How This Ancient BREW Can Revolutionize Your Health and Happiness | Andrew Weil EP 687

0:00Hey everyone, this is Lewis Howes and I am so excited to invite you to the Summit of Greatness 2024 happening at the iconic Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. This is more than just an event. It's a powerful experience designed to ignite your passion, boost your growth, and connect you with a community of other inspiring achievers. Join us Friday, September 13th, and Saturday, September 14th for two days packed with inspiration and transformation from some of the most incredible speakers on the planet. Don't miss out on this chance to elevate your life, unlock your potential, and be part of something truly special.

0:34Make sure to get your tickets right now and step into greatness with us at the Summit of Greatness 2024. Head over to lewishouse.com slash tickets and get your tickets today and I will see you there. Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:57Talk to me about teas because I'm interested in teas and the power of teas. and what is the purpose of tea and why do people drink it so much in general? Okay, first of all, tea all comes from one plant. It's Camellia sinensis, the tea plant. A lot of things people call teas are herbal infusions that aren't made from the tea plant. So chamomile tea is not tea. It's not tea. Rooibos tea is not tea. What is it? It's just herbs. It's an herbal infusion. But if you're talking strictly about tea, it's all from this one species of plant. Where does the species grow? It can grow anywhere. Well, yeah, it's native to China and India, but it can.

1:36I hear people are cultivating tea in Oregon now. I haven't tried any of it yet. Anyway, so it can grow over a wide, you know, in, in, you can't take frost, but it can grow in, you know, a lot of different areas. But then there are many varieties of tea depending on how the tea is grown, how it's treated, whether it's steamed, dried, roasted, toasted, how long it's oxidized. And you've got like everything from white tea, which is very delicate, green tea, oolong tea, black tea, all sorts of different preferences. When I was growing up, tea was what old people and sick people drank. Right, right.

2:14Or iced tea on the golf course. With a lot of sugar. Yeah, yeah. And the only tea that we had available, you know, was tea in bags. And that's the common stuff is literally the sweepings from the floor of tea estates. So it's been only relatively recently that people in this country have become aware of good tea. What are the benefits of tea? Why drink tea? Well, it's agreeable. I mean, throughout the first century, people have found it to be agreeable. It's a stimulant. It's got caffeine. All tea or I guess? All true tea has caffeine. Some has more than others. Like a mint tea that's not caffeine.

2:51That's not tea. There is, however, mint-flavored tea. So you've got to read the label. But that's with caffeine. Yes, that's with caffeine. If it's tea, it has caffeine. Right. Now, the stimulation, however, of tea is very different from that of coffee. Coffee has more caffeine in it, but they have different other things in them. And tea has a compound called L-theanine that you've probably heard of that's a relaxant. And I think that combination really affects the quality of stimulation of caffeine. So it's got caffeine, which gives you sharper energy, but also a relaxation. So people, you know, I think describe it as a relaxed alertness.

3:31Interesting. Different from the stimulation of coffee, which I personally think is much more jangling. A jittery alertness versus a calm alertness. Right. A focused alertness. Exactly. Now, the other observation I make, I don't want to bash coffee too badly, but I see an awful lot of people who are addicted to coffee, physically addicted. You know, if they try to stop, they have a withdrawal syndrome. You know, it's like lethargy and then a pounding headache, and it lasts for 48 hours and instantly relieved if you have some coffee. Right. You don't see that with tea. You know, rarely. You're not like, I need my tea this morning.

4:05Yeah, exactly. Rarely. I'm on my feet talking about tea. Exactly. Exactly. And also, when I was actively seeing patients, I used to say that I would produce one miracle cure a week by getting somebody to stop drinking coffee. And it was from everything from hand tremors to irregular heartbeats to bladder problems, GI problems, stomach problems, a whole range of stuff. And they had no idea that the coffee was doing it to them. And these were often problems that had gone on for years. You're breaking people's hearts. And nobody had ever told them, though. You're breaking people's hearts. Exactly, right.

4:39But also there's a huge variation in how people respond to caffeine in general and coffee in particular. I see people who have no idea that the one cup of coffee they have in the morning is the reason they can't sleep at night. And I see other people who can drink a pot of coffee at bedtime and fine. So you've got to find out where you are on that spectrum. Yeah, I can have a cappuccino at night at 10 o 'clock and pass out the next hour. So you're relatively caffeine insensitive. Yeah. Not that I need it. I just like a little taste or whatever. And I wonder, and I'll drink it in the mornings, and it doesn't, like, give me more energy.

5:16I feel like I have energy. Right. But when people say they get energy in coffee, it's their energy. You know, coffee just bunches it up. And when it wears off, you're left with a depletion of energy. Really? What do you mean it's their energy that bunches it up? Caffeine isn't giving you a gift of, coffee isn't giving you a gift of energy. It's like it's forcing your body to give up chemically stored energy that it would normally not release all at once. Like stored where? In the fat cells or in the... No, in all cells. It's in all cells, energetic compounds in all cells. But when you release that energy, then when the drug wears off, you have a depletion of energy.

5:53And you feel tired. Yeah, you have a crash. And why does tea not do that specifically? Probably because it's, first because it's less caffeine, so it's gentler stimulation. And it's also got this other compound that moderates the thing. So I guess you can find, you could find tea addicts. I don't see them very often. Right. And I don't see many people who say they get a crash from tea drinking. And also coffee does have, you know, there are health benefits of coffee. But there's been a tremendous amount of research on health benefits of tea. Especially green tea. Like, what are the benefits? Overall lower death rates.

6:31Really? Yeah, there's a huge population study in Japan. Is that because of the tea or because of all the other factors, the environment and friends? We don't know. But there's a clear association between the more tea people drink, lower causes, all causes of death.

6:57Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:47Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.