# GABA, Klonopin, and a connection with Green Tea (it helps!)



## californian

Okay, so I realize I'm new here, and I've also suffered from DP/DR long enough (on and off for 13 years) that I'm not going to do something as stupid as proclaim a "cure" here. But I'm hoping some people will read this and tell me if it sounds like I'm on to something here that ought to be given some formal research out there.

I noted from NODID's stats and a lot of posts on here that Klonopin is the med that seems to help the largest amount of dp/dr sufferers. So, being new to even knowing what the hell it is I have (I was originally diagnosed with only clinical depression) I thought I'd look up what Klonopin is and what it does. I was amazed that it was an anti-anxiety med, since I'd had some success with SJW in the past which is more of a MAOI/SSRI type herb. What was most interesting to me is that Klonopin enhances the activity of the neurotransmitter GABA thus reducing anxiety and thereby helping dp/dr to taper off.

So I thought to myself, before I take the big step of trying something like a benzodiazepine, what else out there might help anxiety by naturally raising GABA production in the brain. I found that L-glutamine is a precursor, and it seems like that has helped some people out there. At the same time I stumbled upon L-theanine--an amino acid found in green tea (all tea actually) and is similar to L-glutamine.

So I did a search on here about L-theanine and found a grand total of ONE post that contained a reference to it. I also found that not much is known about long term use of L-theanine. What I did find is that large amounts of green tea and L-theanine supplements are used to treat anxiety in Japan.

Along with my exercising, taking lots of B vitamins, and eating healthy, I started drinking a ton of green tea in the last week. And I'm not kidding...it has helped A LOT.

It seems to me that taking L-theanine (which actually quite easily passes the blood brain barrier) might be even more effective. What I'd like to see is if people around here tried the tea and/or L-theanine supplements and maybe see if ultimately it got Dr Simeon or NODID or others to do real clinical research with this....

Any thoughts, anyone?


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## desperado

this is great news, to hear that grean tea has helped you!
i treating myself only with natural drugs ( a little SJW, Vitamins, 150mg 5HTP, Omega3, Calcium, Magnesium, Valerian/Chamomille Teas, no sugar, no white bread, 2,5liter water each day, no caffeine, no alcohol)

i would also like to try grean tea for that reason. the problem is that green tea also contains caffeine, less than coffee of course, but still 50% compared to coffee. so i don?t want to drink it.
altough they say that if you brew the tea for more than 5 minutes the caffeine gets "attached" to tanning agents, so when it gets to the stomach caffeine is released slower to the blood.

so maybe i will buy l-theanine, try it and see how it works.


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## californian

yeah, i know what you mean about the caffeine. The good news is that decaffeinated green tea still has the l-theanine in it. So drinking loads of decaf green tea should help (as should any decaffeinated "true" tea--oolong, white, black, green).

I'm going to pick up some L-theanine supplements today and try out how it works. I've found online that it is used to treat panic attack and anxiety disorders with great effect. I don't have panic attacks, but I am coming to realize more and more the role that anxiety plays in dp/dr. So it seems to make a lot of sense that L-theanine would help for similar reasons that Klonopin helps people....


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## desperado

i don?t find a shop around where i live here in germany selling the l-theanine and i don?t want to buy it a dubious internet shop.
i think i will get the decaf tea.
i read somewhere that not all of the caffeine is out of the tea. i don?t know but i think it must be like more than 90% otherwise they wouldn?t be allowed to call it decaf. so i think drinking a few cups a day would not affect my anxiety and dp. i?m very cautious meanwhile.
do you have any numbers, to which extent the tea is free of caffeine?


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## greensong

*californian*, how much green tea are you drinking? I drink at least one cup a day, and I don't think it's doing much for me (I don't care because I love it anyway!)


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## californian

desperado, the numbers i have on the caffeine content are as follows,

coffee: 90-100mg
black tea: 50mg
green tea: 30mg
decaf green tea: 4-5 mg

accordingly you'd have to drink almost 20 cups of decaf green tea to equal the caffeine content in one 8 oz cup of coffee. keep in mind also that the l-theanine is believed to neutralize the stimulating effects of the green tea because they act on the same receptors in the brain. It is believed to be the reason that green tea has a relaxing effect rather than a stimulating one.

greensong, i've been drinking around six cups of green tea a day. usually half of those are decaf. i read somewhere that the average japanese man drinks 1.2L of green tea per day. keep in mind that I also take a b-vitamin stress complex, 5-htp, and an occasional saint john's wort (and I exercise vigorously for at least 45 minutes per day). but the green tea specifically produced a noted improvement in feeling alert and relaxed which at least helped me to focus on the real world around me and not so much on the stupid existential questions that usually plague me...

fyi, on the l-theanine supplements. I've read that many people who take these supplements for anxiety find that they work better when taken while drinking green tea. I've also read that some brands actually mix d-theanine and l-theanine and sell it as l-theanine. This mixture is supposed to be no more effective than placebo. So be aware....


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## jrsmite

Hello. I am new here, just typed up my personal story of DP/DR/bipolar and plan on posting it soon. 
I was surprised to see how the overwhelming majority of symptoms described here are the type of anxiety my psychiatrist had never heard of! He also was reluctant to give me a benzodiazepine but I finally put my foot down. He attributed it to psychosis and gave me more Risperdal, which is an antipsychotic, and I think that was actually making it worse. But anyway, it was exactly the kind of thing i'm hearing here: vision problems, time distortions, existential concerns, and mostly just feeling like I'm losing my mind.
The Klonopin works REALLY well. I only need to take half of a 0.5 mg tablet under my tongue once or twice a day, and I'm going to the gym everyday which also helps. I know it's addictive, but I don't know where I'd be without it. And it's such a small amount I really don't think it's doing me any harm.
Eventually I think I'll be able to get off of the daily dosing. I am a somewhat heavy smoker and I drink a lot of coffee too, which definitely contributes to my problem. We shall see. I would like to quit now, but a part of me wants to see everything else straightened out first.


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## jonnyfiasco

Keeping smoking isnt going to help. It does affect emotional health as well as physical health. I also thought along the same lines as you, thinking I would wait till everything else straightened out and then I would give up smoking, alcohol etc but really I should have been doing the opposite. I was just hoping everything straightened out so I could*keep* doing these things as I didnt want to give them up because they were my crutch!!!


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## J.

Gonna try this


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