Weekly Advice from Arnold Schwarzenegger

Most of how you age is decided by the big stuff. Some of it is genetics, which you don't get a vote on. The rest is mostly within your control and influenced by how much you move, how you sleep, what you eat, and other lifestyle choices like whether you smoke or how much alcohol you drink.

That's the foundation, but if you're hunting for a small edge on top, there might be one steeping in your mug.

Regular tea drinkers appeared "younger" than their age predicted on a panel of routine blood markers.

Researchers tracked more than 13,000 participants, comparing tea drinkers with non-drinkers. The scientists kept a close eye on how people changed, particularly with those who started and stopped drinking tea. 

When people went from not drinking to drinking, the "younger" effect showed up in one model but not in the other. 

However, people who were consistent drinkers for a long period showed blood work suggesting better aging. And the magic number appears to be about 3 cups per day (the scientists didn’t see any additional benefits beyond that). 

The scientists believe that polyphenols, catechins, and theaflavins in the leaves, which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits, could explain the improved blood work, but they don’t know for certain. 

This doesn’t mean that 3 cups of tea per day will make you live longer. Instead, it shows a link between the behavior and a potential mechanism. And "biological age" isn't your lifespan, or some disease you'll dodge. It's a prediction based on your bloodwork. 

If you already drink tea, that's a mark in your favor, and you don't need to change a thing. If you don’t, it might be a small healthy behavior that could make a difference. One small brick that will support the other big bricks you lay. 

If you're sipping the same thing every day for decades, make sure it’s loaded with the stuff that makes a difference.

If you steep a tea for too short a time, you might only get a fraction of the nutrient benefits. Steep it too long, and it turns bitter, so you don’t drink it all. And that’s just part of the science of tea.

That's why we recommend Pique. They cold-extract the tea and turn it into crystals, so each serving gives you a consistent amount of those plant compounds instead of whatever a random steep happens to deliver. 

Pique tea dissolves in hot or cold water in about ten seconds. And since you're ideally drinking it every day, it's triple-toxin-screened by third-party labs for heavy metals, pesticides, and mold, so you get the good stuff and nothing you didn't sign up for.