Feeling Anxious? Adaptogens Can Help!

Estimated Read Time: 10 minutes

Article Summary

Adaptogens come from plants and mushrooms and have been used for centuries in traditional medicine practices like Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine. They are called adaptogens because they naturally raise or lower chemicals in the body to help it adapt to stressors and restore its balance. When it comes to anxiety, adaptogens can play a significant role in managing and reducing symptoms. Let’s look at what adaptogens are, what they do, and how they might help you.

Adaptogens are Nature's Natural Reset

Adaptogens are active ingredients in certain plants and mushrooms that help your body deal with stress, anxiety, and fatigue. Plants and mushrooms are the sources of adaptogens; when you consume specific ones, they target specific stressors in your body.

One way adaptogens help with anxiety is by regulating the body's stress response. When you experience anxiety, your body's stress hormones, like cortisol, flood your system as part of your flight-fight-freeze response. When you experience ongoing anxiety, your body's stress hormones go into overdrive, leaving you feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and on edge. Cortisol is released by the adrenal glands to naturally control our waking and sleeping cyclical rhythms, but it also works after adrenaline floods your body to keep your systems on high alert for self-preservation. Cortisol triggers your emergency response system when it:

• Increases blood sugar so your body has ready glucose for quick energy.
• Prioritizes brain function by feeding the brain with extra glucose.
• Speeds up tissue repair by increasing the release of resources needed to heal quickly.
• Downregulates non-essential functions during a fight-or-flight situation.

Adaptogens like Ashwagandha, Rhodiola, and Holy Basil, for example, can help regulate the production of cortisol in the body, minimizing its adverse effects on your mental and physical well-being; these plants can play an important role in dealing with chronic stress.

Additionally, adaptogens are used therapeutically for mood, and they promote a sense of calm. They do this by regulating the release of neurotransmitters in the brain, such as serotonin and dopamine, two key mood-regulation chemical messengers. By helping to optimize and balance the levels of these neurotransmitters, adaptogens can help alleviate symptoms of anxiety, like restlessness, irritability, and nervousness.

Adaptogens also have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, which can help reduce anxiety symptoms. Chronic inflammation has been linked to an increased risk of developing anxiety and other mental health disorders. By reducing inflammation, adaptogens create a stable environment in the body, which can help balance anxiety levels.

What are adaptogens and how do they help with anxiety?

Adaptogens are herbs, roots, and other plant substances (like mushrooms). People take adaptogens as supplements in capsule form, drink them in teas, or add them as powder to soups, smoothies, and other foods.

“Adaptogens help your body handle stress,” says Dr. Brenda Powell, co-medical director of the Center for Integrative and Lifestyle Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic's Wellness Institute. “They're meant to bring us back to the middle.”

Source: time.com

The theory behind adaptogens is that they stimulate your body's stress-protection response and help your systems return to a balanced state called "homeostasis."

People use adaptogens for a variety of reasons, like to handle stress, improve their energy levels, and boost their immune health. All stress is not bad for the body, a certain amount of stress is good and enhances our overall vitality. It’s extreme and chronic stress that are the problem. Adaptogens are a natural resource that can replace or augment current medications that help us adapt to physical, emotional, and environmental stressors. Adaptogens improve our body's resilience and blunt the negative effects of stress.

How stress affects us

Stress responses are crucial for short-term situations, such as injuring yourself, participating in a sport, or needing to protect yourself in a dangerous situation.

However, long-term stress, such as that caused by a toxic lifestyle, chronic inflammation, lack of sleep, or even a mental disorder, can become a problem. The danger of stress is that we learn to live with it. Often, people may not realize they are stressed or anxious because they feel physically fine. Nevertheless, multiple minor stressors can accumulate over time and lead to chronic stress.

Chronic stress is dangerous. It increases your risk for diabetes, heart disease, gastrointestinal disorders, sleep issues, fertility problems, a weakened immune system, and other mental health disorders. Often, we find that we acclimate to stress; we just get "used to it," but the damaging effects still happen. Our cells don't reason or rationalize; they just keep dealing with the toxic consequences of continual, unabated stress.

Adaptogens can become our lifesavers. Research shows that they help deal with the aftermath of chronic stress, which can lead to adrenal fatigue and related health conditions. If you suspect you are suffering from chronic fatigue, adrenal fatigue, or adrenal exhaustion or believe you may have adrenal insufficiency (Addison's Disease), it's crucial to consult with your doctor and discuss how adaptogens in your diet or as dietary supplements can help.

Let's get chemical

All types of stress, including physical, environmental, emotional, and hormonal stress along with diet-related factors, can activate our body's coping systems. Experts believe that adaptogens interact with the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which triggers the body's stress response and plays a significant role in maintaining the body's neurological balance.

The HPA axis uses our hormones to prepare the body to address stress. One way adaptogens downregulate the body's stress response is by lowering the secretion of cortisol. Adjusting the level of stress hormones in our bloodstream and brain alleviates our feelings of stress and anxiety.

Many adaptogens also help regulate immune cells or enhance our immune responses so that stress doesn't lead to breakdown, infections, and diseases. The old saws that "stress can make you sick" or that "stress is a killer" are quite true. It's vital to our longevity and health that we keep stress in check; otherwise, we can experience debilitating and even life-threatening consequences. At any time in our stress recovery process, adaptogens can help. Some adaptogens even activate immune system cells that inhibit out-of-control cell growth.

Adaptogens can also enhance the efficiency of the adrenal component of the HPA axis, preventing our adrenal glands from overproducing hormones like cortisol, which can lead to fatigue. Cortisol is often portrayed as the bad hormone that makes us pack on weight, but in truth, we need cortisol. It's the hormone that wakes us up and helps us fall asleep. However, excessive stress can cause our bodies to pump out high cortisol levels, which dysregulates our sleep cycle, ultimately leading to insomnia and other sleep problems.

We all know the importance of sleep and what happens to us when we don't get enough good sleep. Adaptogens can be used to help decrease cortisol in the evening and relax the nervous system so we can drift off into better sleep.

Adaptogens, inflammation, pain, and feeling out of balance

Stress and inflammation often go hand in hand. Adaptogens possess anti-inflammatory properties that reduce inflammation and pain associated with conditions like osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and fibromyalgia. As we've discussed, adaptogens influence your neuroendocrine system—the network of nerves, glands, and organs that collaborate to produce hormones to maintain the body's functioning and survival. Adaptogens can do double duty: They can help stabilize hormone levels after a high-stress incidence, and they can modulate the inflammatory responses that accompany physical and mental stress.

What qualifies an herb, root, or mushroom to be labeled an adaptogen? They must:

• Be nontoxic at normal doses
• Support the body's overall ability to cope with stress
• Help the body return to a state of equilibrium

You can use adaptogens in the form of plants, roots, herbal mixtures, and mushrooms. They are sold as teas, tinctures, and powders, and you can add them to food, drink, or take them as capsules.

“Adaptogens may also help relieve pain, which itself is a stressor on the body, and it can help calm our nervous system down,” says Dana Ellis Hunnes, a clinical dietitian and an assistant professor of community health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Some common adaptogens for anxiety

Researchers are continuing to learn how adaptogens help the body regulate mood, balance hormones, fight fatigue, boost the immune system, improve immune function, and mitigate the effects of stress. Often, their research aims to verify that rather than prescription medications, you may be able to use a natural adaptogen to bring your body's stress and anxiety response systems back into balance.

These are some of the more common adaptogens you might have heard of:

Ashwagandha is documented to have therapeutic effects that reduce anxiety and depression. Ashwagandha is a popular herb used in many stress-lowering formulas, you might see it listed as Withania somnifera or Indian ginseng. This shrub has been a staple of Eastern medicines for centuries. Modern Western medicine clinical studies found ashwagandha can help reduce anxiety when compared to a placebo or other treatments -- sometimes significantly. Different parts of the Ashwagandha plant have been used to address stress responses like inflammation, constipation, insomnia, anxiety, and more. Research in three anxiety trials found that Ashwagandha had stress-reducing and anti-anxiety effects similar to lorazepam. In two trials, Ashwagandha was found to have comparable antidepressant properties to imipramine.

Astragalus is a flowering plant that supports the immune system and reduces the risk of contracting viral infections which are stressful to our bodies. Researchers have also found that taking astragalus may help people with diabetes lower their lipid and blood sugar levels. Astragalus reduces the symptoms of anxiety and memory loss, especially when they are triggered by repeated stress.

Eleuthero (also called Siberian ginseng) is a woody shrub but isn't actually a ginseng plant or root. It does, however, have similar effects on immune health. Research has found that taking eleuthero as a preventative helps decrease flu complications like pneumonia, bronchitis, and ear infections. Because it modulates and balances the body's inflammatory response, this plant has been used to help reduce herpes outbreaks and viral lung infection complications. Eleuthero also appears to affect BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which is low in people with anxiety and depression.

Panax Ginseng is used to combat fatigue. There are two kinds of ginseng: American ginseng and Asian ginseng (also known as red or Korean ginseng). Ginseng, the weirdly human-looking root, has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years in Asia. Both species of ginseng have been clinically shown to balance fatigue levels significantly among participants in several clinical trials. At least one study of American ginseng found it helpful in reducing cancer-related fatigue in patients receiving cancer treatments. Ginseng improves memory and reduces stress, which can contribute to depression and anxiety.

Maca is another adaptogen relatively new to Americans, but it’s receiving increasing interest from the functional medicine world. Maca (also known as Lepidium meyenii) is an adaptogenic root used by indigenous healers from Peru for centuries. Historically, maca is best known for its benefits with fertility enhancement and hormonal imbalances, but new research shows it also helps balance lipids, glucose levels, blood pressure, anxiety, and depression. Due to its antioxidant properties, maca also significantly decreases cortisol levels, providing stress relief and increasing dopamine levels, which all help reduce anxiety.

Reishi, known as Ganoderma lucidum, is an odd type of mushroom that is also an adaptogen that boosts the immune system. Reishi mushrooms increase the number of a type of white blood cells. It has been studied in patients undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy; study participants reported improved quality of life with less anxiety. Ganoderic acids found in reishi mushrooms are compounds that reduce anxiety during stress by influencing the HPA axis. Triterpenes, another compound, also supports the parasympathetic nervous system, the "rest and digest" system that counters our "fight or flight" response. Reishi can help slow the heart rate, relax muscles, and increase endocrine gland activities to relieve anxiety symptoms.

“Adaptogens can relieve stress by restoring balance back to the areas of the body that are out of balance—for example, when cortisol is too high or too low, you'll feel stressed and fatigued,” explains Will Cole, a functional medicine expert author of The Inflammation Spectrum: Find Your Triggers and Reset Your System. “...adaptogens can calm stress levels by regulating the brain-adrenal connection [a.k.a., the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal, or HPA, axis], which governs the cortisol rhythm.”

Cordyceps is another type of medicinal mushroom. It is the result of a fungus overtaking an insect's body. We harness the power of the fungus' killer T-cells, which have been shown to improve our immune system defenses. Cordyceps can also improve renal function, respiratory health, and quality of life/anxiety. Because of its anti-inflammatory effects, Cordyceps is also used as a complementary therapy to treat depression and anxiety.

Rhodiola rosea is used for fatigue and its natural antidepressant effects. It also provides pain relief. In natural medicine, rhodiola has been a go-to for stressful situations for hundreds of years. In the brain, rhodiola increases the permeability of the blood-brain barrier so neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin can cross. This is a key to its effectiveness in reducing anxiety and depression.

Schizandra is a prized tonic herb in traditional Chinese Medicine. It improves mental focus and has calming, anti-anxiety effects. It is widely used to enhance athletic performance and endurance, improve energy and stamina, and relieve anxiety. Many elite athletes like to use schizandra.

Tulsi (“holy basil”) is another shrub used in Ayurvedic medicine to promote focus, decrease anxiety, and boost the immune system. The “queen of herbs” also increases focus and alleviates anxiety. One clinical trial found it significantly diminished generalized anxiety disorder in patients, as well as their associated stress and depression.

Valerian Root is a natural sleep aid that helps improve sleep duration and quality. In addition to its balancing adaptogenic properties, valerian root contains valeric acid (think valium), which has a sedative effect and decreases anxiety.

How do adaptogens work?

Researchers explain why adaptogens are so effective by pointing to their interaction with the HPA axis, that complex system of glands, hormones, and receptors in the human body.

The HPA axis is central to the body's homeostasis, stress responses, and energy metabolism, so it makes sense that herbs, roots, plants, and mushrooms that can balance our stress response systems would positively affect the HPA axis.

When we consume adaptogens, they affect the HPA axis. If there's too much of one hormone, for instance, adaptogens help lower it. On the flip side, if there isn't enough of a hormone, adaptogens can help replenish its levels.

Studies also suggest adaptogens interact with the immune-neuro-endocrine system to help the body regulate its use of energy and maintain strong immune defenses.

Effects of Adaptogens on the Central Nervous System and the Molecular Mechanisms Associated with Their Stress—Protective Activity "Adaptogens were initially defined as substances that enhance the 'state of non-specific resistance' in stress, a physiological condition that is linked with various disorders of the neuroendocrine-immune system.

[Animal studies] and isolated neuronal cells have revealed that adaptogens exhibit neuroprotective, anti-fatigue, anti-depressive, anxiolytic, nootropic and CNS stimulating activity. In addition, a number of clinical trials demonstrate that adaptogens exert an anti-fatigue effect that increases mental work capacity against a background of stress and fatigue, particularly in tolerance to mental exhaustion and enhanced attention."

When you use adaptogens, you are training your body to balance its stress hormones. Your body "learns" to calm and regulate the stress response of the HPA axis, the immune-neuro-endocrine system, and the sympathetic nervous system. All of these systems can be affected by stress and/or cause anxiety. Health care providers are finding that herbal remedies that contain adaptogens or just the raw adaptogens themselves can provide noticeable relief for anxiety.

To recap, here's how adaptogens help with anxiety and stress:

• Keeping stress hormones in check: Adaptogens ensure that stress hormones like cortisol stay at normal levels, so we don't become overwhelmed and anxious.
• Boosting energy: Adaptogens help our cells create energy more efficiently, so we feel calm, less tired, and more alert.
• Strengthening our defenses: Some adaptogens help our immune system work better, making us less likely to get sick.
• Lifting our mood: Adaptogens can also help improve our mood and make us feel calmer, less depressed, and less anxious.

To be clear, adaptogens don't actually reduce or block stress—they increase our resistance to stress, whether it's physical or psychological, says Yufang Lin, an integrative medicine specialist at The Cleveland Clinic. “They smooth out the associated highs and lows [of the stress response], thus reducing the excess anxiety that's associated with stressful events and stress-related fatigue.”

How you can use adaptogens

Herbal teas, powders, capsules, roots, and herbs are all forms of adaptogens you can use to integrate them into your health and wellness regime. Many food companies are starting to add adaptogens to granola, protein powders, oatmeal, smoothies, baking flour, espresso drinks, and other food products. If you are interested in adding adaptogens to foods or beverages, buying the powder or raw herb forms may be the easiest way to incorporate them while cooking.

If you are cooking with an adaptogen like a mushroom or herb, be sure to use an accompanying fat to increase its absorption. Most of the time, we think of adding adaptogens to smoothies or other sweet treats, but many have a bitter note and can work well in savory dishes. (Scroll down for some recipe sites.)

Are there side effects?

Side effects of adaptogens are typically minor, some can cause upper gastrointestinal discomfort or distress, loose stools, diarrhea, vomiting, and drowsiness in rare cases with highly sensitive people. It's important to talk with your doctor immediately if you experience these symptoms or any others that you find concerning. Certain populations that should work closely with their health care provider when trying adaptogens include:

• Pregnant and breastfeeding women
• Diabetics
• People with very high or very low blood pressure
• People with stomach ulcers or a history of them
• People with autoimmune disorders — especially thyroid disorders
• Surgery candidates

A Special Note for Women: Adaptogens can help with burnout

Ongoing stress can lead to burnout - especially for women. Adaptogens may be a resource for you if you're experiencing burnout or feeling fried.

Women tend to experience far more stress than men due to cultural factors like managing multiple roles coupled with the influence of hormonal changes in their life cycles. Whether you're a new mom, a woman juggling teenagers, a job, and older parents who also need your care, or a woman building a new career – it can be a lot because you feel like you're on call around the clock. Not to say men don't experience a lot of the same pressures, but burnout historically affects women more than men. So, what does burnout look like? Some of the symptoms are familiar – feeling stressed out or overwhelmed, that constant feeling of "this again?!," being agitated, having a short fuse, losing sleep, and looking to sweeten up life with a bit of help from a heap of sugar. We often snap at our partner, kids, or even the check-out clerk. But burnout can be sneaky; it also causes general anxiety, depression, procrastination (overwhelm in disguise), and low motivation. We can't focus or concentrate, we have trouble with our memory, brain fog creeps in, we have trouble with our cognitive functions, and we feel constant symptoms of fatigue. A general impatience with life can make us rigid and pointed in ways we don't see until others recoil from or avoid us altogether. If we don't pay attention, the chronic issues that are causing burnout can lead to more severe anxiety or depression, immune health compromise, high blood pressure, blood sugar issues, autoimmune issues like chronic fatigue syndrome or adrenal fatigue, or severe emotional outbursts.

Burnout affects our metabolism, immunity, and mood; these are all connected to our stress response systems. Because we think we can just push our way through it, we let burnout linger unaddressed in our lives until it pushes our systems beyond their point of resilience, straining our brain-endocrine connections that would signal our bodies to escape the saber-tooth tiger in our caveman days. Now, every day is a saber-tooth day! Chronic stress leads to burnout, which in turn leads to systemic breakdown.

How long does it take adaptogens to work?

Adaptogens can help you hit the pause button. Turning into a low-key, meditative, Zen-master of life isn't going to happen overnight; you didn't arrive at the point of stress, anxiety, and burnout in just a day. But with consistent support and some healthy lifestyle changes, adaptogens can help you begin to bring yourself back to equilibrium quite quickly.

Changes may be subtle at first but within about three months, you'll notice a difference. I usually ask my coaching clients to make some notes when we start trying new things. In three months when you're feeling better, it's hard to go back to (nor do we often want to remember) just how badly we felt.

It's hard to give ourselves permission for "me time." Remember, our time here is precious, so while it may seem decadent, there's only one you, so it's time for some self-care and an upgraded wellness routine!

Want to Learn More?

• A culinary guide to adaptogens
• More adaptogen recipes
• Adaptogen recipes with a focus on women's health
• How does the HPA axis work?
• What is functional medicine? 

References

• Ashraf SA, Elkhalifa AEO, Siddiqui AJ, et al. Cordycepin for Health and Wellbeing: A Potent Bioactive Metabolite of an Entomopathogenic Cordyceps Medicinal Fungus and Its Nutraceutical and Therapeutic Potential. Molecules. 2020 Jun 12;25(12):2735
• Barton DL, Liu H, Dakhil SR, Linquist B, Sloan JA, et al. Wisconsin Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) to improve cancer-related fatigue: a randomized, double-blind trial, N07C2. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2013 Aug 21;105(16):1230-8
• Cohen MM. Tulsi - Ocimum sanctum: A herb for all reasons. J Ayurveda Integr Med. 2014 Oct-Dec;5(4):251-9
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• Panossian A, Wikman G. Evidence-based efficacy of adaptogens in fatigue, and molecular mechanisms related to their stress-protective activity. Curr Clin Pharmacol. 2009 Sep;4(3):198-219
• Shinjyo N, Waddell G, Green J. Valerian Root in Treating Sleep Problems and Associated Disorders-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Evid Based Integr Med. 2020 Jan-Dec;25:2515690X20967323
• Speers AB, Cabey KA, Soumyanath A, Wright KM. Effects of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) on Stress and the Stress-Related Neuropsychiatric Disorders Anxiety, Depression, and Insomnia. Curr Neuropharmacol. 2021;19(9):1468-1495
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About The Author

Lisa Moretti is a certified health coach from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN), the largest nutrition school in the world. She was at the top of her cohort in 2015. She's been involved in the natural health and supplement world professionally since 1981.