy, combined calm/anxiety, side effects in notes, sleep, training, and day average heart rate if Polar exposes it. The win condition is not “I felt different once”; it is a boring repeatable signal.
- Safety notes: L-theanine seems like a pretty low-risk experiment at normal oral doses, but it is still a supplement, not a proven treatment. Possible downsides include sleepiness, headache, nausea/GI upset, dizziness/lightheadedness, and blood-pressure effects. Be more cautious if taking blood-pressure meds, sedatives/sleep meds, ADHD stimulants, chemotherapy, or if pregnant/breastfeeding. Buy third-party-tested if possible.
L-theanine trial log
Auto-fill target: Polar sleep score/charge and Polar training status if available. Manual fill: capsule/time, energy, and composure. For composure, 5 means calm and settled; 1 means anxious or unsettled.
| Date | Capsule/time | Energy (1-5) | Composure (1-5) | Sleep score (1-100) | Sleep charge (1-5) | Cardio load status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-271 | 10h00 | 5 | 4 | 52 | 1 | maintaining |
| 2026-04-282 | 18h30 | 5 | 5 | Watch didn’t record sleep, but it was poor quality | ditto | detraining |
| 2026-04-29 | 09h00 | 5 | 4 | 74 | 4 | maintaining |
| 2026-04-30 | 10h00 | 4 | 4 | 65 | 2 | maintaining |
| 2026-05-013 | 09h30 | 5 | 2 | 63 | 2 | productive |
| 2026-05-024 | n/a | n/a | 69 | 3 | maintaining | |
| 2026-05-035 | 08h00 | 2 | 2 | 72 | 4 | detraining |
| 2026-05-046 | 07h53 | 4 | 3 | 74 | 4 | maintaining |
| 2026-05-05 | 10h00 | 2 | 2 | 79 | 4 | productive |
| 2026-05-197 | 9h45 | 3 | 3 | 77 | 4 | overreaching |
| 2026-05-20 | 9h30 | 3 | 3 | 76 | 4 | overreaching |
| 2026-05-21 | 11h15 | 5 | 4 | 45 | 1 | productive |
| 2026-05-22 | 10h35 | 5 | 5 | 68 | 3 | productive |
| 2026-05-25 | 11h20 | 4 | 5 | 72 | 3 | productive |
| 2026-05-26 | 9h35 | 5 | 5 | productive | ||
| 2026-05-27 | 11h30 | 3 | 2 | |||
| 2026-05-28 | 16h50 | 2 | 1 | |||
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| 2026-06-08 |
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Morning started great, and then I had a slump in the afternoon after eating two meals and also feeling hopeless about the project, but then afterwards I felt great in the evening since our poject picked back up. ↩
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Excellent day, concentration-wise, as usual. I started crashing at 9 PM due to fatigue, so in an ideal world I would have gone home already, but had to finish my task. Otherwise, I also ate quite a lot in the evening, which is not ideal. ↩
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2026-05-01: This day was terrible. I did not plan, and for that reason I failed. ↩
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2026-05-02: I was out hiking all day, so I did not take the pill. Polar exercise log returned one long
HIKINGworkout with cardio load389.543(VERY_HIGH). ↩ -
2026-05-03: Not a great day at all for me. I think I’ve had some accumulated sleep deprivation since April 30th, which has not helped at all. Polar exercise log has a short 06:48 run with cardio load
15.7855(VERY_LOW). ↩ -
2026-05-04: Today will be different. I will succeed. Aujourd’hui c’est le premier jour de ma vie que j’ai vécu le sevrage de la caféine. ↩
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2026-05-19: Hiatus May 6 → May 18 — lost all my habits and was a degen. Resuming the trial today. ↩