Green tea is a trending addition to many people’s lifestyles. Learn about the surprising health benefits of drinking green tea before bed!
1. High-Quality Sleep
The average adult needs about 8 hours of rest to function correctly. Green tea helps you achieve just that. It is one of the most significant benefits of drinking green tea before bed. This scientific study shows how drinking green tea with low caffeine can improve sleep quality.
Green tea contains an amino acid L-theanine, which can help boost sleep and reduce anxiety. Those that struggle for a good night’s sleep can be benefitted from this healthy drink. Because you don’t need “8 hours of sleep”, you need 8 hours of “sound sleep“.
2. Improve Your Cardiovascular Health
A reduction in cholesterol levels means a better heart. Green Tea can reduce triglycerides in your body! You can reduce your chances of a stroke by at least 15% if you add a drink of green tea to your day.
3. Keeps Cancer Away
Cancer is an uncontrolled and exponential growth of cells. Oxidation contributes to cancer development in our bodies. The anti-oxidants in green tea effect in protection against this condition. For those of you struggling against or worried about cancer, green tea can help ward off the nasty disease.
4. Reduce Stress and Anxiety
Caffeine found in green tea can result in elevated moods. L-theanine can help fight depression. A single serving of green tea can stimulate the production of your brain waves. Despite the presence of caffeine in green tea, it helps in reducing your anxiety levels, making you feel fresh and happy.
5. Get in Shape
Green Tea helps in burning calories! A cup of green tea before bed can help boost your metabolism to burn more fat, faster.
Green Tea’s thermogenic properties help it in burning fat. With the benefit of controlled blood sugar levels, green tea also regulates your appetite. Getting into shape is easier with a good night’s sleep and well-regulated metabolism.
6. Reduce Your Cholesterol Levels
Aside from exercising regularly and limiting your fried food intake, a serving of green tea is a quintessential addition in controlling your cholesterol levels.
It contains anti-oxidative properties and assists in managing the free radicals present in your body. These free radicals are absorbed in your body through pollution or smoking, and green tea tips the balance in your favor by being an anti-oxidant agent.
7. Maintain Oral Hygiene with Green Tea Before Bed
Green tea can help you fight periodontal diseases and keep your gums and teeth healthier for longer durations of time. Green Tea before bed will help you have healthier teeth! Since your mouth is the first part of your digestive system, keeping it healthy is a much-needed benefit.
8. Give Your Immune System an Uplift
Polyphenols present in green tea have anti-inflammatory properties. You can avoid auto-immune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis by adding a cup of green tea to your bedtime routine. Just be careful not to drink any tea with an empty stomach as it can reduce the absorption of B1 vitamins in your body, causing a condition known as beriberi.
9. Obtain Radiant Skin and Shiny Hair
Green tea benefits collagen production. For people with sensitive skin, they can reap the benefits of Vitamin E found in green Tea before bedtime. It also has the advantage of slowing down cell degeneration. That’s why people who drink green tea age slower! It also helps keep your hair shinier with EGCG catechins present in abundance in green teas.
10. Reduce the Risk of Diabetes
Drinking green tea improves the body’s sensitivity to insulin, which results in controlled blood sugar levels. As we move into an age where diabetes affects over 400 million people worldwide, drinking a cup of green tea before bed is a smart move.
11. Be Smart
The amount of caffeine present in green tea is enough to cause a stimulant effect, without having the ‘jittery’ vibes of caffeine present in too much coffee. By blocking adenosine, an inhibitory neurotransmitter found in the brain, green tea increases the firing of neurons in your mind and also the concentration of the various neurotransmitters, namely norepinephrine and dopamine. Caffeine improves multiple brain functions like mood, reaction time, and even memory. L-theanine present in green tea has anti-anxiety effects. It should be noted that a reduction in anxiety levels helps the brain perform it’s duties better.
Downsides of Drinking Green Tea Before Bed
Green Tea Contains Caffeine
Caffeine, as you might’ve guessed, stimulates arousal, alertness, and focus. It also reduces tiredness, so if you have trouble falling asleep, drinking green tea right before bed might make it impossible to fall asleep at the right time. Two steps you might take to ensure that this doesn’t happen is by drinking decaffeinated green tea or having green tea one or two hours before bedtime.
Though theanine in green tea counteracts the effects of caffeine, it depends on a person’s sensitivity to caffeine to induce sleeplessness.
May Increase Nighttime Wakings
Drinking fluids within 2 hours before bed might result in an increased need to pee at night. This can interrupt your sleep, and you might feel tired the next day. Any drink with caffeine in it also has a diuretic effect, which means an increased urine production.
If your bladder doesn’t allow you to consume green tea at night, it is also wise to drink it throughout the day up till at least two hours before bedtime.