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Home » Lose Weight Safely » Should You Drink Green Tea Before Bed? We Weigh the Pros and Cons – Yahoo Lifestyle

Green tea is one of the healthiest beverages on earth: Its full of flavonoids that can help reduce inflammation, aids in lowering bad cholesterol and can lessen your chances of heart attack or stroke, Harvard Medical School tells usall important factors to counteract the effects of the day-old cheese stick and half a sleeve of crackers you sometimes refer to as lunch. But does this mean you can drink green tea before bed and reap all its healthy benefits? The short answer: No. Well, not if you want to get a good nights sleep.

While theres three times more caffeine in one cup of coffee than there is in a mug of green tea (95 milligrams to about 30), this doesnt make green tea a bedtime drink. In fact, its something you should avoid drinking in the evening in the same way you wouldnt have a cup of caffeinated coffee an hour or two before bed.

Green tea before bed wouldnt be the best idea because it definitely does have caffeine in it,says nutritionistSarah Adler, authorof Simply Real Eating. Any amount is going to trigger your adrenals and hormones to be in a more awakened state. A cup or two earlier in the day or midday would be a better idea.

Wait, no! Green tea is perfectly fine to drink once or twice a day. You might want to consider restricting yourself to two cups if you have a history of kidney stones, however, because both green and black teas contain high levels of oxalates that could lead to the formation of more, according to the National Institutes of Health. Keep in mind, though, that this isnt super common (phew!), especially for those of us who arent susceptible to kidney stones.

Green tea is naturally loaded with polyphenols, which fight cancer, and it might even help you lose weight thanks to its fat-burning and metabolism-boosting abilities. Green tea can also help protect from Alzheimers, dementia and Parkinsons (diseases that have been directly linked to damaged neurons in the brain) via catechin, a compound that keeps the neurons in the brain from becoming damaged via accidents or head traumas and natural deterioration over time. Those catechins can also kill the bacteria in your mouth that cause bad breath and fight off common viruses like the flu (but this isnt an excuse to skip your flu shot!).

Green tea has high amounts of antioxidants too, Adler says. They help your system naturally detox, slow down the aging process and reduce inflammationwhich can heal injuries and distresses to the body.

Green tea is packed with the amino acid L-theanine, a powerful anti-anxiety and dopamine-boosting (think good mood vibes) compound, says Meg Riley, a certified sleep science coach at Amerisleep. So it can definitely help us chill outonstressful mornings (like when your kids spend 30 minutes fighting against your effort to get their coats on and you end up late for work).

The theanine in green tea reduces stress-related hormones like cortisol, Riley says. It also helps to relax neuron activity in the brain, and evidence shows that drinking green tea during the day can improve your sleep quality later that night. Riley adds, however, that the caffeine in green tea can still keep you up, so its important to stop drinking it at least two hours before you hit the hay.

Its true that green tea doesnt have enough caffeine to give you the jitters like some coffee drinkers experience, but that doesnt mean it doesnt have enough caffeine to keep you awake at night. Sipping some in the morning can give you an energy boost and even wake up your brain enough to perform better at work and carry out tasks that require more thought than tying your shoes, but all this also equates to a level of sharpness thats not conducive to shut-eye.

The caffeine in green tea can stimulate our alpha brain waves, which relates to an alert but calm feeling in the bodymuch differentfrom the shaky feeling some experience after drinking coffee, Adler says. She calls this balance between alertness and calm the best of both worlds, but says its best to luxuriate in it while combing over your morning emails and not as youre winding down before bed.

Decaffeinated green tea has only 2 milligrams of caffeine in itobviously not nearly enough to affect your sleepso its true that, on paper, this looks like a no-brainer. The problem here, however,is that in order for the tea to be stripped of its natural caffeine, it hasto go through a process that makes it becomeprocessedand, ineffect, muchless healthy.

Opting for decaf green tea may not give you as many of the health benefits as regular green tea because decaffeinating it removes some of the teas powerful antioxidants, Riley says. Darn.

Sincedecaf just doesnt live up toits all-natural sister, its best to stick to regular green tea and to steep it in the morning and early afternoon. And thats the tea.

RELATED: How to Make Lemon Water (Because You Might Be Doing It Wrong)

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Should You Drink Green Tea Before Bed? We Weigh the Pros and Cons - Yahoo Lifestyle

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Home » Lose Weight Safely » Should You Drink Green Tea Before Bed? We Weigh the Pros and Cons – Yahoo Lifestyle