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L-THEANINE BENEFITS

KEY BENEFITS OF L-THEANINE

    • Supports stress resilience
    • Supports relaxed mood
    • Supports general immune health
    • Supports cognitive function
    • Supports sleep

ABOUT L-THEANINE

In green tea, L-theanine naturally occurs as a calming amino acid. Hence, it can be considered a nootropic as it supports focused attention, mental alertness, and calm, relaxed feelings of mental energy.

 

The combination of L-theanine and caffeine is often used in nootropic stacks, since it supports focus, accuracy, and task switching.

 

Alpha brain waves (A-waves), which are considered markers of relaxation[1], are promoted by L-theanine. During this brain state, stress is decreased.

 

There are a few other effects associated with L-theanine. Glutamate, one of the building blocks for glutamatergic signaling, can be made from L-theanine. It is an antioxidant that contributes to detoxification and glutamate is one of the building blocks for glutamate.

 

Because of another metabolite, L-theanine serves to prime specialized immune cells - gamma delta T cells - that enhance immune memory* and response to new antigens.

 

L-theanine is the most abundant amino acid in green and black tea leaves (made from the Camellia sinensis plant): tea leaves contain up to 50% of the amino acid L-theanine.

L-THEANINE FULL BENEFITS

Brain Function

 

  • Supports attention[3–5]
  • Supports memory[4–7]
  • Supports learning[8]
  • Supports executive function[4,9]
  • Supports faster reaction times[3]
  • Supports alpha (α) brain waves (α-waves are associated with relaxation, selective attention, and mental alertness)[1,3,10–13]
  • Supports hippocampal activity[14]
  • Supports dopamine signaling[15–21]
  • Supports serotonin signaling[21]
  • Supports GABA levels in the brain[21]
  • Binds to glutamate receptors (with low affinity)[22–24]
  • Supports hippocampal neurogenesis[6]
  • Supports brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)[6,24,25] 
  • Supports neuroprotective functions[7,8,26–28]

 

Mood and Stress

 

  • Supports a calm/relaxed mood[4,8,9,13,14,29–32]
  • Supports a positive mental-emotional bias[4,9]
  • Supports psychological and physiological stress responses[33]
  • Supports healthy behavioral and cognitive responses to stress[26,34]
  • Reduces fight or flight nervous system activity (i.e., promotes relaxation response)[33]

 

Sleep

 

  • Supports sleep efficiency and quality[4,9,35,36]
  • Counters some of caffeine’s effects on deep sleep[37]

 

Immune function

 

  • Supports general immune health[38–40]
  • Supports post-exercise immunity[41–44]
  • Supports innate immunity[42,45,46]
  • Supports adaptive immunity[42,46,47]
  • Supports immune signaling[42,48]
  • Supports healthy gamma delta (γδ) T cell function[49,50]
  • Supports healthy dendritic cell function[45]
  • Supports healthy natural killer cell function[41,42,49,51]
  • Supports healthy neutrophil function[43,44,52]
  • Supports healthy mast cell function[46]
  • Supports healthy B cell function[51,53,54]

 

Gastrointestinal Function

 

  • Supports gut microbiota[55]
  • Supports amino acid absorption[56]

 

Healthy aging

 

  • Pro-longevity (Caenorhabditis elegans)[57]

 

Sleep

 

  • Supports sleep efficiency and quality[4,9,35,36]
  • Counters some of caffeine’s effects on deep sleep[37]

 

Complementary ingredients

 

  • Caffeine in cognitive performance[58–61]
  • GABA for supporting sleep quality[62]
  • L-Cysteine in support of general immune health[38,41,43,44,51,53,63]
  • Green tea extracts in support of general immune health[39,40]

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