Long working hours and tight deadlines often lead to a lot of physical and mental stress. If you happen to lead a stressful lifestyle, it is important to deal with it by incorporating a healthy workout regime and balanced diet in your daily lifestyle. 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 per cent shade) Camellia sinensis green tea bushes.
The study was conducted on mice with an 'elevated plus maze' test, which is an anxiety test for rodents. After consuming Matcha powder or Match extract, an anxious behaviour in the rodents was observed by the researchers.
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, may be 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 per cent ethanol.