It’s hard to wade into the waters of wellness these days without someone suggesting you take a shot of reishi mushroom and a hit of maca powder. So what’s the deal with adaptogens? What are they? And what exactly do they purport to do? Today’s Wellness Made Simple is dedicated to answering these questions.
Welcome to Wellness Made Simple, a series that takes wellness and self-care from being
- inaccessible,
- unfounded,
- gimmicky,
- expensive, and
- fad-based
to being
- accessible,
- reliable,
- simple,
- affordable, and
- solution-based.
This series returns wellness to its rightful place in the common denominator with vibrant, affordable, and scientifically reliable practices for all. In each post, I will take one notable “wellness” or “self-care” fad and break it down in clear, understandable language. Then I’ll provide an alternative that I’ve found to be effective, affordable, and scientifically sound.
It’s wellness made simple.
Adaptogen evangelists would say: Feeling stressed out? Add some ashwaghanda to your morning tea. Sex drive low? Try a dose of maca powder. Immune response got you down? Up your intake of chaga, cordyceps, and reishi mushrooms. There’s something mystically satisfying in the very indecipherability of their names, isn’t there?
If you’ve heard of adaptogens, it’s likely because they occupy a hefty amount of space in the modern wellness pantry. Companies like Moon Juice, Goop, CAP Beauty, and Sun Potion sell these dusty substances by the jarful, most between $38 and $75 a pop. Even Infowars, Alex Jones’s bastion of all things alt-right, sells adaptogenic supplements. But what are they, besides a coterie of powders that seem attendant to every well-monied, perfectly groomed white lady in the wellness industry (and, apparently, every well-prepared white dude in the alt-right)? And do they work?
The term adaptogen was coined by award-winning Soviet plant scientist Dr. Israel Brekhman, an expert in the study of Siberian ginseng (eleutherococcus senticocus). Adaptogens were considered plant compounds that returned the body to a state of balance, or homeostasis, when it was in the midst of a stress, or fight or flight, response. As such, their use was of particular interest to the Soviet military and navy—which subsequently banned their scientists from discussing their results beyond the Iron Curtain.
In the mid-twentieth century, the USSR began overseeing thousands of studies on the effects of adaptogenic herbs, particularly those in use in traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine. During World War II, the USSR administered a berry called schisandra to its pilots and submarine crews, as both an energizer and a nerve tonic, to positive effect. And during the Cold War, those same scientists studied the effects of a root called rhodiola. While the results of these decades of studies are impressive, they have yet to be replicated on the same scale, to modern standards, with repeatable results, outside the USSR. Read more about these studies in the peer-reviewed journal Pharmaceuticals.
Today, the most popular adaptogens still hail from traditional medical practices from the east (and west, less prolifically): ashwaghanda (Ayurvedic medicine), astragalus (traditional Chinese medicine), chaga, cordyceps, and reishi mushrooms (traditional Chinese medicine), maca (traditional Incan / Peruvian medicine), rhodiola (traditional Chinese medicine), Siberian ginseng and panax ginseng (traditional Chinese medicine), schisandra (traditional Chinese medicine), and tulsi (holy basil, Ayurvedic medicine), among others. Each of these plants delivers specific tonifying and balancing qualities, from sharpening cognitive function to intensifying libido and reducing anxiety.
Purportedly, adaptogens do so by addressing the specific, unique condition of each individual biome. In other words, adaptogens adapt to each individual body’s specific needs to combat the stress response. In theory, it’s a dream come true. But practice, without large-scale, peer-reviewed longitudinal studies on humans, it boils down to this: We’re not quite sure.
Supplements are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States, which can have both positive and negative effects on their mass consumption. On the positive side, this means that consumers have access to just about any product that isn’t classified as a drug, without restriction. On the negative, it means that companies and people can make unfounded claims and promises about a product, without those claims being evaluated by any third party. As such, many of the promises made by the wellness industry are just that. As Cheryl Wischhover wrote for Vox, “you can’t…apply the promise of vague benefits across an entire class of substances without real evidence. But the wellness industry capitalizes on the existence of a gray area and is adept at claiming things without actually claiming anything.”
I’m the first to admit that thousands of years of traditional medical practices from the east and west may offer better evidence of efficacy than any corporate-funded longitudinal scientific study today; clearly the Soviet government felt the same last century. Yet longitudinal studies or no, there’s one element missing in the current popular administering of adaptogens: Prescriptive care.
Today, people self-prescribe adaptogens—and, even dicier, adaptogenic blends—willy-nilly, based solely on the specific type of glow they seek to emulate from one wellness guru or another. If these plants are as powerful as some claim, they should be treated with just as much prescriptive intention. That means they shouldn’t be taken, or combined, without the express advisement of a professional familiar with the individual person’s distinct medical and healthcare needs.
Moreover, because of the lack of regulation, it can be difficult to trust the source of one’s adaptogenic plant matter. The source and quality of the plant will, of course, affect its efficacy. Adaptogens have also been found to have a number of complicated side-effects, ranging from increased bleeding and miscarriage to negative interactions with medications.
So what’s a wellness-industry acolyte to do? As someone who’s downed her own fair share of maca-infused smoothies and ashwaghanda-boosted hemp milk tea lattes, I suggest the following:
- Do your research. Use Google, and look for the science, from peer-reviewed journals.
- Find a doctor or other medical or health professional you can trust, with whom you can discuss these supplements as they apply to your specific health needs.
- Don’t douse yourself with expensive dusts just because it’s trendy.
That last one bears repeating: Don’t buy health and wellness products as status symbols. This serves no-one except the heterocapitalist beauty- and wellness industrial complexes, which rely on womxn believing something is wrong with them—something that can only be fixed by buying expensive, mystical-sounding products.
Opt out. And instead, check in. Get to know what your body really needs by doing research and asking questions. If it’s stress you’re combatting, take five minutes each day to rest quietly and breathe. Even if it’s in your car, on the subway, in your shower, or in a public restroom. Take a few minutes with your breath each day, and watch the difference it makes.
Nota bene: This article and its author do not claim any medical, nutritional, or dietetic expertise. Direct related questions to a qualified professional. Also, if you use and enjoy any of the products or practices discussed here, I celebrate you. Simple as that.
