Who wouldn’t love indulging in a cup of tea? We brew ourselves a cup to help us unwind after a busy day, and love to share a pot of tea with our family during meals. And sometimes, we grab an iced version of this beverage on a hot day to help cool off.
Indeed, tea is an important part of our culture, which is wonderful since it is also quite beneficial for health. However, there is one tea in particular that truly stands out from the rest of the aromatic beverages, and that is green tea. Here are five key health benefits to drinking this well-loved refreshment:
1. Reduces the Risk of Cancer
With cancer being a principal cause of mortality in the country and across the world, a simple and natural precautionary measure we can take is drinking green tea. That’s because the great number of polyphenols present in the beverage has been found to be effective for cancer prevention. Tea polyphenols can protect the cells from DNA damage — the primary cause of cancer — due to its antioxidant activity. Moreover, green tea’s detoxification properties can also shield the body from tumor development.
2. Protects Cardiovascular Health
Heart health is another important factor to prioritize, and fortunately, having a healthier heart is within reach with a regular cup of green tea. In fact, Harvard Health reports that green tea drinkers will potentially live longer lives, as they have a significantly lower risk of acquiring coronary artery disease. This can be attributed to one of the tea’s active polyphenols, called catechins, which can protect our cardiovascular system by reducing oxidative stress and platelet aggregation.
3. Alleviates Skin Inflammation
Green tea’s impressive health benefits don’t just stop there, as it continues on with our body’s largest organ, the skin. As Wendee Lee has previously written here on the Orgayana blog, the powerful antioxidants found in this tea have a calming effect on our skin since it reduces inflammation caused by breakouts, inflammation, and other forms of skin damage. If you would like to add this detoxification benefit to your skincare regimen, HelloGiggles recommends Innisfree’s Jeju Green Tea line, a Korean cult favorite because of its cleansing properties.
4. Promotes Healthy Weight Loss
Another benefit of green tea is its ability to aid in healthy weight loss. That’s because it has the ability to lower our blood sugar and increase the number of calories we burn, as explained by Pretty Me on their Lean N Green Review. This, in turn, promotes fat burning and increases your physical performance when you work out — benefits that you can enjoy with a single cup of green tea in the morning, or even through infusing it in your coffee, cooking it into your oats, or adding it to your salad vinaigrette.
5. Strengthens the Mind
Our mind plays an integral role in our lives, as it is in charge of our body’s functions and aides us in our daily interactions. If we intend on being the best versions of ourselves, we must keep our brain in great shape. This, too, is something that green tea can help us with, as researchers from the University of Basel discovered a link between the beverage and enhanced cognitive functions. Their study has found that green tea extracts increase our brain’s effective connectivity, thus resulting in stronger brainpower overall.
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Scarlett Cole is an online marketing professional based in the UK. She loves to cook healthy meals for her 4-year-old daughter and two fur babies.
