Adaptogens Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Fusion Health and Wellness

A Few Effective Hacks

I’ve mentioned in passing before that people use “bio-hacks” to stay ahead of the curve (or in my case, just stay on the curve). A bio-hack is anything that improves health and performance in a quick and easy, and often unconventional way. The term is adopted from the cyber community – just as a computer programer hacks into a computer program, we too can “hack” into our own biology. These practices range everywhere from using certain supplements, to brain training, either through games, devices or meditation, or even hooking yourself up to expensive technological devices to improve your cognitive performance.

Zapping your brain with a Transcranial Low Level Laser Therapy device..?

I must admit, some of these bio-hacks are a bit far out there, even for me. Between LLLT devices, which are said to improve the mitochondria in your brain by zapping them with infrared light, to tCDS, or transcranial direct stimulation devices, which literally apply electrical currents to your brain to strengthen neuronal connections, I currently neither have the funds nor the guts to try some of these, despite how effective the research makes them out to be. However, there are quite a few bio-hacks I do personally use, and while the cream of the crop are going to be saved for my one-on-one clients, I’m more than happy to share a few here with you.

Hack your focus with L-Theanine

L-Theanine is a rare amino-acid like compound found only in a few plants, most notably in green tea. Ever wonder why a cup of quality green tea has that wonderful calming and focusing effect? Yup, that’s L-Theanine at work.

L-Theanine reduces feelings of stress, boosts cognitive function, improves mood and even boosts brain levels of BDNF, a compound that helps protect and grow new brain cells. Further, researchers have yet to be able to determine a toxic dose (but please be reasonable).

L-Theanine has been proven to increase the brain’s alpha waves, which correlates to a state of relaxed alertness. This study states –

“L-theanine significantly increases activity in the alpha frequency band which indicates that it relaxes the mind without inducing drowsiness.” See? Told you so.

Further, L-Theanine and caffeine are a match made in heaven. Need to get some studying done? Need that brain focusing in peak condition, but also need to stay focused? Pairing L-Theanine with caffeine is the way to go – caffeine gives you the mental boost you need to plow through work, while L-Theanine negates the negative effects of caffeine, and increases your focus to keep you from constantly checking your Facebook and email. Most people recommend a 2:1 Theanine/Caffeine ratio, but I do better at a 1:1 ratio. Play around and see what works for you.

Start with just one of these pills per cup of coffee or whenever you’d like some relaxation, and play around until you find your sweet spot. You can also just drink green tea, with gyokuro and white tea being highest in L-Theanine.

Boost motivation and accelerate fat burning with Gynostemma and Green Tea

We all know what green tea is, and how it’s loaded with antioxidants, and you now know it’s got that lovely L-Theanine in it as well. But most people haven’t heard of Gynostemma Pentaphyllum, or jiaogulan in Chinese.

Gynostemma is a delicious adaptogenic tea hailing from southern China. Researchers stumbled upon it when they noticed a village that had an unusual amount of octogenarians who remained quite active and involved in the community. Upon further questioning the researchers discovered that almost everyone in the village regularly drinks a tea made from a plant they called “Miracle Grass”, or what we call Gynostemma.

Jiaogulan

Turns out Gynostemma is one hell of a plant. It has over 80 different saponins, the molecules that give it it’s adaptogenic properties, beating the previous record holder, ginseng, four times over. It’s immune-regulating, boosts energy, improves cellular function and delays fatigue.

But what I really like about it is that it improves your sensitivity to dopamine. Dopamine is that wonderful little neurotransmitter that everyone loves, released after a nice cup of coffee, during sex and when eating tasty food, the one involved in motivation and feelings of reward and pleasure. It’s important that you have ample amounts of dopamine and that your dopamine receptors are sensitive, or else you’ll be going through life unmotivated and without feeling much pleasure, a state known as anhedonia.

This is key in my eyes – if you want to be motivated enough to accomplish your goals, you need to have your dopaminergic system running in tip top shape. There’s a lot more to this topic than simply drinking gynostemma tea, so be on the lookout for upcoming posts or possibly even an ebook. I recommend Dragon Herbs’ Spring Dragon tea, or their Gynostemma capsules.

Gynostemma also improves insulin sensitivity, making it a great addition not only to diabetics but people in general, as improving insulin sensitivity also improves weight loss parameters. Green tea is also a fantastic choice for people looking to lose weight. Green tea is high in an antioxidant called EGCG. EGCG has a three-pronged effect on weight loss. First, it increases the rate at which stored body fat is released to be burned as energy. EGCG also sensitizes your muscles’ cells to insulin, while decreases your fat cell’s sensitivity to insulin. This means that the food you eat after a cup of green tea is more likely to be burned for energy in your muscles than stored away as fat. Finally, EGCG is actually able to destroy fat cells altogether. See, when a person loses weight, they don’t actually lose fat cells – those cells remain, they just release their stored fatty acids. If a person gains that weight back, those fat cells simply fill back up. EGCG is able to actually destroy those fat cells, something that is very rare in a natural compound.

If you want to maximize all these benefits, just combine gynostemma and green tea together and drink a few cups a day. You can also use a high quality matcha green tea, which contains significantly more EGCG than regular green teas.

Shade-grown, stone-ground, Theanine and EGCG rich Matcha

Hack your circadian rhythms with Melatonin and Full Spectrum Lights

Having a proper circadian rhythm is paramount to feeling and looking your best. Nothing is more rejuvenating than a full night’s rest, and it’s easy to see how much performance is affected when you either go to bed late or have to get up early. Nothing is as surefire to improve mood and energy levels as consistently as being well rested, so making sure you have this aspect of your life down is critical.

“Maintaining synchronized circadian rhythms is important to health and well-being,” says Dieter Kunz, director of the Sleep Research and Clinical Chronobiology Research Group at Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin. “A growing body of evidence suggests that a desynchronization of circadian rhythms may play a role in various tumoral diseases, diabetes, obesity, and depression.”

Eeesh.

Naturally, there are ways to hack your circadian rhythm to get more bang for your buck. Start by avoiding blue light 2-3 hours before bedtime. Blue light is emitted from phones, tablets, laptops, computers and tvs, and has been found to suppress the release of melatonin within the brain. Melatonin is the circadian rhythm entraining hormone in the body, and is the main hormone involved in you falling asleep. As the meta-study linked above states “The blue wavelength suppressed melatonin for about twice as long as the green.”

While some bio-hackers like to wear red-tinted glasses to completely block out blue light in the evenings, I simply make sure to avoid phone, tv and computer light exposure as much as possible after sunset – granted, sometimes this is a futile effort. You can also download a free program on your computer and smart phone called f.lux, which will automatically tint your screen more and more red as the sun sets, naturally blocking out the blue light emitted from your devices.

A few nights a week I like to hit the hay early. Not only does this make me feel like a million bucks the next day and improve everything from my metabolism to optimizing my hormone levels, it helps to keep my circadian rhythm in balance. A few times a month, when I’m going to bed early, I’ll take 1 to 1.5 milligrams of melatonin, to “entrain” my circadian rhythm to falling asleep at that hour, usually around 9 or 10. When I take melatonin early at night, I’m basically telling my body, “Now is when you should naturally be falling asleep. This is when you should start releasing melatonin.” Melatonin is also great for jet lag or adjusting to a new timezone – just take it the first few nights to entrain your circadian rhythm to the new timezone.

Quick note – I do not recommend taking melatonin every night, or using big doses. This is a hormone after all, and it’s not to be taken lightly. Just how bodybuilders produce very little testosterone after using steroids, using too much melatonin for too long can shut down your body’s natural production of the hormone. Please keep this in mind.

In the mornings when I wake up, especially in the winter time, I’ll throw on my Verilux HappyLight to signal to my body that the night has ended and it’s time to start producing all the hormones I need to naturally wake up. Photorecptors in our eyes send signals to our hypothalamus that help to wake us up in the presence of bright, full spectrum light, whether from the sun or from a full spectrum bright light. Let’s allow Wikipedia to get real nerdy for us –

“They [Intrinsically photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells] play a major role in synchronizing circadian rhythms to the 24-hour light/dark cycle, providing primarily length-of-day and length-of night information. They send light information via the retinohypothalamic tract directly to the circadian pacemaker of the brain, the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus. The physiological properties of these ganglion cells match known properties of the daily light entrainment (synchronization) mechanism regulating circadian rhythms.”

Long story short, a nice dose of strong, full-spectrum light in the mornings sends all the right signals to your body to fill you with energy and wake you right up. It’s not critical to use a full-spectrum bright light, but if you’re the type that has a difficult time waking up in the mornings or experiences the winter-time blues, it’s a great investment. I’ve personally gotten great results from mine – more energy in the mornings and no winter-time moodiness.

Hack your hormones with Yoga

Be prepared for many posts to come in the following weeks and months on yoga, as I’m a huge fan and there is a lot to cover. One of the biggest benefits of yoga that is rarely touched upon is how yoga is the best way to naturally improve and regulate almost all the hormones your body produces. Proper hormone levels are vitally important to vibrant health, as hormones regulate your physiology and behavior. Throw even one hormone out of whack, and a chain event of disastrous consequences occurs.

All the twisting, bending and stretching of the postures in yoga have many beneficial effects, one of which is to squeeze and massage all of the endocrine glands within the body, the glands that produce and release your hormones. This squeezing and massaging pushes stale blood and toxins out of the glands, and when the twist or bend is released, fresh blood rushes in like water to a dry sponge. This revitalizes the glands and improves their functioning. Inverted postures, especially shirshashana, the headstand pose, improves the functioning of the pituitary, the “master gland” of the endocrine system, which has downstream effects on all your other endocrine glands and body systems.

As you can see, “bio-hacking” is actually a pretty easy and accessible concept, and we’ve barely just scratched the surface. Keep your eyes peeled for future posts on various bio-hacks, including how to use cold to burn more fat, how to use heat to build more muscle, make you smarter and recover faster from workouts, and multiple ways to improve cognition and even grow your brain. Contact me to find out more.

Consuming Zombifying Fungi, Deer Antlers and Sheep Placenta – The Quest for Everlasting Youth

Over the past five years I’ve done many an odd thing to explore the realm of boosting health and achieving peak performance – I’ve eaten plenty of organ meats, with sweetbreads being my favorite (sweetbreads are a euphemism for the thymus and pancreas of calves and lambs); experimented with multiple nootropics, or substances that boost mental performance, some that even grow your brain; changed my diet every which way imaginable, with accompanying changes in workout routines; and spent more time than I’d like to admit on various scientific journals reading up on studies that might provide me with the next big biohack that would improve my life.

But hands down, the strangest things I’ve done in the quest to improve my health and perform at higher levels always seem to revolve around increasing the quality and quantity of my Jing – having consumed things such as the tips of deer antler, deer and sheep placenta, geckos, sea horses and sea dragons, as well as spending $70 on the most foul tasting of the bunch, a liquid extract of male silk moths. Yes, it tastes exactly like what you would imagine liquid bugs would taste like.

Want some?

Why all this fuss about Jing? According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jing is your “Regenerative Essence”, the equivalent to the fountain of youth – the more you have, the more youthful you’ll remain, the more energy you’ll have, the less likely to get sick you’ll be, and ultimately, the longer you’ll live. When the body runs out of Jing, you die, plain and simple.

Jing is one of what’s known as the Three Treasures, the other two being Qi and Shen. Jing is the basis for Qi, and Qi for Shen, so by improving Jing, you can improve all three. This makes Jing of prime importance, for if you focus on building your Jing, your Qi and Shen will increase as well.

Traditional Chinese Medicine dictates that Jing is particularly related to the bone marrow, the reproductive system, the brain and nervous system and especially the kidneys, which, in TCM, include the adrenal glands. Jing is associated with longevity, youthfulness, regeneration, as well as your mental prowess, courage and will power. In modern terms, Jing can be associated with your stores of hormones, the integrity of your DNA as well as your genetic potential in general. Therefore, consuming herbs or supplements or doing certain practices that build your Jing increase your vitality and resilience, boost mental power, enhance your fertility, improve your youthful appearance and ultimately increase how long you’ll live. In other words, it’s important. And yes, the things you consume and experience do actually change your genetic expression, something I will write a post or two about in the future.

As a little aside here – whether you speak of “Jing” as some ancient, almost romantic concept coming from China, or speak of it’s equivalent in modern day language, you’re still talking about the same thing. The youth-preserving processes within the body and the same nourishing properties of food and herbs are all pointing at the same thing, whether you call it Jing, hormonal balance or regenerative essence.

Someone who has a lot of Jing stored up is brimming with vitality, is in high spirits, never seems to fatigue, has that youthful appearance and demeanor and may even have that special extra “something” about them, that je ne sais quoi. On the other hand, someone with depleted Jing is constantly tired, can’t handle even minor stressors, may have thinning, frail hair and nails, saggy or wrinkling skin, bags under their eyes, and is often a big ol’ grump.

Two metaphors for people with lots of Jing are healthy teenagers and healthy pregnant women. A healthy teenager is able to wake up early, go to school, go to gym class during school hours, then practice their sport after school hours, finish their homework (just kidding), stay up late at night and wake up the next day with almost no ill effects – and they may not even be using the crutch of coffee yet at this age. This is because they’re brimming with hormones, which are under the domain of Jing, and they haven’t yet had much of a chance to deplete their Jing as they are still relatively young. Pregnant women are also brimming with hormones; because they’re with child, they’re also using a lot of Jing to build and nurture that baby. Unfortunately, if not paid attention to, this may leave some women feeling drained due to a loss of Jing, especially after the second or third child.

My favorite example of someone who is depleting their Jing too quickly is the Marathon runner who isn’t recovering properly in between runs. And true enough, long-distance running depletes youthful hormones such as Human Growth Hormone and DHEA, and results in a long-term increase in cortisol, a catabolic stress hormone.

Sprinter on the left, marathoner on the right. While both have relatively low body fat, the sprinter clearly has more muscle to her. Guess which is approaching Jing depletion…

I love it when modern science backs up ancient wisdom, and this is exactly what’s happening in today’s world with the concept of Jing. Many of the substances used to supplement Jing from TCM have been found to have profoundly rejuvenating effects on the body; many are adaptogens which improve hormone levels, and almost all of them benefit the adrenal glands, the storehouses of sex hormones and “youth” hormones, lending credence to the Kidneys (which include the adrenals in TCM) being the seat of Jing.

For example, Rehmannia is one of the primary Jing tonics in TCM. Rehmannia is rich in a compound called catalpol, which “has been shown to have anti-oxidation, anti-inflammation, anti-apoptosis and other neuroprotective properties and plays a role in neuroprotection”. Rehmannia benefits learning, protects the kidneys, enhances longevity by increasing superoxide dismutase, the body’s “master antioxidant”, and boosts the immune system.

Deer antler extract is said to be perhaps the most nourishing substance to Jing, along with Placenta. While many are hearing about deer antler from NFL scandals or as a “natural” source of steroid hormones, it’s best to keep in mind that any ingested hormones are swiftly broken down by digestive enzymes, and thus not absorbed. Ancient Taoist hermits marveled at how each year, a young buck’s antlers would grow up to 2 cm daily. If cut or damaged, the antlers simply regrew, something common in lizards or starfish but extremely rare in higher order animals. This made the Taoists believe that the deer’s antler must be a potent source of Jing (read – regenerative essence), and modern science has backed this up – it’s rich in collagen, proteins, minerals, and especially rich in growth factors. Our bodies naturally produce high amounts of growth factors when we’re young, but this production starts to decline as we age. Deer antler is also rich in interleukins, which are powerful immune boosting cells.

Two Taoist Immortals

This study states “both in vitro [in a petri dish] and in vivo [in an actual animal or human] pharmacological studies have demonstrated that deer antler base possess immunomodulatory, anti-cancer, anti-fatigue, anti-osteoporosis, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-stress, anti-oxidant, hypoglycemic, hematopoietic modulatory activities and the therapeutic effect on mammary hyperplasia. Although the mechanism of actions is still not clear, the pharmacological activities could be mainly attributed to the major bioactive compounds amino acids, polypeptides and proteins. Based on animal studies and clinical trials, deer antler base causes no severe side effects.” (Brackets and bold are my addition) Interestingly, this is in reference to the base of deer antler, and not the tips, which are replete with much more biologically active compounds and which are the parts used in a high quality product.

Deer antler is highly praised in TCM and highly sought after. Nowadays, depending on which brand you buy, the antler tips are harvested using as humane methods as possible. The deer have local anesthesia applied, the very tips of the antlers, the most potent part, are surgically removed, and the deer are then bandaged and set free to continue grazing on their pastures. This antler trimming is even said to help prevent fights amongst males. I personally make sure the deer antler I’ve used comes from New Zealand, where there are strict standards set by the government for treating animals humanely. If you do use deer antler, make sure it’s coming from a company that uses New Zealand products and preferably one that specializes in selling Chinese herbs, as many deer antler products are absolute trash. This is a great product from Dragon Herbs.

Cordyceps is a fungus that infects certain insects, mainly caterpillars and ants. It causes them to climb to higher locations, at which point it sprouts out of the insect’s head and spreads its spores.

Cordyceps infected tarantula

Yeah, it’s basically a mushroom that turns insects into zombies. However, if consumed by humans, it turns them into superheroes – in the 1993 Nationals in Beijing, Chinese women amazed the world, breaking records left and right. One ran the 10,000 meters a full 42 seconds faster than any woman in the world had prior, with other women beating other records as well. Of course, steroid use was suspected, but when all the women tested negative for steroid use, the press asked the coach what could have possibly caused such a huge uptick in performance. The answer? In addition to intense, high-altitude training, the coach had his trainees consume a drink prepared with a “caterpillar fungus” as the main ingredient. This fungus was none other than cordyceps. Mind you, it is not possible for humans to be infected by cordyceps, and any cordyceps you buy is the fruiting body and not the spores, and thus is inert and unable to infect anything whatsoever, even if you were indeed a caterpillar.

Cordyceps has been found to be anti-depressive, anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, kidney-protective, improves neuromuscular performance, protects the brain from hypoxia (lack of oxygen), and is also anti-inflammatory. It’s quite the amazing little fungus. I’ve noticed huge improvements in workout quality – I’m able to push harder for a longer period of time. It also helps prevent mental fatigue as well, great for long days at the office, which, to me, means long days sitting on my laptop in Starbucks. If only they’d come out with a cordyceps Frappucino..

There are plenty of other Jing enhancing substances, many of which I’ll be doing future posts on. A few of my favorites are Rehmannia, He Shou Wu, Deer Antler, Cordyceps, Goji Berries, Eucommia, Cistanche, Ashwagandha and Shilajit. There are also many blends available from a few good companies – I mainly stick to Dragon Herbs or Jing Herbs. For those interested, I’m currently using a 250 gram bag of Jing Herbs’ Restore the Jing, to which I’ve added 50 grams each of Jing Herbs’ Cistanche and He Shou Wu, and add some Deer Antler whenever I feel I need a little boost.

If you’re at all semi-interested in enhancing the quality of your life, increasing your longevity, increasing your mood and energy levels, improving your fertility and libido, preserving youthfulness, and generally being all around more badass, consider adding one or two Jing supplements to your regimen.

Adaptogens, Pt. 1

Let’s say you’ve got your diet nailed down, and your exercise routine is going along great, and you’ve even started taking a few supplements to fill in some gaps. You have more energy and hey, you’ve even lost a few pounds without trying, you sly dog you.

But then you hit that wall. It could be that 3 pm, post-lunch-take-a-nap wall, or the wall you hit when you get home from work that turns you into a zoned out zombie. It could be that wall you hit each time you try to go to the gym only to find you don’t have any energy.

The wall has been hit

You realize there’s something missing, something more you could be doing. And the truth is there is more, a lot more you could be doing – small tweaks you could be making that will make a big difference. One of which is making use of adaptogens.

No doubt about it, getting your diet honed in and specified to your goals, getting a healthy dose of exercise and improving your sleep habits are the foundation of any health promoting regimen, and the cornerstone of your success. But once that’s in place, how do you take it to the next level?

The Missing Link in Your Life

Today’s world is a high-stress world – we’re actually built to handle, even thrive, on small doses of stress, but chronic stress? Thats a killer. Good news is, nature has once again provided us with all we need, this time in the form of adaptogens.

An adaptogen is any substance that improves our ability to handle stress. Many of them lower or modulate levels of cortisol, our main stress hormone. Some adaptogens help us to actually rebuild our over-worked adrenal glands, helping to prevent or reverse adrenal fatigue. They provide us with sustained, jitter-free energy throughout the day, many improve libido, and they work in too diverse a way to sum up in this little paragraph.

Further, some help us to relax, much as a glass of wine does after work. Others can be more stimulating, great for the start of the day or before the gym, and yet others are neutral and balanced, while still being strongly anti-fatigue. I recommend picking either one neutral adaptogen to try out, or one that is stimulating and one that is relaxing, so you have one for day time use and one for the evenings.

Ginseng – This is the big boy on the block, the granddaddy of all adaptogens. Ginseng is the highest ranked herb in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for a reason, and that’s because it is so broad-spectrum in its actions, and because it’s the primary Qi tonic, it increases energy levels and stamina tremendously. Ginseng normalizes the activity of both the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems, meaning it brings you into balance between your “rest and digest” mode and your “fight or flight” mode. Ginseng also regulates your endocrine system, helping to keep your hormone levels in check.

Ginseng root looks like a human body

In addition to being strongly anti-fatigue, Ginseng is also

Neuroprotective
Cognitive Enhancing
Immuno-regulatory (increases immune response in those with low immune function, and decreases response in those with over-active immune systems)
Anti-diabetic
Anti-cancer
Pro-libido
Hormone-regulating

It should be noted that true Asian ginseng, called Panax Ginseng, is a different plant than either American Ginseng or Siberian Ginseng, although all three have similar effects. Panax Ginseng is generally more stimulating than the others, with Siberian Ginseng being neutral, neither stimulating nor relaxing, and American Ginseng being ever so slightly relaxing. Further, when it comes to buying ginseng, you get what you pay for. Higher quality roots will produce much better results, and will cost more, with some very mature and potent roots easily reaching close to a thousand dollars. I personally have used Dragon Herbs products with great results. Their House Ginseng and Ginseng Sublime are excellent choices.

Ashwagandha – This bad boy, sometimes referred to as Indian Ginseng, is a helluva plant. A mainstay in Ayurvedic medicine, the ancient healing system of India, Ahswagandha is my top pick in terms of relaxing adaptogens, and may well be my favorite adaptogen overall.

It has been proven to lower cortisol, our main stress hormone, in a dose dependent manner, making it a gift for today’s fast-paced, highly strung world. It excels at treating anxiety, as it actually works on the same receptors in the brain as pharmaceutical anxiety meds, without addiction or side effects. For this reason, it can be used in smaller doses throughout the day as a calming agent, and in larger doses in the evening to relax, much the way you would drink a glass of wine.

It provides a nice big boost to the libido, enhances fertility in both women and men, and boosts thyroid function, aiding in weight loss, as well as being anti-fatigue and immuno-regulatory.

But perhaps it’s greatest benefit is that it’s been shown to enhance the release of BDNF within in the brain. BDNF stands for Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, which protects brain cells from stress and toxins, repairs damaged brain cells and even promotes the growth of new brain cells! For this reason it deserves a place in anyone’s medicine chest, and especially for those who may be worried about cognitive decline. For this benefit to bear fruit Ashwagandha must be taken continuously over long periods of time.

Yeah, it makes you smarter, thinner and more fertile

Tulsi – Also called Holy Basil, this herb is known as the “Queen of Herbs” in Ayurveda (ashwagandha is sometimes referred to as the king). Tulsi is a highly revered medicinal plant that is found in almost every home in India, and for good reason. It’s said to be the most Sattvic of all herbs, meaning it promotes a sense of ease, peace and clarity and benefits spiritual practice.

This 2014 study sums Tulsi up quite nicely – “Tulsi has been found to protect organs and tissues against chemical stress from industrial pollutants and heavy metals, and physical stress from prolonged physical exertion, ischemia, physical restraint and exposure to cold and excessive noise. Tulsi has also been shown to counter metabolic stress through normalization of blood glucose, blood pressure and lipid levels, and psychological stress through positive effects on memory and cognitive function and through its anxiolytic and anti-depressant properties… Cultivation of tulsi plants has both spiritual and practical significance that connects the grower to the creative powers of nature, and organic cultivation offers solutions for food security, rural poverty, hunger, environmental degradation and climate change. The use of tulsi in daily rituals is a testament to Ayurvedic wisdom and provides an example of ancient knowledge offering solutions to modern problems.” Bolds and Italics my addition.

Tulsi is a calming herb, but not as relaxing as Ashwagandha. It promotes feelings of peace and well-being more than anything, and is a solid choice for evening or morning use. This product has been the most potent form of Tulsi I’ve yet to try, though it’s very common in tea form as well.

Which adaptogens have you tried, and which of these sound most interesting to you? Keep your eye open for more posts on adaptogens in the near future.