Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world and there are various reasons for this. The goal of this article is to focus on one of the reasons many people choose to drink tea instead of coffee. This article discusses the different health benefits of tea and why more and more people like drinking tea on a daily basis.
Is tea healthy?
Before discussing the different health benefits of tea, it’s important to keep in mind that drinking tea is not a guaranteed way to become 100 years old and never get sick. Drinking tea is not something you do if you’re feeling sick to get healthy again the next day.
One should think of tea as part of a healthy lifestyle with regular physical exercise. This way, tea can have a positive effect on your mental, spiritual and physical wellbeing. It’s better to look at tea as something that can lower the chance of getting certain diseases or even prevent some diseases than a miracle drink that can cure any disease. Drinking tea is more about prevention rather than a cure.
Recent studies have shown that Chinese adults who drink tea on a regular basis are less likely to develop cardiovascular diseases or even die from strokes. People who drink tea at least three times a week are already showing improvements over people who do not drink tea.
It all depends on which kind of tea you’re drinking, but it’s clear that any kind of tea (coming from a Camellia Sinensis plant) is healthy and can improve your overall health.
Health benefits of tea
The main health benefits of tea are listed below:
Less caffeine in tea than in coffee
Many people switch from drinking several cups of coffee each morning to drinking tea every day before work. The main reason for this is that coffee is not as healthy as tea and because it contains more caffeine (as explained in this article).
Caffeine in tea is also more about the positive effects on the human body. Coffee can make you feel anxious, nervous and really active. Tea will also make you feel active but to a much lesser degree and for a longer time period. Tea takes the positive effects of caffeine and makes us experience these effects a lot longer than when you would drink a cup of coffee.
Tea also contains theanine, which is an amino acid that improves your mood and helps you to relax a bit. Caffeine works well with theanine because they work together and make you feel alert and composed at the same time. It creates a state of mindful alertness, rather than feeling anxious and overactive.
Tea contains antioxidants
Everyone has heard of antioxidants, but only some know what they are and what they do in the human body. Antioxidants are substances in the human body that can prevent damage caused by free radicals. Free radicals are waste substances produced by cells in the human body.
The production of free radicals is a natural process because this is your body reacting to its environment (like pollution) and the food you take in. Antioxidants help to get rid of these free radicals because it’s still something that can harm your body in the long term.
Drinking white and green tea usually boosts the antioxidants in your body so you have a better chance of effectively getting rid of free radicals. This leads to less free radicals in the body and an overall boost in health.
Tea boosts the immune system
There have been numerous studies on this subject and they have shown that people who drink tea on a regular basis (at least 3 times a week) have less chance to have a heart attack or stroke.
Drinking tea also boost your immune system by increasing the number of antioxidants in your body (as explained above). There are many different ways how tea boosts your immune system and people who drink tea on a daily basis are less likely to get a cold during the winter months. This is one of the most useful health benefits of tea because everyone wants to get through the cold winter months without getting a cold, right?
Tea helps to digest food
Some teas have a positive effect on your stomach and the digestion of food. Ripe puerh contains bacteria that are responsible for the fermentation process during production. These bacteria have a positive effect on the stomach and can help if you ate too much or if you’re having stomach cramps.
White tea is also a good option because it’s the least processed type of tea and helps to ease your stomach.
Tea is anti-inflammatory
Polyphenols in tea (especially antioxidants) are known to be very effective against inflammatory diseases. EGCG (or epigallocatechin gallate) is the most important active compound in green tea. It can reduce the inflammatory response of the human body when there is a local tissue injury.
In addition to the other benefits, this also shows the power of drinking tea and can improve your overall health a lot if you replace that cup of coffee every morning by a cup of green tea.
Tea and weight loss
This is one of the reasons many people want to drink tea, but it doesn’t really work like that.
Tea is often advertised as the perfect drink to lose weight. However, there are not enough studies that show tea helps to lose weight. Companies use this ‘slogan’ to advertise their product because it is exactly what consumers are looking for.
If tea is part of a healthy diet and lifestyle, it can help you to lose some pounds. However, if drinking tea is the only thing you’re doing to lose weight, it’s not going to work. Don’t get tricked by stores and companies selling weight-loss tea because those teas don’t work and can even be harmful.
Tea helps you to drink more water
One of the often overlooked health benefits of tea is that it helps you to drink more water. 99% of tea is water so when you drink a cup of tea, you’re actually drinking a glass of water. Many people don’t drink enough water because they don’t like the taste of it. Tea can have a variety of flavours so there is something for everyone.
The best of it all? There are no calories in tea so the possibilities are endless. You can drink tea hot or cold, you could add some lemon, … Drinking tea is a good way to drink enough water every day.
