When is the Best Time To Take L-Theanine?: It Depends On How You Use It!

Stay alert and focused throughout the day. Complete all your tasks for work or school, also get in a workout, also eat nutritious food that you prepare at home after grocery shopping. Then tackle any chores you need to take care of to manage your household and then read a book or work on a hobby because it's always good to keep your inquisitive mind learning new things.

Then make sure you get at least eight hours of sleep because your body and mind both need proper rest and recovery.

It's no wonder supplements are so popular. Who can achieve all of that, every day?

While a great organizational mind or at least some fancy new AI tools and good habits can help you create the life you want and keep it generally at a level of comfortability that's maintainable, we certainly won't throw any shade your way if you're looking for the occasional boost.

Heck, that's why we exist!

But when is the right time for a boost in one direction or the other? Obviously, we want to be productive and full of energy throughout the day. And many need something to just shut down at the end of the night. 

That's what's amazing about l-theanine - depending on how you use it and what you pair it with, the best time to take l-theanine can kind of be any time.

Take L-Theanine and Caffeine For Focus In The Morning

When you pair l-theanine and caffeine, they work together in a powerful way.

The strength of l-theanine is its ability to relax. It's a "vasodilator," meaning it keeps your blood vessels open and large, preventing contraction, which is typically associated with an increase in stress levels and blood pressure. 

The strength of caffeine is its ability to stimulate. But its stimulation comes at a cost, as its "vasoconstrictor" nature causes those stress levels to rise and a general excited response in the body. Because of l-theanine's vasodilation, this response is prevented, meaning you get the benefits of caffeine, without the same level of drawbacks.

Specifically, the benefit of focus, which caffeine has been shown to improve.

When we talk about focus, sometimes the idea comes across as a broad concept that almost generates thoughts of sitting in class wondering when your teacher was going to stop droning on about something you weren't and never would be interested in. But we do have specific ideas on what focus is: memory, word recognition and attention switching tasks. Think about your workday. The ability to focus better makes it easier to get back on track when a Slack message interrupts your Excel session or move from your Powerpoint slide creation seamlessly into a budget analysis.

L-theanine works with caffeine to amplify the focus benefit of its stimulation, while mitigating the "heightening" of the central nervous system. No longer does your body tell you something's up, let's activate our fight or flight system when the caffeine hits you. Think of l-theanine as a reassuring ally, letting your body know there's no reason to be concerned, it's just your old pal caffeine coming for a visit to help you get going and get things done effectively.

So for focus, you'll want to take l-theanine in the morning along with caffeine.

Take L-Theanine For Sleep At Night

Now, when l-theanine isn't paired with caffeine, it basically just serves it's natural purpose: to relax.

How does l-theanine work to relax the mind?

In the opposite way of the l-theanine and caffeine pairing, when l-theanine is paired with some sort of depressant, it helps prep your mind and body to let the depressing agent do its work. If there's no caffeine to provide stimulation working with l-theanine's ability to prevent excitatory response, then l-theanine simply works as an aid in furthering relaxation within the body.

That's why one study found that, especially in high-stress-response adults, without caffeine, l-theanine actually works to lower blood pressure:

The findings above denote that L-theanine not only reduces anxiety but also attenuates the blood pressure increase in high-stress-response adults.

When paired with a sleep agent like valerian root or gaba, l-theanine helps to prep the body so that those ingredients can induce faster sleep. The tossing and turning you may do on occasion (or with great frequency for some)? L-theanine would be a potential solution for improving your relaxation and quieting your mind in those moments.

From there, whatever you'd like to pair with l-theanine (certainly we recommend valerian root and gaba as in our sleep latte 😉) kicks in to help you sleep better once you get there.