A SUPPLEMENT THAT helps you relax and focus sounds like a no-brainer. Some supplement companies are suggesting that L-theanine is your answer. True, dietitians don’t exactly hate this supplement.
There are some reasons to suggest L-theanine could do all the above to a certain degree. But there’s a significantly cheaper alternative everyone keeps overlooking. L-THEANINE IS A compound found in tea that allegedly helps you relax and focus.
Tea's combination of caffeine and L-theanine can give you a calm yet alert mental state that could help boost productivity and effectiveness,” says Kate Ingram, MPH, RD, citing a popular study on caffeine and L-theanine published in Cureus. In supplement form, L-theanine typically has about 200 mg per serving. For context, that’s quite a bit more than the standard 6 milligrams or so in a cup of tea.
L-THEANINE HAS A rare ability to pass through the blood-brain barrier. This semipermeable barricade protects your brain from toxins and other dangerous substances. Not all medications and supplements can safely pass through and affect the brain.
Since L-theanine can pass through to the brain, companies have marketed the compound as a supplement for peak cognitive performance. There’s some science to suggest brain benefits. In clinical trials, 100 to 400 milligrams of L-theanine produced a “small but statistically significant” improvement in tasks involving visual attention.
When paired with caffeine, people also showed greater cognitive performance than without. The cognitive benefits of L-theanine may even show up after a single dose. People who took one 200-milligram dose 30 to 60 minutes before a cognitive test showed higher scores in attention.
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