Slowly but surely, I noticed that the mental buzzing I was used to experiencing\u2014the cacophony of replaying conversations from the day while catastrophizing about the next, running through to-do lists, the sense of tension\u2014began to ease.<\/p>\n
The shift was so nuanced that it took me a few weeks to notice it, until one evening\u2014after a particularly stressful day involving a blocked drain, a delayed train, and a meltdown from my 22-month-old about not having enough rubber ducks in the bath\u2014I found myself sitting on the sofa, drinking a cup of mint tea, and staring at the wall. If it had been a scene in a film it would have been entirely boring, but for me\u2014someone who just 14 days ago would have been frantically switching between doomscrolling, sending voice notes that never reached their conclusion, and reading back through emails from the day and reevaluating my responses\u2014just being was a big deal.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t a forced stillness, like the ones I\u2019d often found myself in during a yoga class<\/a>, but a genuine settling, like the dust of the day was finally clearing up. It was a small victory, but it felt monumental. Over time, I started to swap out \u201cstaring at a wall\u201d for reading, something I hadn\u2019t been able to do in a long while\u2014so loud was my mind, that I\u2019d previously end up reading the same cluster of sentences over and over before giving up entirely. But now, I could focus a bit better, relax the internal chatter enough to really take in what I was reading, and crucially, actually enjoy it.<\/p>\n Beyond the mental quieting, I also started to notice a profound difference in my physical state. My shoulders, which I\u2019d carried around my neck as though they were a collar, began to relax. That constant underlying hum of physical tension that I\u2019d almost accepted as normal started to dissipate. I realized more and more that I wasn\u2019t clenching my jaw or holding my breath every other minute. There was a newfound ease in my movements, a feeling of my muscles being less tightly wound. It was as if ashwagandha was gently coaxing my body out of a perpetual state of fight-or-flight.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to note here that ashwagandha isn\u2019t a magic eraser for stress. Life still happens. Deadlines still loom. Annoying emails still land in my inbox. But what has changed is my capacity to meet these challenges without feeling completely derailed. I\u2019m more able to weather the storms without being permanently flooded.<\/p>\n Ashwagandha benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n Curious to know whether my own experience was synonymous with the science, I asked Clarissa Lenherr<\/a>, a registered nutritional-therapy practitioner and a certified member of the British Association of Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine, what her take was on it all.<\/p>\n \u201cThe primary benefit of ashwagandha is its potential to support the body\u2019s stress response. Research<\/a> suggests it may help improve resilience to stress and enhance quality of life. For example, a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in adults found that high-concentration, full-spectrum ashwagandha root extract significantly improved stress resistance and well-being,\u201d she explains. \u201cAshwagandha may also support better sleep<\/a>. Although research is still limited, some small studies<\/a> have found it could be helpful for people experiencing insomnia.\u201d<\/p>\n She adds, \u201cFrom my clinical experience, I\u2019ve found that ashwagandha can be genuinely helpful for some people, particularly when it comes to managing stress. Many of my clients who struggle with chronic stress or feel wired but tired find they feel calmer after consistently using a high-quality ashwagandha supplement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slowly but surely, I noticed that the mental buzzing I was used to experiencing\u2014the cacophony of replaying conversations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[105,4326,218,246,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-88800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-medication","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-shopping","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114480886911435292","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}