What is L-Theanine?
If you're heavy into the health community or reading up on your Recoop ingredients, you've probably heard the word L-theanine tossed around as a brain-boosting, anxiety-quelling supplement. Sounds great, right? But like with every supplement, it's imperative to understand what it is, how it works, and what benefits to expect before diving in.
What is L-theanine?
L-theanine is an amino acid commonly found in green tea, black tea, and certain types of mushrooms. As humans, our bodies don't naturally produce this compound, nor is it essential, but we benefit from L-theanine all the same.
Studies suggest that L-theanine increases the levels of "happy" chemicals in the brain, including serotonin and dopamine, which regulate mood, sleep, emotion, and cortisol, your body's first line of defense against stress.
What are the benefits of L-theanine?
Anxiety and Stress Relief
Similar to how sipping on a hot cup of tea has calming effects, L-theanine supplements can reduce anxiety without causing drowsiness. This feeling is often referred to as "wakeful relaxation" and is one of the critical reasons for the supplement's rise to popularity.
The stress-relieving properties of L-theanine stem from the amino acid's ability to decrease "excitatory" brain chemicals that exacerbate anxiety while increasing the brain chemicals that encourage calm feelings. Thus, you're left relaxed but alert, unlike the results of most stress-relief solutions.
Improved Sleep
There's a reason we include L-theanine in both our Recovery and Balance formulas. Multiple studies suggest that L-theanine can help people relax and unwind before bedtime, fall asleep easier, and sleep more deeply. It works simply by lowering anxiety and promoting relaxation, stopping restless nights before they can even happen.
Sharpened Focus
Especially when combined with caffeine, L-theanine can enhance cognitive performance. Many people report improved attention span, increased accuracy, and faster visual information processing.
Likewise, L-theanine's inherently calming properties can help increase memory and learning. While experiencing stress, your body gets flooded with cortisol and corticosterone. This hormone overload can inhibit brain activity like memory formation and spatial learning. L-theanine helps to decrease levels of stress hormones to any brain activity interference.
Is it safe?
In short, absolutely! It's completely natural and generally tolerated well by healthy adults. Alternatively, If you're pregnant and breastfeeding or have low blood pressure, you should talk to your doctor before adding L-theanine into your daily routine.
