Managing Stress with Tea… A Key to Wellbeing & Longevity…
Life’s Ups & Downs are Unavoidable…but with the Downs Can Come Damaging Stress…Maintain Perspective with Tea…
In the quest for stress relief, where does tea come in?
Creature Comfort…Creating Calm…Does tea really work? How? If it is calming, is all tea calming? Which teas are best?…
To understand calm and create it, let’s take a closer look at "calm".
Calm is about maintaining a peaceful, relaxed state of mind throughout life’s continually changing circumstances.
Keeping your Cool or keeping your Calm is a skill, a craft, or an art. Long-lasting stress relief is something we learn by understanding circumstances and controlling the way we react as we travel the unpredictable path of life…and tea is there to help.
If creature comfort from tea is real, what are the best teas for calming, stress relief, and relaxation?...
Tea can help, so knowing the right teas to rely on and when gives you an advantage in your ability to maintain perspective, a larger factor in stress relief and maintaining wellness than you likely are thinking…
Creature Comfort and Creating Calm is really about our ability to manage stress. It is stress-inducing developments that push our anxiety buttons and bring stressful circumstances to us.
Creating Calm is Stress Management, and the key to managing stress as best we can is…understanding it. We cannot avoid stress in our lives, but we can do our best to achieve stress relief…and this is where tea can play a welcome role.
Stress results from conflicting reactions and leads to frustration...
When we encounter a stressful situation, we receive information that we perceive as undesirable or wrong. Our immediate reaction is to find a quick fix to bring things back to the status quo.
This desire for immediate action can trigger the fight-or-flight response. When the circumstances are beyond our ability to immediately fix the situation, when we find ourselves in a sustained compromised position leading to increased anxiety, we can experience sustained stress.
There are two types of stressors…Normal stressors affect us continually:
Normal daily tasks - getting to work on time, planning dinner, coaching the game, or a million other day-to-day demands that require us to get things done - create a continual flow of Normal Stressors. Cups of tea throughout the day provide a continual refuge of sanity and stress relief to manage the daily flow in stride with perspective.
- Daily Crunches
- Meeting Deadlines
- Paying Bills
- Commuting
- Juggling Family Responsibilities
- Couples Communications
- On and On…
They have WEIGHT but DON’T crush you…Then there are these…
Major stressors are infrequent…but can stop us in our tracks:
These are the more serious ones…usually, they won’t go away easily. Here we need tea in a big way to maintain that perspective and achieve stress relief when so much is making you feel like you could lose it.
- Chronic Illness
- Tragic Accidents
- Loss of a Loved One
- Dealing With a Bad Boss
- Losing Your Job
- Personal Relationship Problems
- Etc., etc., etc.
This is where stress management Excellence comes in and where we all need to practice. This is where tea provides comfort, perspective, and strength to go forward, helping with stress relief, clarity of decisions, and taking things down a notch, allowing you to see your way through to the next steps. Maintaining that perspective is crucial, because this is what you are up against…
Stress effects combine…Prolonged overproduction of valuable cortisol, the stress hormone, has a counterproductive effect:
When stress does not go away and we don’t control it…when we lose perspective, the compounding effects of stress do their damage, affecting wellbeing & longevity.
- Prolonged stress decimates the gut
- The gut produces inflammation
- Inflammation weakens immunity
- Weakened immunity and overproduction of cortisol shorten telomeres
- Shorter telomeres create openings for cancer and accelerate aging
Telomere damage shortens our lives…
The damage to telomeres caused by overproduction of cortisol is responsible for the shortening of DNA chains and is directly related to longevity…all triggered by stress…
If you have ever lost the tip of a shoelace, you've seen it begin to unravel...something like a DNA chain with damaged telomeres...accelerated aging...
What to do?...
What are the tools we have to stay in control, to manage our life situations, to restore perspective and attain stress relief?...
- Music
- Deep Reading
- Adequate Sleep
- Exercise…Sweat
- Nurture With Superfoods…Tea, of course…
- Yoga and Focused Breathing
How Can Tea Help Me?...
There are two basic ways that tea is a natural therapeutic.
First, Psychologically…
The experience of drinking tea is emotional. As we get to know our teas, we develop a connection with each tea that goes beyond the ingredients in the cup. We become familiar with the characteristics of the tea, which leads to an understanding of the tea, an appreciation, admiration, and an emotional connection.
Appreciation makes us anticipate the tea we are about to enjoy and lifts our spirits…Just based on the color and aroma of the broth, even before we have had a sip, dopamine, our happy hormone, is triggered. We are pleased, uplifted, and emotionally calmed.
Then, Physiologically…
The ingredients in tea include bioactive compounds with cellular targets related to cardiovascular, chemopreventive, metabolic, neuroprotective, and other benefits. These compounds include the valuable amino acid L-theanine, proven in studies to lower blood pressure, have a calming effect, assist in stress relief, and improve sleep quality…
When it comes to hot beverages that bring us comfort and provide stress relief, we think about both actual tea (Camellia sinensis) and Calming Herbals.
Which teas are best for creature comfort, creating calm, and stress relief?
The good news is, many, and your specific answer will vary based on your preferences. Here are some considerations:
Camellia sinensis teas that are high in L-theanine are a great bet because, in addition to the satisfying aroma and flavor characteristics, they will offer more of the calming properties we are looking for. Shade-grown and high-mountain teas are usually good choices that contain an abundance of L-theanine.
Don’t fret about the caffeine in high L-theanine teas. The synergistic relationship that L-theanine has with caffeine can be conducive to calming, stress relief, and relaxation, even helping us drift off to sleep when our head hits the pillow.
Most herbals have no caffeine, but many also contain aromas and/or active ingredients that can both psychologically and physiologically help with our desire to ease tension, relax, and calm.
Steeping tea can calm us…help us maintain perspective and stress relief, leading to better longevity, and that awareness will make our lives better…
Here are some suggestions for teas and herbals that help maintain wellness by managing stress:
High L-Theanine Camellia Sinensis Teas:
- Silver Needles - white tea
- Cloud Mist - green tea
- Gyokuro - green tea
- Kabusecha - green tea
- Imperial Jade - sun & shade-grown green tea
- Lemon Ginger - flavored green tea
- Darjeeling - black tea
- Himalayan High Golden Tips - black tea