hey what's up guys so in this video we'll be talking about two of the more popular supplements that are taken to combat the effects of stress uh which are ashwagandha and l-theanine so let's dive right in this video is sponsored by skillshare hey guys my name is zach and welcome to nutrition library where we take an evidence-based approach to supplementation and nutrition if you haven't already do me a huge favor and hit the red subscribe button that's below this video so you can stay up to date with all of our future content thank you so much so we're essentially going to split this video into two uh main parts of the first being how ashwagandha and theanine are similar and then the second half of this video is gonna be covering how they are different and the major differences between the two and which one you should take for specific uh reasons so let's go ahead and jump into the first comparison which is how they are similar now the main way that they are similar is the fact that they are both so remarkably potent at reducing the effects of stress on the body which also happens to be uh the main reason that both of these specific natural compounds are taken now they do have completely separate mechanisms within the context of the human body um that make them so potent at reducing the effects of stress however we'll cover the differences in those mechanisms later on uh in this video now another reason that they are similar is not only the fact that they are both so potent um at reducing the effects of stress on the body but they are also both uh non-sedative now for this reason it does make them super popular for daytime use as opposed to things like valerian and lemon balm which do have sedative properties to them now these are also fairly potent at reducing stress but because of the fact that they do carry the risk of being sedative ashwagandha and theni not being sedative are much more popular for daytime use now in contrast to this ashwagandha and theanine even though they've been shown to be non-sedative have also been shown to both improve sleep quality now this is fairly unique in the fact that they are able to improve sleep quality independent of their ability to be sedative which is again a fairly unique property to most natural compounds most things that carry the capacity and the ability to improve sleep quality typically do that by just being generally sedative and ashwagandha and theni seem to kind of diverge from the pack of most herbal compounds and the fact that they are able to improve sleep independent of sedative properties now with that being said let's go ahead and jump into how ashwagandha and theanine are different now the main reason that ashwagandha and theanine are different is because of the fact that ashwagandha is typically and classically considered a medicinal herb whereas theanine is simply just an extracted amino acid from the green tea plant now the reason this is such a big difference is because ashwagandha has a much broader kind of scope of effect and then it not only reduces stress but it also can increase testosterone decrease cortisol increase thyroid hormone affect neurotransmitter systems like serotonin and gaba as well as adrenaline and so when you compare the scope of of magnitude and the effects of ashwagandha compared to things like theanine which is super super narrow in its scope of effect this happens to be one of the major differences between ashwagandha and theanine now another huge difference between these two comes down to how they actually reduce stress now ashwagandha reduces stress specifically by reducing cortisol which is your primary stress hormone whereas theanine has not been shown in any clinical trial that i'm aware of at least to reduce cortisol at all now there are a handful of folks out there that will claim that it does reduce stress however there is absolutely zero clinical evidence to support this which again makes up another huge difference between these two compounds now for these reasons i typically consider theanine to be somewhat of kind of like an entry-level compound when it comes to natural supplements to reduce the effects of stress on the body and it's not because athenian is particularly less effective than ashwagandha they both seem to be fairly potent in their own regards in reducing the effects of stress on the body now they again they do differ in how they accomplish that goal and the body however because ashwagandha has so many other effects in the body if you're specifically looking for something to reduce stress athenian is definitely going to be your best bet as far as like an entry level or something to kind of try out for the first time whereas if theanine doesn't do the trick and doesn't do the job ashwagandha is another super potent herb that you can take in order to reduce stress but again because of the vastness of its effects in the human body i wouldn't move on to taking something like ashwagandha until you have tried theanine and kind of ruled off theanine as a possible compound to reduce your stress now personally um i like to take theanine on a somewhat more frequent basis than taking ashwagandha i love taking ashwagandha because of its other effects i'll take that specifically after a workout in the evening usually but any other time i'm typically just taking theanine with coffee or thinning before bed and then kind of occasionally cycling off of it on the days that i'm taking ashwagandha on on those workout days but again they are both super potent at reducing stress in their own regards and so it really just comes down to what your personal goals are and how you specifically interact with these compounds now before i let you guys go i do want to give another huge shout out to skillshare for sponsoring this video today skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of available online classes on anything from entrepreneurship to graphic design to even things on how to grow a youtube channel which is actually a course i'm currently taking by marquise brownlee now you don't have to be a professional content creator to enjoy the courses that are on skillshare honestly no matter what your interest is you're more than likely to find a handful of classes that will suit your interests now the cool thing about skillshare is that it is only ten dollars a month and it is completely ad free um and the super cool thing is that the first 1 000 subscribers of mine that follow the link that's in the description below will actually get a free month-long premium membership and so you guys definitely don't want to miss out on this opportunity but that's it for this video guys if you guys have any questions uh feel free to leave a comment down below i'm trying my best to get to all of your comments but other than that i will see you guys next time thanks so much