4 Ways Yerba Mate Benefits Your Health

Despite its fairly remote upbringing, Yerba Mate continues to gain traction as a healthier alternative to coffee. Stronger than your typical tea, yerba mate is a traditional South American herbal tea made from a plant from the holly family, known as ilex paraguariensis.

The act of drinking yerba mate is an ancient symbol of friendship and generosity. It’s traditionally consumed from a gourd shared between companions, who drink through separate straws to sift out the loose tea leaves.

The beneficial nature of this refreshing beverage doesn’t end with good hospitality. Yerba mate is high in caffeine and abundant in antioxidants, vitamins, and powerful antibacterial properties.

Here are just a few ways in which yerba mate benefits your skin, strengthens your immune system, and even helps promote weight loss.

Benefits of Drinking Yerba Mate

Energy and Enhanced Focus
Yerba mate has made major headway as the latest coffee alternative thanks to its high caffeine content. A 150 milliliter cup of yerba mate contains about 85 milligrams of caffeine, which is still less than coffee (95 milligrams). Yerba mate is still closer to the caffeine king than the average cup of black tea, which only contains 47 milligrams.

In other words, yerba mate can help individuals feel more awake, alert and focused without coffee. Additionally, those who regularly enjoy yerba mate’s benefits often report that it enhances focus like coffee – but without those jittery, jumpy side effects.

While plenty of folks may be content in their relationship with coffee, this is good news for those who experience side effects from a cup of joe. Some find that coffee can increase the hormonal stress response, impair glucose metabolism, and potentially lead to acne breakouts.

Yerba mate on the other hand has no reports on any negative hormone or metabolic effects. It may be an ideal option for those who feel greatly affected by the side effects of coffee!

Immunity Support
Yerba mate is an exceptionally nutritious tea, high in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals that keep your immune system functioning efficiently.

In addition to natural stores of vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium and zinc, yerba mate is also rich in natural anti-inflammatory compounds called saponins. These help reduce oxidative stress and prevent tissue damage.

Heart Health
Yerba mate may also help lower cholesterol and and improve heart health, as shown by increasing studies.

One review from 2011 suggests that yerba mate may help increase the efficacy of statins, which are a type of medication for LDL cholesterol. It’s also been suggested that yerba mate possesses anti-inflammatory benefits, which may reduce the risk of heart disease and heart failure.

Weight Loss
While working as a viable source of caffeine, preventing inflammation, and boosting the immune system, it’s also possible that yerba mate could play a part in burning fat.

An analysis from 2011 shows that along with foods like ginseng and soy beans, yerba mate can alter one’s metabolism. This is thanks to a special type of “good” bacteria known as actinobacteria, which are known for mitigating weight gain while potentially hastening weight loss.

In one study, overweight individuals were given a daily dose of 3 grams of yerba mate for 12 weeks. It was found that on average, they reduced their waist-to-hip ratio by 2% and lost an average of 1.5 pounds.

Moreover, yerba mate is a drink with far less potential indulgence to coffee, making it more viable for weight loss. While it can be all too easy to lavish a cup of coffee with cream, sugar, syrups and toppings, yerba mate is kept simple, and rarely sweetened.

Yerba Mate Benefits for Your Skin

Whether or not you enjoy the acquired taste of yerba mate’s bitter herbal flavor, you might be wondering: are there any benefits to applying this rejuvenating drink topically?

In short, yes: it’s why we made it a featured ingredient in our Yerba Mate Eye Cream!

Thanks to its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial effects, yerba mate can perform the following functions to keep your skin healthy:

• Encourage collagen production

• Fight acne

• Protect skin from the sun

• Help regulate oil production

We encourage you to explore more about yerba mate benefits for skin!

Yerba Mate Eye Cream
While moisturizing the face and neck is a crucial step in any anti-aging skin regimen, the delicate skin around our eyes requires careful attention. It needs something that will both be gentle to this fragile area, but also fierce against aging factors like free radicals.

We formulated our eye cream with the most gentle moisturizing agents, like shea butter and coconut oil, but the ultimate foundation to this product is the yerba mate, which is gentle to the skin, perks up the eye area with a dose of caffeine, and fights both free radicals and bacteria, all the while preventing inflammation.

This eye cream is ideal for all skin types and can be used both during the day and before bed. To apply, simply dispense a pea-sized amount onto your ring finger and gently pat along the areas under and around your orbital bone and directly onto the eyelids.

Whether it’s on your skin or in your glass with a straw, yerba mate benefits the body as an excellent source of nutrients, antioxidants and caffeine, and will leave you glowing from the inside out.