Adaptogen Allies

Sometimes our entire world feels like it’s on fire or sending us for a loop around some universe we’ve never even imagined visiting. When we feel lost without a roadmap, our natural guide can easily become stress and anxiety; this sort of fight or flight function from our bodies is seeking to protect us but ends up causing damage over the long term. Emotional responses like stress affect more than just the nervous system and the mind. Their manifestation certainly echoes throughout our entire bodies, sometimes for years on end. Plant medicine can approach our body’s healing from any one of many different angles, but with stress related effects it is generally more useful to use a combination of herbs to manage the symptoms or stress more fully and to turn to an ally  that works all throughout our body to bring about stasis. These allies are adaptogens. 

Adaptogens are not what herbalists refer to as “specifics,” meaning a plant medicine that works on a specific system of the body to bring about change there (like a digestive or a nerve tonic); adaptogens work instead to bring harmony and balance to the body overall. A wonderful defense against stress and anxiety that is either acute or chronic, adaptogens reinforce what our body is already capable of doing. There is a concept in tarot card reading that the cards are just working to remind you of what you already know; we can think of an adaptogen in this way - working to remind our bodies that we have the capacity to be whole. They come alongside our bodies to provide the missing elements for us to reimagine that energetic capability.

A wonderful example of this energetic balancing is ashwagandha. A nondescript looking plant whose roots mature in less than a year (most adaptogens are long-term growers, requiring several years of maturation before harvest), ashwagandha makes up for its lack in aesthetics with its potential to bring us back to center. It is an energizing plant medicine that is primarily calming in its energetics. One might say that it quiets the static electricity of the mind - stress, anxiety, worry - and frees up that energy for our bodies and minds to use more effectively. So in this instance, we can see that sometimes when we are fatigued, what we need is not stimulating herbs but instead to hush the inner chaos just enough so that we can get up and get out. This is a bit of perspective shifting, where we look underneath what we are experiencing to find what needs to be uncovered in order for us to heal.

Adaptogens are difficult to contain in one brief conversation because their potential is so broad. Some other lovely examples of adaptogens are tulsi, ginseng, and shatavari - all worth exploring in your journey with the healing power of plants. The medicine of these energetic stabilizers feels like a whole body embrace from the plant world that we maybe didn’t even know that we needed. We’d encourage you to make friends with an adaptogen and to begin your journey back to center.