2020 has been a rough ride for everyone. Thank goodness for adaptogens!
Strategize! Find your herbal umbrella.
Adaptogens are nontoxic, natural substances—usually herbs—that can help your body respond better to stress.
According to multiple scientific studies, herbal formulas that have been used in Ayurvedic and Traditional Chinese Medicine can have a wide range of beneficial effects on various systems of the body.
But not every adaptogen is equal. You should be looking for companies that formulate clinical nutrition formulas based on scientific research offer adaptogenic supplements that strategically combine herbs and other nutrients into convenient options that can help you fight back against stress.
If you’d like to find an adaptogenic supplement to help you cope with stress, NutriDyn’s Stress Essentials line is our favorite place to start. Each of these formulas is designed to calm your body and mind to help you cope with stress, and each offers additional benefits as well. BTW, every time you buy through a GWL affiliate, you help support the education and advocacy mission of the Global Wellness Lab.
Do you need more energy, clarity, harmony, protection, or resilience? Check out these fabulous formulas below.
Need more energy?
Stress can sap your energy. One reason is that your body uses micronutrients to make stress hormones, so during periods of chronic stress, your reserves of essential nutrients can run low. Replacing your stores of calcium, vitamin C, magnesium, and B vitamins with the high quality bioavailable forms used in Stress Essentials Adrenal B-1 B-6 may bring back some of your lost energy. Prolonged periods of stress can produce adrenal exhaustion. If that happens, vitamin B6 can help. It plays a role in producing serotonin, a calming brain chemical. Vitamin C and zinc are both important nutrients for the immune system, and vitamin C helps relieve stress-related fatigue by creating a more regular daily rise and fall of cortisol levels. The herbal component of this formula, ashwagandha, has been shown to have a calming effect on the adrenal glands, which produce stress hormones.
Want more clarity?
Stress can make it hard to think straight. The synergistic ingredients in Stress Essentials Relax work together to balance the calming and excitatory neurotransmitters in the brain. Learning and memory require excitatory brain chemicals such as glutamate, but too much excitement in the brain isn’t good. GABA is the neurotransmitter that steps in to calm the brain when it gets over-excited. Stress Essentials Relax contains green tea extract, taurine, and NAC, which work together to convert glutamate to GABA and balance out the two brain chemicals. When GABA and glutamate are in balance, you can think and learn while maintaining a healthy mood and sense of calm.
Crave more harmony?
Stress can lead to a vicious mind-body cycle. When your brain perceives danger, it causes your body to ramp up with a stress response. And when you feel stressed in your body, your mood and thinking abilities suffer. One of the best researched ways that the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind is through the HPA axis—part of the body’s neuroendocrine system that includes the hypothalamus and pituitary gland in the brain and the adrenal glands. This is the main system by which our bodies control the stress response, primarily by secreting stress hormones like cortisol.
Stress Essentials Balance uses four different herbs to support the HPA axis to create a healthy stress response in both mind and body. The herbs rhodiola rosea and Asian ginseng contain compounds that support healthy adrenal function. Used for centuries, the cordyceps mushroom was valued for supporting immunity, stamina, libido, and other body processes. Research suggests it can promote a healthy stress response and combat fatigue. Ashwagandha extract is included for its calming effect.
Need more protection?
Stress ages you. We’ve all seen or known people whose hair seemed to suddenly turn gray after a period of heightened stress. That’s just an obvious external example of how stress causes premature aging. It can also take a toll on internal systems, leading to impacts on cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, blood sugar, and hormone processes. To help protect against these threats, Stress Essentials Serenity includes a blend of herbal extracts found in traditional Chinese medicine that have proven antioxidant effects. These plant-based compounds can help reduce the aging effects of stress, protect brain health, and improve sleep patterns.
Want more resilience?
Stress can wear you out. If you’ve been under chronic stress for some time, your adrenals can stop putting out enough cortisol. That’s commonly called adrenal fatigue. Signs could be that you wake up tired, can’t get going in the morning without your favorite source of caffeine, feel rundown or overwhelmed, and have a hard time bouncing back from illness. If that sounds like you, Stress Essentials Licorice Complex might help restore your adrenal function and put a bounce in your step once more. Although people with heart disease or high blood pressure shouldn’t take this product, licorice root is one of the best-known herbs for adrenal fatigue. Besides licorice, which has been shown to keep more cortisol circulating in your blood, this adaptogenic formula also contains rehmannia radix root extract, which helps support the function of the adrenal cortex, and wild yam root, which contains steroidal saponins and sapogenins (building blocks of steroidal hormones). This product also contains ashwagandha extract, which can help reduce anxiety.
And . . . why not work on that pesky cortisol problem while we’re at it?
Since cortisol is the primary stress-related hormone, a vital part of a healthy stress response is keeping cortisol at the right level. Having too much cortisol or cortisol levels that rise and fall at the wrong time of day can make you feel restless, lethargic, or anxious. Beyond that, wacky cortisol function can weaken immunity, interfere with blood sugar, impair cardiovascular health, and contribute to mood swings.
Cortisol Pro uses plant-based ingredients, amino acids, and phospholipids to help the body regulate cortisol. These ingredients have a wide range of health benefits. If you want to maintain general health while dealing with stress, consider adding Cortisol Pro to your daily health routine.
Adaptogens are powerful tools you can use to construct a defense against stress. Combine them with other strategies to find your shelter in the storm.
Next up: Look for our quiz + guide to finding the formula that best fits your anti-stress summer!
As always, the above information is for educational purposes only. The health educators at Global Wellness Lab do not diagnose or treat disease, but offer information and tools to help you optimize your health and the health of your community.