6. Anti-Anxiety
The problem with all this increased focus and alertness is that it is essentially tantamount to the ‘fight or flight’ response, or in other words, the stress response. With all that caffeine flowing through you, you can become jittery, anxious and prone to insomnia.
And this is the first time we see the benefits of consuming green tea specifically as your chosen source of caffeine. That’s because green tea also contains other important benefits, including l-theanine. L-theanine is a xanthine like caffeine but one that has the opposite effect, in that it reduces the effects of the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate, while increasing the production of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA.
The result is that green tea can cause a kind of ‘calm focus’ that isn’t possible with coffee or black tea.