There are lots of reasons why I enjoy a
hot cup of tea: I love the aroma of various flavors of tea; holding
onto a hot tea mug warms my hands on a cold winter morning; sipping tea
in front of the fireplace is a great way to relax. And those are just
the feel-good reasons. If you're not drinking tea yet, read up on these
10 ways tea does your body good and then see if you're ready to change
your Starbucks order
2. Tea has less caffeine than coffee. Coffee usually
has two to three times the caffeine of tea (unless you're a fan of
Morning Thunder, which combines caffeine with mate, an herb that acts
like caffeine in our body). An eight-ounce cup of coffee contains around
135 mg caffeine; tea contains only 30 to 40 mg per cup. If drinking
coffee gives you the jitters, causes indigestion or headaches or
interferes with sleep -- switch to tea.
3. Tea may reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke.
Unwanted blood clots formed from cholesterol and blood platelets cause
heart attack and stroke. Drinking tea may help keep your arteries smooth
and clog-free, the same way a drain keeps your bathroom pipes clear. A
5.6-year study from the Netherlands found a 70 percent lower risk of
fatal heart attack in people who drank at least two to three cups of
black tea daily compared to non-tea drinkers.
4. Tea protects your bones. It's not just the milk
added to tea that builds strong bones. One study that compared tea
drinkers with non-drinkers, found that people who drank tea for 10 or
more years had the strongest bones, even after adjusting for age, body
weight, exercise, smoking and other risk factors. The authors suggest
that this may be the work of tea's many beneficial phytochemicals.
6. Tea bolsters your immune defenses. Drinking tea
may help your body's immune system fight off infection. When 21
volunteers drank either five cups of tea or coffee each day for four
weeks, researchers saw higher immune system activity in the blood of the
tea drinkers.
7. Tea protects against cancer. Thank the
polyphenols, the antioxidants found in tea, once again for their
cancer-fighting effects. While the overall research is inconclusive,
there are enough studies that show the potential protective effects of
drinking tea to make adding tea to your list of daily beverages.
8. Tea helps keep you hydrated. Caffeinated beverages, including tea, used to be on the list of beverages that didn't
contribute to our daily fluid needs. Since caffeine is a diuretic and
makes us pee more, the thought was that caffeinated beverages couldn't
contribute to our overall fluid requirement. However, recent research
has shown that the caffeine really doesn't matter -- tea
and other caffeinated beverages definitely contribute to our fluid
needs. The only time the caffeine becomes a problem as far as fluid is
concerned is when you drink more than five or six cups of a caffeinated
beverage at one time.
9. Tea is calorie-free. Tea doesn't have any
calories, unless you add sweetener or milk. Consuming even 250 fewer
calories per day can result in losing one pound per week. If you're
looking for a satisfying, calorie-free beverage, tea is a top choice.
10. Tea increases your metabolism. Lots of people
complain about a slow metabolic rate and their inability to lose weight.
Green tea has been shown to actually increase metabolic rate so that
you can burn 70 to 80 additional calories by drinking just five cups of
green tea per day. Over a year's time you could lose eight pounds just
by drinking green tea. Of course, taking a 15-minute walk every day will
also burn calories.
