For years we’ve talked about the immune supportive, anti-carcinogenic benefits of green tea as it relates to our Lean + Green Tea. But did you know, you can also find green tea in our Energy + Focus coffee?
Now, you may be asking why is it's in there. So, let’s look at the anxiety reducing, focus improving, mood balancing qualities reported in recent studies of green tea.
Green Tea Calms and Increases Focus
One of the biggest challenges for those who struggle with anxiety and focus, is to calm the anxiety without decreasing focus. It’s particularly problematic as anti-anxiety drugs often cause sleepiness / relaxation (to calm the brain) while focus-supporting meds can increase anxiety. How unique it is to find natural botanical like green tree that is offering hope in providing both calmness and focus.
Here’s more on the evidence behind this belief:
A study from Japan has found that daily supplements of L-theanine, an amino acid found in tea, may help people with anxiety also focus on their daily activities. A win-win for many with a dual diagnosis of anxiety with attention deficits. L-theanine may help reduce stress, promote relaxation, and improve the quality of sleep. L-theanine appears to work by changing the electrical activity in the brain by increasing alpha waves, measured by EEG.
Results of the test showed that highly anxious students receiving the L-theanine displayed a slowing of their heart rate, improved attention and better reaction times, compared to members of the same group receiving placebo. This is a significant improvement over many conventional anti-anxiety treatments that often have side effects of drowsiness, slowed reflexes, or impaired concentration.
Green Tea Improves Mood & Cognition
Green tea is traditionally known to induce mental clarity, cognitive function, physical activation and relaxation. Recently, attention has shifted to a specialized green tea, matcha tea gaining the reputation as a mood- and brain food. According to studies, matcha tea consumption leads to much higher intake of green tea phytochemicals caffeine, L-theanine, and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). Repeated consumption demonstrated benefits on mood and cognitive performance.
Here’s more on the science behind this position:
A review was conducted on 49 human intervention studies to summarize the research on acute psychoactive effects of caffeine, L-theanine, and EGCG on different dimensions of mood and cognitive performance. Caffeine was found to mainly improve performance on demanding long-duration cognitive tasks and self-reported alertness, arousal, and vigor. Significant effects already occurred at low doses of 40 mg. L-theanine alone improved self-reported relaxation, tension, and calmness starting at 200 mg.
L-theanine and caffeine combined were found to particularly improve performance in attention-switching tasks and alertness, but to a lesser extent than caffeine alone. No conclusive evidence relating to effects induced by EGCG could be given since the amount of intervention studies was limited. These studies provided reliable evidence showing that L-theanine and caffeine have clear beneficial effects on sustained attention, memory, and suppression of distraction. Moreover, L-theanine was found to lead to relaxation by reducing caffeine induced arousal.
