Ashwagandha

Overview

Ashwagandha, also known as Withania Somnifera or Siberian Ginseng, is an adaptogen commonly used in Ayurvedic medicine. It’s been used for thousands of years as a “wonder herb” known to treat an extremely wide variety of ailments, but has only been studied scientifically in the west since the 1940′s. International scientists were curious as to why people in Siberia lived such long and healthy lives with very little stress. Thousands of studies on over half a million people were conducted on Ashwagandha. It proved to boost energy when needed, calm nerves when a person was experiencing feelings of anxiety, improve mood, and help sexual vitality.

Check out the Ashwagandha Wikipedia entry for a bit more info.

How does Ashwagandha work?

Ashwagandha is an adaptogen. In a nutshell, an adaptogen is a class of herbs which work holistically on the entire body to bring it back to homeostasis and help it function efficiently. It can provide energy to a person feeling sluggish. It can have a calming effect on a person’s nerves when they are tense and anxious. It can help someone sleep at night if they are in need of a good sleep.
It can help someone with a foggy mind focus more clearly and concentrate.
The body is designed to function well, and Ashwagandha helps to restore the body and bring it back to it’s healthiest state.
It’s mechanism of work is difficult to explain in western scientific terms because it contains so many active ingredients and works on so many natural systems simultaneously. The generally sited active ingredients in ashwagandha are “withanolides”. There are a several other lesser known active ingredients as well which do wonderful things like increase energy, lower stress, decrease anxiety, improve mood, help with social anxiety disorder, and even act as a strong antioxident and aphrodisiac (increase libido) in both men and women.
Ashwagandha helps to regulate neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and GABA. It is a wonderful herb to take in combination with other herbs to get a “multiplier effect”. It is also incredibly non-toxic, so one needn’t worry much about overdose or bodily harm.
It simultaneously combats anxiety and depression and has been shown in SCIENTIFIC STUDIES to act as an anti-depressant, a mild sedative, and a antixiolytic (anti-anxiety) as well. The antixiolytic properties of ashwagandha are great for day time use of the herb because it is one of the rare herbs which is both energizing and calming at the same time. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s true due to it’s complex mechanisms of action and antixiolytic rather than sedative properties. It has also been shown to decrease stress levels by substantially reducing levels of the body’s stress hormone, cortisol.

What is Ashwagandha used for?

Like most herbs, ashwagandha has been marketed to do countless numbers of things. However, several scientific studies have shown it beneficial for:

Anxiety
Low energy
Depression
Sleep problems
Stress reduction
Mood improvement
Concentration
Social anxiety disorder
Sexual health and libido

Is Ashwagandha effective?

The short answer is a resounding yes. Ashwagandha is indeed an extremely effective herb for a variety of conditions. It is vastly underused given how beneficial it is.
There are several things to be aware of, however. Most Ashwaganda sold in the market is of very low quality or low potency. Many people mistakenly believe that the key to reaping the full benefits of Ashwagandha would be to take a very high dosage in terms of milligrams. This is nonsense because it’s not the milligrams of the plant that are the proper thing to look for. You need to look at the % of withanolides (the main active ingredients) the ashwagandha is standardized to. Is it an extract? Or is it just the whole plant ground up? This makes an enormous difference.
People’s bodies are different. They have different amounts of enzymes, different DNA, and different reactions to different things. Even with the highest quality ashwagandha, there are still some people who report very little improvement. On the other hand, there is an extremely high number of people who report wonderful results from using ashwagandha. One key is choosing the right ashwagandha (which is hard to find) see below. The other key is to remember to take it for several days. It’s not like alcohol in the sense that you will notice the effects immediately. You need to take high quality ashwagandha consistently for at least 5 days to really get the benefits. Take it for at least a full month straight before making up your mind one way or another as to whether or not you personally find it beneficial. If you choose the best ashwandha and use it regularly, you stand an excellent chance of experiencing great personal benefits in your mood, your anxiety and stress levels, your energy and confidence, and your overall well-being.

How to choose best quality Ashwagandha?

This is an incredibly important question and one not to take lightly. As alluded to above, the keys are in the extract ratio and the % standardization of withanolides. A lot of ashwagandha sold online and in stores is either not standardized at all, meaning it’s quite likely to have only the lowest quality parts of the plant ground up, or it’s standardized to 1.5% withanolides. Most serious companies will make ashwagandha supplements with the 1.5% and stand by that claim that it’s the best amount.
The reality is, however, that you are likely much better off going up to a 5% standardization of withanolides. The reason it’s so rare in the marketplace is simply that it’s much more difficult to find supplies of and it’s much more expensive. Since most consumers don’t know to look for this, market forces dictate that 1.5% is sufficient. After reading this article, please make sure you try to find ashwagandha products with 5% withanolides and you’ll find a huge improvement in effectiveness. Also, if it is standardized for 5% withanolides, it means that it went through a much better extraction process, and therefor the other (unmentioned) active ingredients will likely also be much higher and more potent in lock step.
Make sure the manufacturer or brand is known for doing it’s own 3rd party testing to make sure that it’s as “clean” as possible as well. Do your homework as a consumer.
As far as an extract ratio, a 10-1 ratio is quite good (but make sure it’s standardized!) The “10-1″ extract simply means that 10 kg of ashwagandha plant will extract down to 1 kg of finished product. A good extraction process will take out the “bulk” and leave in the nutrients and the active ingredients.

Ashwaganda dosage

This is an interesting question and it’s a question that so many people get wrong. As mentioned above in the “quality” section, it’s the potency that matters as much as the dose.
A 500mg per day dose of ashwagandha is essentially meaningless. It’s meaningless in much the same way as saying “1.5 litres of any alcoholic beverage”. We all know that 1.5 litres of beer is vastly different from 1.5 litres of Vodka. It’s the same deal here. It’s the quality and potency as much as the mg’s.
For example, a 300mg dose of ashwaganda standardized to 5% withanolides will give you the same amount of withanolides as a 1500mg dose standardized at 1.5% (which is the most common standardization on the market). And if an ashwagandha product isn’t standardized at all (which is almost always the case unless it explicitly says it on the bottle) then it’s conceivable that you could take 50 capsules of that type to get the same effect of a couple capsules of a highly potent one. (I wouldn’t suggest trying 50 capsules for other reasons, but it’s literally true).
But to answer the question rather than avoid it, a therapeutic dose of ashwagandha is 200mg standardized at 5%, per day. It’s very non-toxic so it’s possible to take more, but check with your doctor first before really experimenting. Also remember that it builds up before you notice the benefits, so start with a smaller, but potent, dose first, and then slowly build up after a week or so until you can really notice the benefits.
The dosage also depends a lot on the type of study being done and what the “ailment” at hand is.

Ashwagandha for anxiety

Ashwagandha is terrific for helping to reduce anxiety, especially when combined with other herbal remedies.
One thing which makes ashwagandha unique in this respect, is that it can combat anxiety without making one drowsy. Many “anti anxiety” herbs are sedatives when taken in high doses. Sedatives can be great for reducing anxiety, but the sleepiness they cause can often make them an unrealistic option when taking them during the day. Ashwagandha acts as an anxiolytic (anti anxiety) rather than simply a sedative (tranquillizer). The combination of low dose sedative herbs like valerian with higher dose ashwagandha work amazingly well to produce a very calm and relaxing feeling during the day, and a feeling which is more energising than sleepy.
And although ashwagandha when taken alone is great for improving mood and overall level of happiness, it works far better when taken with other natural “mood boosters” which work on increasing serotonin levels in the brain (like 5 HTP). Ashwagandha works to combat anxiety and depression on it’s own, but when taken as a high quality combination nutraceutical, the results can be really wonderful. If you suffer from general anxiety, social anxiety, depression, lack of focus, or would just like to feel happier and more confident naturally, you may be interested in our highly potent and highly effective anti anxiety and mood boosting Zen X formulation