Feeling stressed? have a cuppa...then have another!

According to the latest research regular cups of tea can help speed recovery from stress.

Researchers from University College London (UCL) have found that men who drank black tea four times a day for six weeks were found to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol than a control group who drank a fake tea substitute.

The researchers say the tea drinkers also reported a greater feeling of relaxation after performing tasks designed to raise stress levels.

Professor Andrew Steptoe, of UCL's department of Epidemiology and Public Health, and one of the study authors, says slow recovery following acute stress has been associated with a greater risk of chronic illness such as coronary heart disease; he says the findings could have important health implications.

Steptoe says although it does not appear to reduce the actual levels of stress experienced, the tea does seem to have a greater effect in bringing stress hormone levels back to normal.

For the study, 75 tea-drinking men were split into two groups, all giving up their normal tea, coffee and caffeinated drinks.

Half of the group were given a fruit-flavored caffeinated tea mixture made up of the usual constituents of a cup of black tea while the others were given a caffeinated substitute, identical in taste but without the active tea ingredients.

None of the participants or the researchers knew who was drinking what as all the drinks were tea-coloured, but were designed to mask elements such as the smell, taste and familiarity of the brew, to eliminate factors such as the comforting effect of drinking a cup of tea.

Six weeks later the volunteers were exposed to one of three stressful situations - threat of unemployment, a shop-lifting accusation or an incident in a nursing home - where they had to prepare a verbal response and argue their case in front of a camera.

The researchers found that the tasks raised stress levels, blood pressure and heart rate in similar amounts in both groups.

However 50 minutes after the tasks were performed the cortisol levels had fallen an average of 47 percent among the tea drinkers, compared to 27 percent in the fake tea group.

The researchers are unsure which ingredients in tea were responsible for the effects found in the study but those who drank black tea were able to de-stress more quickly than those who drank a fake tea substitute.

Steptoe says drinking tea has traditionally been associated with stress relief and many people believe that it helps them relax after facing the stresses of everyday life, but this is one of the first studies to assess tea in a double-blind placebo controlled design, where no one knew had any idea who was drinking real or fake tea.

The study is published online in the journal Psychopharmacology.