Top 5 Adaptogens to Help You deal with Stress and Adrenal Fatigue
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Adaptogens can help you handle day to day stress as a whole. When it comes to stress, chronic stress is where it’s at. Long-term stress can contribute to leaky gut, adrenal fatigue, insomnia, heart disease, anxiety, and autoimmune conditions.
Unfortunately, we all have some type of stress in our lives. Things like long hours at work, traffic, financial worries, and health issues. In today’s world, where we may not be able to completely avoid stress entirely, the key to minimizing its impact on your health is to learn how to manage and relieve your stress naturally. I believe that one powerful approach to naturally relieving stress as well as reducing long-term cortisol levels is by using adaptogenic herbs.
What are adaptogens?
Adaptogens are a unique class of healing plants: They help balance, restore and protect the body. Adaptogens have been widely known for their ability to boost strength and vitality, combat fatigue, and treat everything from asthma to infertility. They help your body handle stress and manage.
Adaptogen Uses:
- Boost stamina
- Increase the body’s ability to cope with internal and external stresses
- Strengthen Immunity
- Balance Glandular Function
- Improve Mood
- Are entirely safe and have no negative side effects
Adaptogens help support a more balanced response to ongoing stress, regulating stress hormone and cortisol production in order to prevent adrenal fatigue. They also help modulate cellular sensitivity to stress hormones, thereby encouraging a healthier response to stress overall.
Adaptogens, Stress, Adrenal Fatigue
So how does stress lead to adrenal fatigue?
There’s this part of your brain called the hypothalamus, it recognizes stress. When you are stressed, the hypothalamus sends signals to your pituitary gland and they both, in turn, signal your adrenals to produce and release stress hormones (AKA CORTISOL). This is known as your HPA (Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis.
Under chronic stress, the HPA is constantly engaged and overworked. Let’s just say this is NOT GOOD and has serious effects on your overall health. It can and will affect your mood, sleep, libido, immune system, blood sugar, appetite, thyroid, and much more–it’s also terribly taxing to your adrenal glands.
This is where adaptogens come in and help save the day and regulate our stress hormone and cortisol production in order to prevent adrenal fatigue and HPA axis dysfunction.
Top 5 Adaptogens for Stress and Adrenal Fatigue
1. Ashwagandha
Ashwagandha is an adaptogen that’s popular in Ayurvedic medicine and has been used for more than 2,500 years. It helps to nourish and restore optimal health by supporting normal mood, energy levels, and overall immune function. Ashwagandha is also known as a potent hormone balancer.
This powerful herb has shown incredible results for lowering cortisol levels and balancing thyroid hormones. I’ve used it myself and have noticed my symptoms are less and my last labs even showed improvement. The doctor reduced my dose of Synthroid, the first time in over 13 years.
Ashwagandha helps the body cope with stress by boosting adrenal function. It is widely used to balance stress hormones, relieve anxiety, and increase energy in those suffering from adrenal fatigue. It can also help balance sugar levels and aids in digestion.
2. Maca
Maca is rich in protein, fiber, calcium, magnesium, and amino acids such as glycine and arginine. It also contains several vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C, copper and iron.
Maca has been used to improve libido, fertility, mood, estrogen levels, and symptoms of adrenal fatigue. This is pretty much number one with any client I deal with that may have a hormonal imbalance. When used consistently, Maca has the power to nourish and stimulate the hypothalamus and the pituitary glands which in turn brings balance to the adrenal glands.
3. Ginseng
Ginseng has been known to significantly reduce chronic stress by regulating the HPA axis, effectively decreasing depression, anxiety, and other HPA axis disorders. It’s been shown to help reverse many inflammatory diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and asthma.
Another surprising ginseng benefit is its ability to work as a natural appetite suppressant. It also boosts your metabolism and helps the body burn fat at a faster rate.
4. Rhodiola
Rhodiola has been used to help combat fatigue and restore energy, it also seems to offer an advantage over other adaptogens in cases of acute stress because it is more powerful at promoting relaxation and alleviating anxiety. It is known as the stress-bursting supplement.
Rhodiola can increase energy and enhance concentration in those with adrenal fatigue. It offers antidepressive and cardioprotective effects as well. Rhodiola also helps the body adapt to stress by decreasing or preventing hormonal changes tied to prolonged stress. It helps in lowering the stress hormone “cortisol”. So basically, it can help tremendously with keeping adrenal fatigue at bay.
5. Eleuthero
Eleuthero helps the body cope with stress, eleuthero acts as a stimulant, increasing nervous system functioning and boosting energy levels.
Eleuthero is effective to aid quite a few health issues. It has been used to treat cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, adrenal fatigue, stress, memory loss, depression, anxiety and weight loss and it also helps boost the immune system.
Overcoming Stress and Adrenal Fatigue
Improving adrenal health can help you live a more balanced life. In addition to herbal supplements, there are other ways you can help support your body, including adopting a healing mindset, practicing yoga, eating a healthy, balanced diet, getting enough sleep, and taking time for yourself each day.
If you suffer from adrenal fatigue, hormone imbalance, chronic stress, or are just looking for natural ways to boost energy and immune health, you’ll want to start with a whole body approach. It’s all the small changes that can lead to a big improvement in how you feel.
To learn more about how to recover from adrenal fatigue or dysfunction, I highly recommend checking out my webinar to gain insight on what you can do to alleviate your signs and symptoms.
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