The lifestyle of regular city dweller with a corporate job isn’t a healthy one. Long working hours, tight deadlines are a regular thing. Naturally, this leads to a ton of physical and mental stress. This stressful lifestyle needs to combat by inserting healthy elements in your day to day life. Matcha green tea is one of them. Coming to the diet, drinking Japanese Matcha tea may help reduce anxiety. According to a recent study, published in the Journal of Functional Foods, Japanese Matcha tea is found to have various health benefits, such as reducing anxiety. Matcha is the finely ground powder of new leaves from shade-grown (90 percent shade) Camellia sinensis green tea bushes.
According to the researchers, the tea's calming effects are due to mechanisms that activate dopamine D1 receptors and serotonin 5-HT1A receptors, both of which are closely related to anxious behaviour.
"Although further epidemiological research is necessary, the results of our study show that Matcha, which has been used as a medicinal agent for many years, maybe quite beneficial to the human body," said study lead author Yuki Kurauchi from Kumamoto University in Japan.
"We hope that our research into Matcha can lead to health benefits worldwide," Kurauchi added.
Other than this, when the researchers analysed the anxiolytic activity of different Matcha extracts, in comparison to the extract derived from only hot water, a stronger effect was found with the extract derived using 80 percent ethanol.
