I just read an article about a group of Japanese researchers that has shown that green tea extract had a significant impact on reducing fatigue in rats. Here’s another thought.

It is our wont to pursue the reductionist path to an easier, improved life. But does it really help? Are all of these improvements we keep pursuing in the name of science and health enhancement really making a difference in the big picture? I’m not so sure. This kind of reductionist thinking just seems to further perpetuate the root cause of the hurried lifestyles within which we find ourselves trapped. The more we look for ways to reduce the time it takes to live healthier, the less time we take to live healthier lives. Hmmm! It reminds me of a dog I used to have that spent most of every day sleeping because he got so tired from chasing his own tail. He’d run around in circles until he got so tired he collapsed and slept. Then he would get up and repeat the whole process throughout each day, every day. I wanted to be able to tell him that if he would just stop chasing his tail, he wouldn’t be so tired all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I think all the research they are doing to show how beneficial the ingredients in tea are is a good thing. It’s how it is used that’s the problem.

Better than swallowing down an extract of an isolated compound found in tea, why not just try stepping back and taking some time to make a regular tea practice part of your daily routine? We sleep less and less, work 10 + hours a day, shove whatever nutritionally depleted fast foods into our mouths we can manage to squeeze in between meetings, run around on “essential” errands during the little free time we have and crash at the end of the day wondering why we are so fatigued. Then we look for that quick cure, that pill or energy bar we can swallow with our coffee or soda to help energize us and push away the fatigue for a while. Are you detecting anything wrong with this picture? Anybody remember Occam’s Razor? This is a heuristic maxim that essentially states that the simplest solution is the best. Anybody think that going out and spending millions of dollars on research and expending huge amounts of energy in the process is a simple solution to our fatigue problem? How about this for an alternative solution: Slow down! Think about how just stopping to perform a simple, elegant healthy tea practice can naturally combat fatigue. The first reduction of fatigue comes from just removing yourself from your daily stress long enough to take time to engage in tea practice. Next, by fully engaging the preparation of tea in the moment, you put yourself in a meditative state that helps to de-stress your system and creates a state of sublime relaxation to further reduce your fatigue. Finally, you drink the tea as the culmination of your practice, which provides both an energizing and relaxing state through the effects of its unique compounds.

At least now you know you have a choice: Gulp down that EGCG pill with your coffee while in your car on the way to work or, take 15 - 20 minutes out of your day to engage in a very relaxing and healthful tea practice. I’ve made my choice, how about you?

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