Hello friends,
The most common question I’m asked about Flow State Coffee is “What is L-Theanine?”
Actually, that’s not true. It’s “Why can't this be whole bean?!"
That answer is still: because we can't magically infuse beans with our other ingredients ya big ol dumb idiot!!
Sorry to lash out. I mean we could but it isn't as good. Trust me. We're also workin on a great fix for this. Stay tuned.
The SECOND most common question I’m asked about Flow State Coffee is “What is L-Theanine?”
It's an important question! I could honestly write a book on L-Theanine and its benefits so I’m going to attempt to answer this as concisely as I can. (I’m not good at concise)
So first and foremost L-Theanine is an amino acid found in tea leaves (and some mushrooms).
It’s mainly popular for its ability to promote relaxation without drowsiness. Many people take L-theanine to help ease stress and unwind. I’ll get into the neuroscience of this in a bit and why it’s so important to Flow State Coffee.
It’s been studied for its potential ability to reduce mental and physical stress, improve cognition, and boost mood. L-Theanine has also been shown to help protect against cellular damage induced by chronic restraint stress.
So L-theanine is overall great for anxiety relief and stress. right? Cool.
Remember when I said it’s synergistic with caffeine? On it’s own L-Theanine is pretty rad but it gets really fun when you add caffeine into the mix. Like macaroni and cheese, or OutKast, some things are just better together.
The combination of L-theanine and caffeine has been shown to promote faster simple reaction time, faster numeric working memory reaction time and improved sentence verification accuracy. So now we have some real cognitive benefits as well. My favorite is how it assists with task switching. (Like me singing Aquemini lyrics while typing this.)
The fact that it relaxes you WITHOUT making you drowsy is key. Most things that relax you also sedate and make you tired. Being caffeinated and relaxed is a wonderful feeling. It really solved the balance between productivity and creativity in my life. So how does it do this?
I’m gonna go full Joe Rogan here (never go full Joe Rogan) if you’ll indulge me. Your brain always has some sort of electrical activity going on inside and is producing various brain waves on a spectrum.
There are 5 brain waves:Gamma, Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta arranged from fastest to slowest brain waves.
So if you’re in deep, deep sleep you’re producing Delta waves. You’re not really aware of anything, let alone trying to actively solve anything but you’re still not brain dead so there’s some activity.
Now, let’s say you’re being mauled to death by a bear. You’re gonna be pumping out Gamma waves because your brain is pretty actively trying to solve that one, very intense problem.
But if you’re like me, and NOT currently being mauled to death by a bear, you probably spend your days in the middle three waves.
You have various stressors, distractions and moments of concentration and flow. The sweet spot are the waves right in the middle: Alpha Waves.
Alpha Waves are present when you’re awake but not really trying to tackle any big thing. Think shower thoughts, or right before bed or in meditation when all of your good ideas come.
Alpha Waves are crucial for creativity.
L-Theanine has been clinically proven to promote more Alpha Waves.
So if we’re going to be “coffee for creativity.” L-theanine is the perfect addition for Flow State Coffee
There is SO MUCH MORE I could say about L-Theanine so if you have any questions about it fire away.
greg@noowave.co or find me on twitter @sfwgreg
Alpha Wave Greg