Matcha tea reduces anxiety

Are you leading a highly stressful life? Worry not, Japanese Matcha tea will come to your rescue as researchers have found it to have various health benefits, such as reducing anxiety. Published in the Journal of Functional Foods, the study done on mice found that anxious behaviour in the rodents reduced after consuming Matcha powder or Matcha extract.

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.

“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. Matcha is the finely ground powder of new leaves from shade-grown (90 per cent shade) Camellia sinensis green tea bushes. —IANS