Normalize Cortisol Levels with Ashwagandha
Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast
Dr. Eric Berg
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 September 2023
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Let’s talk about how to reduce stress using ashwagandha.
Ashwagandha is an herb that has been around for a very long time and has minimal side effects.
Potential benefits of ashwagandha:
• It’s an incredible adaptogen (it helps you cope with stress and depression)
• It may help increase exercise performance
• It may help decrease cortisol
• It may help reduce fibroids
• It has anti-inflammatory properties
• It may help improve the immune system
• It supports cognitive function
• It may help lower blood sugar levels
It seems like natural alternatives are always attacked. Recently, there has been some fear around ashwagandha because, like other natural remedies, it’s not FDA-approved.
The committees that approve drugs have a lot of conflicts of interest. Many medications that are FDA-approved have a massive number of side effects, but people take them without hesitation.
You may find it beneficial to try ashwagandha and come off of it for a while to see how you feel. Ashwagandha is powerful for stress, but you may not need it after you change your lifestyle and get rid of stress. Natural remedies are great tools but aren’t meant to be taken for the rest of your life.
DATA:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25199...
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I want to show you how to dramatically reduce your cortisol stress with Ashwaganda. |
| 0:05.7 | Now, what is Ashwanda? |
| 0:07.1 | It's an herb that's been used for 6,000 years. |
| 0:11.3 | And so it's been around a long time and has stood this test of time with minimal side effects, |
| 0:16.3 | which I want to get into some of the side effects that are on social media related to it. |
| 0:21.1 | I will get to that, but I want to just tell you the benefits first. |
| 0:24.2 | It is hands down one of the best adaptogens or herbs that help you cope with stress as well as depression. |
| 0:32.2 | It has been shown to increase stamina, especially with endurance when you're exercising. |
| 0:36.5 | There's been a study with favorable results. |
| 0:39.3 | The hormone cortisol, with the stress hormone, which is reduced with Aschwaganda, |
| 0:43.3 | is probably the reason why it's helping shrink fibroids because it lowers cortisol. |
| 0:48.3 | Ashwaganda also has anti-inflammatory properties. Now, here's the question. Cortisol is typically an anti-inflammatory hormone. |
| 0:58.0 | So if we're reducing this anti-inflammatory hormone, why would you have more benefit from |
| 1:04.9 | Ashwaganda as an anti-inflammatory? You would think a person with high cortisol would not have |
| 1:10.6 | inflammation because all that high cortisol is an anti-inflammatory. |
| 1:15.6 | But the confusion lies in the difference between acute stress and chronic stress because when you're chronically stressed, you have this high elevated amount of cortisol, very similar to when you have high levels of insulin. |
| 1:28.3 | You develop cortisol resistance, |
| 1:29.8 | just like you would with insulin, insulin resistance. |
| 1:32.4 | And cortisol resistance is a situation |
| 1:35.0 | where you have high levels of cortisol, |
| 1:37.2 | but the cortisol is not activated, penetrated into the cell. |
| 1:41.0 | So we don't really get the benefits of cortisol. We get the opposite |
... |
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