Elevate Your Lifestyle With L-Theanine
I was a heavily-caffeinated college student.
It was pretty overwhelming for me: working over 40+ hours a week as a Liquor Manager and Pharmacy Clerk, and going to school full-time while consulting small businesses.
I worked with alcohol, drugs, and had a passion for fitness — oh the irony.
I was on edge and stressed out most of the time… and the heavy stimulatory effects of caffeine didn’t really help to drink a few cans of Monsters. Yet I heard a lot about the calming effects of green tea with caffeine, so I gave it a shot.
This helped a bit, then I started to explore why green tea benefitted me… and then I found L-theanine.
This was a game-changer for me.
In this post, we are going to dive in-depth on L-theanine, one of my favorite amino acids that inspired my journey into nootropics… and ultimately started the path to creating Reforged. We will introduce it, talk about its various benefits, and how to use the amino acid in its entirety.
Let’s dive in!
About L-Theanine
L-theanine is a non-dietary amino acid that’s commonly found in green tea. We can trace its roots back to China and eastern cultures. Well known for it’s anti-anxiety and anti-stress properties, l-theanine has essentially been utilized for over 1700 years.
L-theanine elevates the levels of GABA and glycine, allowing increases in serotonin and dopamine. These are neurotransmitters that have everything to do with our emotions, mood, focus, sleep, and more. This makes L-theanine one of the most versatile nootropics one can utilize
We believe L-theanine is one of the best brain booster and mood enhancer you can have in your arsenal.
L-Theanine Benefits
Here are a few of L-theanine’s main benefits:
- Reduces anxiety and stress. L-theanine reduces stress responses with its anti-anxiety effects.
- Improves cognition. L-theanine improved focus, reaction times, memory, attention, and even mood.
- Improves sleep quality. L-theanine has been shown to improve sleep quality in several studies.
- Antioxidant benefits. L-theanine boosted the production of antibodies and protection against neurotoxins.
Overall, L-theanine is an amino acid that reduces or inhibits the effects of stress responses to the brain. Think of incredibly stressful situations when you’re in a reactive state — your blood pressure and heart rate increase. L-theanine helps reduce the effects of this state.
L-Theanine and Cognition
While we did mention that L-theanine improves cognition, we wanted to dive in deeper to how it improves memory, focus, and attention.
According to one study, frequent usage of L-theanine reduces oxidative damage and protects your neurons from injury. When it comes to individuals with brain degenerative disorders, nootropics like L-theanine are incredible.
L-Theanine and Caffeine
L-theanine is most commonly used in synergist to caffeine. The reason for this is that L-theanine typically helps minimize the negative stimulatory effects of caffeine. In addition, it has been shown to improve reaction times and attention when combined with caffeine.
L-Theanine and Sleep
L-Theanine is an amino acid that is commonly used in meditation and holistic health for its calming effects.
With that being said, L-theanine can potentially be used for sleep as well. While we don’t have many studies on it, one animal study showed that it had some counteracting effects on caffeine-induced sleep disturbances. In another study, L-theanine helped with sleep quality, and the time it took to fall asleep in boys with ADHD.
L-Theanine would help with sleep If you drink caffeine in the late afternoon, or when you feel restless, or even if you want that calming effect before bed. For sleep, we would recommend supplementing it with 500mcg or 1mg of melatonin.
Using L-Theanine
Here are our recommendations when taking L-theanine:
- Take 100–250mg of L-theanine. While there are studies that showed no toxicity effects with 50 times this recommended dosage. As 100–250mg is way more than a few cups of green tea, this dose is recommended and has shown its various benefits in studies. Essentially, you don’t need more than this.
- Take L-theanine with caffeine (unless you’re trying to sleep). Caffeine and L-theanine have very synergistic benefits in that it improves attention and reduces the negative stimulatory effects that caffeine gives us.
- Take L-theanine before bed if you feel restless. L-theanine does not have any sedative side effects, so you won’t feel drowsy after taking it.
- If you do consider supplementing L-theanine with caffeine, you should take 250mg of L-theanine for every 150mg of Caffeine. We also recommend you do not exceed 400mg of caffeine per day for health purposes.
When it comes to L-theanine, please be aware that it may interact with other medications, so always consult your doctor or physician before taking it.
Getting A “W” With An L
As I mentioned, L-theanine is one of my favorite nootropics, and for good reason: it has truly augmented or elevated my lifestyle.
By taking L-theanine, expect the following benefits:
- L-theanine reduces anxiety and stress
- Improves cognition by improving focus, reaction times, memory, and more.
- L-theanine is an antioxidant that produces antibodies to protect us from neurotoxicity.
- Combined with caffeine, experience improved focus while minimizing the stimulatory effects of caffeine.
- L-theanine provides you a calming effect that will encourage sleep.
L-theanine is one of those supplements that can be used for various situations and occasions, making it a very versatile supplement.
In fact, we put it in our sleep supplement, Drift for that reason.
And with that, we want to thank you for taking the time to explore L-theanine, one of our favorite nootropics that has definitely elevated our lifestyle.
If you have any questions, comments, or insights, throw them below or email me at tony@reforgedperformance.com.
Until next time, everyone.
Now, go out there and crush your goals!
This was originally posted on our mind and body performance-based fitness brand, Reforged.
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