Caffeine and L-Theanine: Why Adding L-Theanine To Your Morning Beverage Works Wonders
Roughly 80% of Americans jumpstart their day with caffeine, but many people report that caffeine gives them anxiety or jitters.
L-theanine can help with that by working with caffeine much like a successful curling team.
Certainly, you’re familiar with the Olympic sport of curling – two teams take turns sliding a broad disc (known as a curling stone) across an icy surface toward a distant goal marker. Aiding the stone’s path to success are two of the slider’s teammates who move swiftly ahead of the stone, sweeping the ice with ‘brooms’.
The purpose of this is to remove any particles that may cause friction and diminish the stone’s momentum. By sweeping aside the inhibitory elements they allow the stone to reach its full potential.
L-theanine functions as a gold medal-worthy teammate to caffeine. It enables caffeine to achieve its potential in much the same way as a curler does a stone, by scattering the negative effects that would otherwise hamper the energy it creates. The calming effects of l-theanine soothe the anxiety and jitters that caffeine often leaves in its wake, allowing you to reap the benefits of calm, focused alertness.
L-theanine and Caffeine: Natural Ingredients
It should come as no surprise that l-theanine and caffeine function well together; both are natural ingredients, and the production of harmonious elements is one of nature’s specialties. L-theanine can be found in tea leaves and certain mushrooms while caffeine is found in coffee, tea, chocolate, and guarana.
The effects of these ingredients are no accident. The boost provided by caffeine, the calm that comes from l-theanine–each fulfills its organic potential.
Nature is nothing if not a purposeful designer.
L-Theanine's Impact on Caffeine
Caffeine is a natural “vasoconstrictor,” meaning its excitatory effects temporarily reduce the size of blood vessels and causes an increase in blood pressure.
L-theanine, studies suggest, prevents such excitatory responses in the brain, which eliminates caffeine’s vasoconstrictor tendencies and reduces blood pressure, heart rate, and accompanying stress hormone levels.
Recent studies have found the combination of caffeine and l-theanine to improve performance on memory, mood, word recognition, and attention switching tasks to a greater degree than caffeine alone. When caffeine is able to provide a boost that isn’t hindered by its own drawbacks, the effects are measurably improved.
The proper proportion of caffeine to l-theanine is crucial though. A 2:1 ratio of l-theanine to caffeine has proven necessary to ensure l-theanine has the proper strength to successfully support caffeine, providing improved focus without caffeine’s anxiety and jitters.
If you're wondering when is the best time to take l-theanine specifically, the combination with caffeine is a powerful way to start the day. And without caffeine, l-theanine's relaxation properties synonymous with its ability to relax and prevent an excited response to potential anxiety causing events, l-theanine alone makes a great partner at the end of the night as well.
Our turmeric latte powder mix, cacao latte and matcha latte mixes use 200mg of l-theanine to 100mg of slow-release caffeine derived from guarana and green tea. Learn more about how our other superfoods - guarana and gaba - work together with l-theanine to support calm, focused alertness.
Blossom is a mental wellness company providing people with natural tools to support their mental well-being. We believe that natural medicine should be Plan A instead of Plan B in mental healthcare. We take a clinically-based approach to product development using only ingredients that have been clinically-proven to support mental wellness.