L-theanine and meditation for calm alertness
Introduction
Meditation is becoming increasingly popular, not necessarily as a path to spiritual enlightenment, but as a way to manage stress, find a comfortable sense of focus and quiet an overactive mind. L-theanine is the quintessential meditation compound, partly because it makes caffeinated plants such as Guayusa and green tea valuable companions. This article explains why caffeine and L-theanine together have positive effects on meditation.
Contents
- Why meditate?
- Clear your mind through meditation
- Meditation for stress
- Caffeine and meditation
- L-theanine and meditation
- Conclusion
Video
1. Why meditate?
Meditation is still widely underestimated and often laughed off. The reason is surely the perception that it is hocus-pocus. Yet its positive effects have now been scientifically proven. A practice followed for thousands of years by spiritual teachers, including monks in Asian traditions, is also finding a place in our troubled modern world.
In Germany, meditation is less about spiritual enlightenment and more about managing stress and clearing your head. It can be used to support productivity and focus, and is also combined in biohacking with other supplements such as L-theanine.
2. Clear your mind through meditation
In the Western world, tension, stress, rushing around, overwhelm and burnout are commonplace. Conditions such as ADHD are increasingly prevalent, while energy drinks full of synthetic caffeine are consumed day after day, with little regard for health, in the hope of boosting performance.
Wanting to clear your head is nothing unusual, and meditation can work wonders in that respect. At its heart, every kind of meditation focuses on taming the mind, understanding it and ultimately learning to live in harmony with it.
Thinking is part of our mind’s nature, so thoughts won’t disappear. But our relationship with them can change dramatically for the better. Meditation may help quieten loud, unwanted thoughts and make room for new, more positive ones.
3. Meditation for stress
Stress can have many triggers. Even caffeine can be one of them. Meditation can help you cope better both with stressful situations and with stress that has already set in.
Building a meditation routine will help you manage stressful situations better over time. Meditating in the moment of stress can even help immediately.
However, you should avoid combining meditation with pure caffeine. Considered on its own, caffeine can be too stimulating for the mind.
4. Caffeine and meditation
The familiar “monkey mind”, for example, can arise from consuming too much unbound caffeine without a suitable antagonist.
If you want to make meditation part of your daily routine, you should therefore avoid drinks such as coffee, yerba mate, guarana and energy drinks, as none of them contains a suitable antagonistic compound.
During meditation, we want to settle the mind, but caffeine can stir it up and make it much harder not to get lost in thought.
5. L-theanine and meditation
L-theanine is a suitable antagonist to the side effects of caffeine. However, L-theanine occurs in only two plants, making it an exceptionally rare amino acid.
Buddhist monks recognised the effects of L-theanine thousands of years ago – not as an isolated compound, of course, but through drinking green tea. The tea plant and Guayusa are the only plants that contain L-theanine.
That is why green tea and Guayusa can both be good companions for meditation, whether you want to manage stress or clear your mind. L-theanine on its own, however, would be less suitable because its calming effect would be too strong. The optimal effect comes from combining it with caffeine, which can leave the mind both alert and relaxed.
L-theanine creates a pleasant, relaxed focus during meditation. It counterbalances the restlessness caffeine may cause without diminishing alertness.
You can read about other ways L-theanine may benefit the body and mind in our article “L-theanine: effects on focus, sleep, depression and caffeine”, or watch our video on YouTube.
6. Conclusion
Drinks containing L-theanine, such as green tea and Guayusa, are ideal companions for anyone starting a meditation practice or already following a routine. Guayusa in particular enables a steady, pleasant state of alertness that counters monkey mind and even promotes sleep in the evening.
For meditation, you could try our 100% Guayusa varieties PURE and DARK, or our milder varieties, such as LEMONGRASS and ORANGE-MINT, which contain only 50% Guayusa. In the evening, CHAI is the best choice: it contains just 30% Guayusa, along with plenty of cinnamon, cardamom and cloves, which bring a comforting warmth, especially in the colder months.