How get more out of your morning coffees

Many of us drink coffee every morning to be alert, wake-up and get work done. For me, it’s a ritual to get in a flow state for deep work (shame on me for being so coffee dependent). I do my best writing in the mornings.

But too many times coffee would give me a peak and crash instead of that smooth energy I was looking for. I was hyperactive and jittery, browsing in 10 different tabs instead of focusing on my task.

So I searched for the solution and came across this simple trick to get more out of your morning coffees. It was adding this compound found in tea called L-Theanine.

This combination creates a so-called synergistic effect. It’s where the combination of the ingredients has a bigger effect than the two taken by themselves. The two play on each other’s weaknesses and create the ultimate flow-state:

• Caffeine: Increased focus, energy and alertness

• L-theanine: Reduced stress, more calm and improved mental endurance

Adding in some form of L-theanine smooths out the stress spike of caffeine. It stretches out the effects of focused energy for deep work.

You don’t need to be a scientist to start this habit and combination. It’s as simple as adding some L-theanine powder to your coffee every morning.

The correct ratio between caffeine to L-theanine should be —> 1:2

This means for every 100 mg of caffeine (the average amount in a cup of coffee) you should add 200 mg of L-theanine. Take this as a guideline and increase the dosage if you don’t notice anything.

The final benefit of L-theanine is that it’s cheap because the dosage is so small. You can get a bag of 500 servings for like 20 euros.

I got mine from MyProtein here, it’s worth the try.

Keep improving 👊

Ivan