When To Drink Green Tea Morning Or Night?
When To Tea
If you’re new to the whole tea drinking thing, there are plenty of questions you may have.
Like what brand is the best? Is black tea better than green tea? Should I do decaf?
But one of the biggest questions that most people have is WHEN should you drink it?
Although you can drink tea anytime during the day, there is a “sweet spot” you should focus on to get the best results from your green tea.
But before we jump into the that, let’s take a look at WHY more and more people are turning to green tea in the first place.
The Popularity of Green Tea
Tea is quickly becoming one of the most popular beverages of choice. In fact, it’s the second most consumed beverage (next to water) around the world.
The reason:
Tea may have the unique ability to improve your health … prevent chronic diseases … slow the aging process … and may even help you shed a pound or two (or even more).
But not all teas are alike. Some may possess different compounds that may elicit a completely different response in your body.
Even though all tea is made from the same plant, camellia sinensis, the processing may change the nutrients that your body will be getting by drinking a specific type of tea.
For example, black tea leaves have been oxidized; therefore the antioxidants may be more in the form of tannins, which may perform a different job once inside your body.
When it comes to green tea, which has yet to go through the oxidizing process, may contain powerful polyphenols that could lower cholesterol, slow down aging, reduce blood pressure, and may even boost your metabolism so you may be able to lose we few pounds.
In fact, the main antioxidant found in green tea, EGCG, has been extensively researched and has been proven to improve many different aspects of your health.
So what exactly does drinking tea do for your body?
The Power of Tea and Your Health
As you know, tea contains many different nutrients that could improve your health and prevent different chronic diseases from occurring.
How does it help?
For one, the antioxidants found in green tea scavenge free radicals, which are nasty molecules that damage healthy cells and that lead to higher levels of oxidative stress.
The antioxidants are able to neutralize free radicals, therefore keeping them from damaging your healthy cells.
However, green tea benefits extend far beyond just fighting back against free radicals.
As you know, when you injure yourself … get stung by a bee … or cut yourself, your body sends a response to the area to fix it.
This is what is called acute inflammation. Once the inflammation is there, it helps to prevent further injury, as well as removes dead or damaged tissue. After a few days, the inflammatory response shuts down, as the area continues to heal.
However, sometimes your immune system malfunctions, causing the inflammatory signal to be stuck in the “on” position.
This means the inflammatory response doesn’t shut down, therefore inflammation is still present. It may be for a few weeks … a few months … or even YEARS!
And the longer you have this low-grade inflammation, the higher your risk may be for diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and dementia.
But studies have shown that tea, especially green tea, may possess anti-inflammatory compounds that lower inflammation and protect you from future health issues.
That’s why tea is vitally important, as it flushes your body with the nutrients you need in order to stay healthy.
When Should You Drink it? Morning or Night?
There are two optimal times to have green tea to elicit the most health benefits.
The first time is in the morning around 10 or 11am. Ideally, this would be after a meal, so you can maximize the polyphenols to help aid in the digestive process.
That’s right; the polyphenols found in green tea may increase the activity of pepsin, therefore improving your digestion.
Be sure, however, that you’re not drinking directly after a meal.
You should wait at least an hour post-meal to maximize the digestive powers.
Although not highly recommended, you can have green tea first thing in the morning. The problem with drinking on an empty stomach is that the caffeine and other nutrients may increase the production of stomach acids. And this could lead to acid reflux or stomach pains.
But there may be one exceptional benefit to having it first thing in the morning: Better weight loss.
You may not know this, but your metabolism is highest in the morning. And including green tea may accelerate your metabolism even further, therefore adding additional weight loss benefits.
Now, you can also have your green tea in the early evening. It does contain naturally-occurring caffeine, which could interrupt sleeping patterns if consumed too close to bedtime.
If you are going to have it in the evening, be sure to drink it two to three hours prior to bedtime.
Also, it’s important to note one other thing:
Drinking more than 3 cups in a day could leave you dehydrated and deplete your body of important nutrients your body needs to stay healthy.
The Take Home Message On Tea
Green tea is one of the healthiest drinks around. Studies show it may prevent heart disease, slow the aging process, improve digestion, boost weight loss, and may protect against cancer and other age-related diseases.
The power of green tea lies in the antioxidants (powerful compounds that combat free radicals and inflammation) that are found in each steaming cup of green tea.
Drinking green tea, either in the morning or the early evening, could add tremendous benefits to your health.
But there is one tea that that be better than green tea for improving health and flushing antioxidants to your body.
That would be Amla Green Tea. Amla Green tea, which is dark green Oolong tea leaves combined with the ancient superfood Amla. The result is an antioxidant powerhouse that flushes your body with the nutrients it needs, when the time is right.
Not only are you able to drink this super drink every day, but you can also drink it first thing in the morning—or even late in the afternoon to give you that needed boost in energy while supplying your body with the antioxidants you need to stay healthy and prevent chronic diseases.
