Adaptogens Explained: Energy Without the Stimulant Crash

The thing we don’t want is something that goes into the system and drives it to act the same way every time. We want something that goes into the system with all the components it needs, and then allows the body to use what it needs that day, at that specific moment.

A stimulant drives the body in a certain direction. Let’s just say caffeine. Every time you take it, it tries to elevate the nervous system temporarily, and in doing so, you eventually get the opposite effect. The adrenal gland gets tired of being overstimulated when it hasn’t recovered, and it actually starts shutting down.

Think of a grape. At first, it’s like putting it in water. It expands a little bit. By overusing a stimulant, you make the adrenal gland swell up and grow bigger, trying to cope with the constant stimulation and keep the system balanced when the system isn’t balanced.

Over time, the stimulant has the opposite effect. It drives the nutrients out of the gland, and eventually, instead of being this beautiful grape, it turns into a raisin. That’s when we’re in trouble. That’s when we can’t cope. As we age, if we’re under a lot of stress, or things bombard us that become difficult to handle, our coping mechanism, the adrenal gland, can shut down and cause great harm.

An adaptogen is quite different. You give the body all the nutrients in their complete form. Think of a buffet. If the body needs something at that moment, it picks and chooses what it needs, plucks it, uses it, and the rest simply washes away and is excreted.

That way, our organs, glands, tissues, and cells all stay balanced. They’re not forced to do any one thing, and that’s the proper way we’re supposed to be helping our patients heal.

In this faster-paced world, impatience can push people toward stimulants, especially if they don’t understand that stimulants can create these problems in the long run. But we very much prefer to give things in their complete form, in an adaptogen type of form, so the body can use what it needs, when it needs it, how it needs it.