Tea: The Tonic Your Brain Needs

Whether you’re looking for an alternative to soft drink, fruit juice, energy drink and coffee, or you’re just looking for a way to add flavor to your water, then hot or cold and green or black tea is definitively what you’re looking for. Indeed, tea packs a large array of very powerful nutrients that will literally boost your health and might even save your life in the process; and you get all that in many flavors, strength, color and style at virtually every corner.

Recently, some of the benefits of green tea have been brought to the attention of the public by the media, but something that most of us still ignore is that, you don’t have to limit yourself to green tea to reap all those great benefits.

Indeed, it does no matter whether white tea, green tea, Odong tea or black tea is your favorite, for whatever flavors you prefer, all contain powerful nutrients including different kinds of polyphenols and catechin molecules in different combinations and quantities. In fact, the best way to get the most of it would be to drink all of them, or even to get creative and make your own mix!

Here are 3 amazing benefits of tea that will hopefully -and finally- convince you to switch to it:

Brain Tonic

Contrary to coffee or popular energy drinks, tea doesn’t only help you wake up in the morning; it is in fact a complete brain tonic. Tea will stimulate, calm, feed and protect your brain, and it does that all at once!

Tea contains a much lower caffeine dose than coffee, which allows you to drink more of it providing a more stable spread stimulation throughout the day. Not only that, it also contains an amino acid called L-Theanine which has an anti-anxiolytic effect that will chop the caffeine edge and keep you cool all day long.

Even better, studies have discovered that tea increases the acetylcholine level in the brain by inhibiting enzymes that break it down. This is a major plus because acetylcholine is the main neurotransmitter involved in cognitive function and memory retention. In short, this means that tea actually contributes to making you smarter.

But that is not all, for scientists have also observed with magnetic resonance imaging that tea increases blood flow in areas of the brain involved in cognitive tasks, such as memory, reasoning and comprehension, allowing more oxygen and nutrient to be used. Isn’t that the icing on the cake?

Moreover, many studies have also demonstrated that the powerful antioxidant properties of tea protect your brain against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson and other types of brain injuries, which is great if you think long term.

Prevents and Fights Cancer

Many scientific studies have demonstrated that tea helps protect against cancer. Studies based on bladder, breast, ovarian, colorectal, esophageal, lung, pancreatic, prostate, skin and stomach cancer, believe that tea helps prevent cancerous cells from growing while it also has the capacity to kill them.

The polyphenol nutrients contained in large quantities in tea are powerful antioxidants that neutralize free radicals, which are compounds that can damage your DNA. Science has proven that those free radicals are a big contributing factor in cancer, aging and many other life-threatening diseases.

One of those antioxidants, the EGCG, stops angiogenesis, a process of blood-vessel growth required to feed the tumor, thus inhibiting the development of these cancerous cells.

No wonder why countries like Japan, with a greater than average consumption of tea, have the lowest amount of recorded cancer patients.

Keeps You Lean

Tea is a very low-calorie drink; we are talking about only 3 calories for a 12oz drink. One of the major factors contributing to fat gain and obesity is the consumption of sweet drinks. Whether you’re consuming a 12oz Coca-Cola at 140 calories, a 12oz orange juice at 160 calories, or maybe a 12oz Red-Bull at 150 calories, keep in mind that only 2 of those items a day can lead you to gain up to 1 pound of fat per week, and YES, you have to count your morning mocha latte as one of them.

Unfortunately, their low carb counterpart with aspartame or sucralose seems to have negative side effects on the brain function, which points out the fact that they might not be such a great alternative.

On the other side, tea increases your basal metabolic rate – your body’s energy consumption at rest – by about 4%, and even more importantly, tea increases insulin sensitivity which is a major plus when it comes to your body composition.

Your body is much more likely to store your nutrients as fat when you have low insulin sensitivity, and shuttle them to feed your muscles when it’s high. Without even realizing, insulin resistance is, in fact, one of the major roadblocks most people face in their weight loss journey, which makes tea the perfect drink for those who want to stay fit and healthy.

In conclusion, there are numerous health benefits to drinking tea. Whether you’re looking for a brain tonic, cancer-fighting properties or weight management advantages, tea is a beverage that won’t disappoint. Furthermore, the different varieties of tea available make it easy to find one that pleases your palate. So go ahead and swap your morning joe for a cup of tea and see the benefits for yourself!