Discover the Power of Adaptogens

Adaptogens: Nature’s Stress Relievers for Your Health

Hands up who hasn’t experienced the negative health effects of stress? In today’s fast-paced world, managing stress is increasingly important. Ongoing stress changes your body’s physiology, so it’s no wonder it exerts profound effects on your health.

This article will help you tap into some of nature’s stressbusters: adaptogens.

What Happens During Stress?

When your brain senses you are in a situation capable of causing you harm, it initiates a cascade of chemical reactions. These are designed to protect you and enable you to react to the stressor. For example, extra energy and oxygen is delivered to your heart, lungs, and muscles. Meanwhile, non-crucial functions like digestion take a back seat. All these responses help you to fight or flee the danger.

Your body achieves all this by releasing stress hormones from your adrenal glands. The most well-known of these is cortisol, working in conjunction with DHEA, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. Designed to help you through an immediate stressful situation, these hormones alter your cells’ physiology.

All these emergency responses, however, should ideally be short-lived. Once the stressor has passed, levels of stress hormones should drop back to normal.

But what happens if along comes another stressor on the back of the first? Think train delays on your way to work, followed immediately by a challenging meeting, then a deadline and an argument with your partner or co-worker. Or stressors rumble on and on, like relationship difficulties or money worries. In these cases, the stress response will continue unabated, and your body doesn’t have a chance to recover and repair.

You may be familiar with the negative effects of stress, for example on mental health, sleep, and immunity. Long-term, uncontrolled stress can lead to many other health problems like digestive issues, poor cardiovascular health and even obesity.

Supporting Your Stress Response

Fortunately, although it’s often impossible to avoid stress in your life, there is a lot you can do to manage your body’s responses to stress.

Recently, scientists have been investigating the role of natural plants and herbs capable of changing how your body responds to or deals with stress, thus supporting wellbeing and keeping your body in balance. These substances help reduce the negative effects of stress while enhancing physical and mental performance. They do this by helping normalise levels of stress hormones and protecting against stress-induced damage to the body. Known as adaptogens, many of these plants have been traditionally used by Indigenous people for thousands of years before coming to the attention of modern science.

Adaptogens have many benefits including improving sleep, supporting healthy immune function, and helping concentration and focus. They exert their effects by supporting what is known as your HPA axis. This refers to the connection between your hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal glands, helping regulate your body’s hormonal responses to stress.

Common Adaptogenic Herbs

Medicinal Mushrooms

Possibly the most well-known of the adaptogens, medicinal mushrooms include reishi, cordyceps, lion’s mane and turkey tail. They have been receiving attention lately for their ability to balance the activity of the immune system as well as restoring stress hormone equilibrium.

Ashwagandha

Also known as Indian ginseng, it has traditionally been used in Ayurvedic medicine. Ashwagandha has been found to modulate stress hormones by reducing cortisol levels. By doing this, it can restore balance to the HPA axis, support the nervous system, alleviate anxiety, and promote sleep (1). It contains substances believed to protect cell membranes from stress-induced oxidation.

Panax or Asian Ginseng

This herb is the focus of research around its immune-supporting properties. It may also help modulate how the body perceives stress. People taking panax ginseng reported feeling calmer and with better memory (2).

Rhodiola Rosea

This is a herb used for centuries to support stamina and endurance, as well as reducing muscle damage induced by exercise. Modern research has seen improvements in patients with burnout after taking rhodiola (3).

Schisandra

This herb can be useful for managing inflammation and supporting mental clarity through times of stress. Research found it reduced inflammatory substances released during stress.

Astragalus

The antioxidant content of this herb can help protect the body’s cells from the negative effects of stress-derived inflammation (4). It’s often used in Traditional Chinese Medicine to strengthen Qi, or life force.

Tulsi

Often available as a tea, tulsi is an Ayurvedic herb also known as holy basil. It can help promote feelings of calmness while supporting immune function and lowering stress hormones.

Liquorice Root

This herb may help normalise cortisol levels by influencing how fast the body breaks it down.

Maca

Maca is often used to support reproductive health by balancing sex hormones. Prolonged stress can upset the balance of these hormones. It’s sometimes known as Peruvian ginseng and has been used traditionally to support endurance.

Integrated Support Through Stress

Alongside adaptogens, techniques to reframe your body’s response to stress can be very helpful. Here at The Forbes Clinic, we have a wide range of stress-supporting therapies available. For example, we may recommend Emotional Freedom Technique to release tension and process emotional distress, or Integrative Hypnotherapy, useful to help overcome harmful stress-related habits. Neuro-Psychoeducation offers insights into your nervous system and neuronal state, while Felt Sense Polyvagal Model helps regulate your nervous system by regaining a sense of safety.

Adaptogenic herbs may be useful alongside these mind/body therapies to help mitigate the negative physiological effects of stress on your body. A Functional Nutritional Therapist can advise on the most suitable adaptogens for you. Functional testing can reveal whether levels of stress hormones could be impacting your health.

A great starting point would be an Integrative Health Assessment. By taking a thorough health history and understanding your goals, we can advise on the most beneficial path for your particular situation.

If you are ready to enhance your resilience to stress, our practitioners are here to help. Contact us today to explore personalised strategies to support your health and wellness journey.