{"id":4651,"date":"2015-06-10T09:00:19","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T08:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=4651"},"modified":"2015-06-10T09:00:19","modified_gmt":"2015-06-10T08:00:19","slug":"tea-drinking-may-reduce-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/tea-drinking-may-reduce-stress\/","title":{"rendered":"Tea-drinking may reduce stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tea-drinking<\/a>Many people reach for a cup of tea when looking to calm themselves and crave a cup of coffee when stressed and now scientists believe they have found out the reason why, British newspaper the Daily Mail has reported.
\nAccording to researchers in Portugal, caffeine can ward off some levels of stress, and a cup of black tea was also found to minimize stress levels too.
\nThe scientists subjected mice to stressful situations and found they became anxious and lost their appetite – in turn the mice also suffered memory loss and displayed signs of helplessness.
\nBy adding caffeine to their drinking water before increasing stress levels, saw most cases not develop into stress-related symptoms.
\nThe University of Coimbra\u2019s findings are important because of the link between recurring stress and clinical depression in people, the report added.
\nBritish experts say that although they do not recommend too many cups of coffee in quick succession, one or two in the morning are unlikely to do harm according to the Daily Mail.
\nBut scientists behind the research – published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences \u2013 believe the findings can help create new treatments for mental illnesses.
\nDr. Sridhar Vasudevan, of the University of Oxford, said: \u201cGiven the dearth of new drugs in psychiatry, these results are valuable indeed.\u201d
\nThe research has both supplemented and strengthened previous research proving that people who drank black tea had lower stress hormones in their bodies.
\nPrevious research by scientists from University College, London, concluded that people who drank tea were capable of de-stressing faster than those who drank tea substitutes.
\nPeople who drank some form of black tea four times a day for six weeks were confirmed to have lower stress levels as indicated by a low level of stress hormone cortisol in their blood, even after stressful occurrences as opposed to a control group who drank a placebo.
\nThe research divided 75 male tea drinkers into two groups and observed them for a period of six weeks.
\nThe subjects had to give up normal tea, coffee and caffeinated beverages with one group given a fruity caffeinated tea mix made up of the basics of an average serving of black tea.
\nThe other group was made to drink a caffeinated placebo identical in taste but lacking the active tea ingredients.
\nAlthough all the drinks were tea-colored, they were made to mask the smell, taste and other familiar elements of the brew in order to avoid factors like the comforting effect of drinking a cup of tea.
\nThe groups were put through stressful situations during which their cortisol, blood pressure, blood platelet – or cell structure and self-measured stress levels were all monitored.
\nIn one stress challenge, test subjects were put through a stressful situation whereby they faced the threat of unemployment, shop-lifting accusations or an incident in a nursing home. And then forced to prepare a verbal argument to be presented on camera.
\nThe challenges had caused substantial spikes in blood pressure, heart rate and subjective stress in both test groups.
\nCortisol levels had reduced by an average of 47 percent in the tea drinking group compared to 27 percent in the \u2018fake\u2019 tea group.
\nProfessor Andrew Steptoe, of UCL\u2019s department of epidemiology and public health, told the newspaper: \u201cDrinking tea has traditionally been associated with stress relief and many people believe that drinking tea helps them relax after facing the stresses of everyday life.
\n\u201cThis is one of the first studies to assess tea in a double-blind placebo controlled design, that is, neither we nor the participants knew whether they were drinking real or fake tea.\u201d<\/p>\n

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