Can Ashwagandha Increase Anxiety?

Ashwagandha appears effective at lowering stress and anxiety. However, in some cases Ashwagandha may increase thyroid hormone levels, which could cause fatigue, anxiety and higher stress levels. Talk to your doctor before taking Ashwagandha if you have anxiety.

The distress that comes with living with anxiety is unbearable. It comes as a no brainer that people would go to great lengths in the hope of finding a possible cure.

For most people living with this condition Ashwagandha has proven to be among the best go to solutions for doing away with the problem. However, by using it without a prescription, different people have reported to have experienced diverse side effects.

Some have noticed that Ashwagandha has helped subdue their anxiety while others have had their anxiety spike. This brings us to the question, can ashwagandha increase anxiety?

This article will reveal everything  you need to know about the adaptogen so that you get to know whether it increases anxiety or not.

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What is Ashwagandha?

Ashwagandha is a naturally occuring adaptogen found in  parts of South Asia, India and Africa. It is an evergreen herb whose extracts and powder from the roots or leaves have been used for natural healing over thousands of years in Ayurvedic medicine. In these regions it is also known as:

• Winter Cherry
• Indian ginseng
• Ashwanga

Mostly, the adaptogen is used to relieve stress and anxiety. This is because it helps control stress moderators like, stress-activated c-Jun N-terminal protein kinase (JNK-1) as well as heat shock proteins (Hsp70) and cortisol. Similarly, it has components that reduce the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, therefore regulating stress response. Ashwagandha is generally thought to be one of the best adaptogens in existence because of the magnitude of its effects and its reliability.

With that in mind, you may ask yourself…

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What are the Benefits of Ashwagandha?

As mentioned earlier, ashwagandha has been in use for a long time now and many have reported to have witnessed the following benefits:

• It helps reduce stress and anxiety
• It can help increase energy levels
• Some say that it has the ability to improve testosterone and fertility in men
• It can also help keep in check some mental health conditions
• It reduces blood sugar levels

Even though people claim it to have the above mentioned benefits, there is no solid scientific evidence to back these claims up. Instead, the herb has only been proven to aid in relieving stress.

A study conducted in the year 2000, deduced that the plant has a calming effect. However, the results obtained were inconclusive as the study was done on mice and not on humans.

Despite such results, there has been increased usage of the herb. Consequently, there have been several reports of people experiencing side effects.

Now let’s look at…

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Side Effects of Ashwagandha

Ashwaganhd ais broadly safe and well tolerated. There have been hundreds of clinical studies done on ashwagandha to date, and none of them have ever found it to cause serious side effects. Nor do we have any reason to believe that ashwagandha causes long-term health risks. This adaptogen has been used in India for centuries, so any long-term health risks would most likely have been noticed by now!

That said, Ashwagandha is not completely without side effects.

Some of the common side effects of ashwagandha include:

• Diarrhoea
• Vomiting
• Nausea

More importantly, there is one thing that you should know. Such symptoms can be more severe for people with certain conditions like:

• Pregnancy
• Thyroids
• Autoimmune diseases

Therefore, such people are advised to consult further from a certified medical practitioner before taking the herb.

So what about anxiety? Is that a side effect of ashwagandha or not?

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Can Ashwagandha Make Anxiety Worse?

The primary reason people take Ashwagandha is for its ability to reduce anxiety. The clinical research makes it clear that Ashwagandha acutely lowers cortisol levels which drastically reduces stress and anxiety levels.

However, there have been a number of reports from people who have claimed that Ashwagandha has made their anxiety significantly worse. A number of user reviews posted on different places around the web (e.g. Reddit, WebMD, and various nootropics forums) have claimed that ashwagandha has caused a rapid onset of acute anxiety. In a small number of cases, users claim that ashwagandha caused a panic attack!

So how can this be if Ashwagandha usually reduces anxiety?

The answer is that ashwagandha works to reduce anxiety through one mechanism, but anxiety can increase due to a number of different mechanism over which ashwagandha has no control.

How Does Ashwagandha Increase Anxiety?

There are a number of ways in which Ashwagandha may increase anxiety levels.

People who have chronic anxiety have reported that ashwagandha triggers either a panic attack or a sudden rush of anxiety after first making them feel nauseous or dizzy. This points to ashwagandha’s effect on blood sugar being a primary driver of the phenomenon. Ashwagandha is known to cause a drop in blood sugar. This can coincide with a rapid drop in blood pressure, which can in turn make you feel dizzy, light headed, nauseous, and significantly more anxious.

Another way that ashwagandha may increase anxiety is by disrupting normal thyroid function. Your thyroid produces hormones which are responsible for controlling metabolism. Higher levels of thyroid hormones T3 and T4 will cause a higher resting heart rate, an irregular heart rate, shortness of breath, weifght loss, and in some cases, acute anxiety.

More research needs to be done here, but preliminary clinical research indicates that ashwagandha may increase thyroid function. This means ashwagandha may be beneficial if you have hypothyroidism, but it appears to make hyperthyroidism much worse, and in people with no thyroid issues it may raise your thyroid function beyond your normal range, causing weight loss, jitters and anxiety.

Can Ashwagandha Cause Panic Attacks?

If you look at some of the Ashwagandha reviews posted on Reddit or WebMD, you’ll see that several people claim that consuming ashwagandha brought on a panic attack for them, or at least came close to causing a panic attack.

Can ashwagandha really cause panic attacks?

The same reasons listed above as to why ashwagandha can increase anxiety mean it may also trigger panic attacks in people already prone to them. So if you have chronic anxiety and you routinely experience panic attacks, taking ashwagandha supplements may bring a panic attack on or even make them worse when they do happen.

That said, ashwagandha has also been found to help prevent panic attacks in clinical studies. In people with chronic anxiety and panic attack disorders, ashwagandha has been found to be an effective supplement for reducing the frequency and severity of panic attacks. So we cannot say that ashwagandha causes panic attacks or prevents them; it appears to depend on the person. More oftne than not ashwagandha helps panic attacks, but in some cases it can make them worse. That is why it is so important that you speak to your doctor before using any supplements if you have severe anxiety.

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Ashwagandha Dosage for Anxiety

When it comes to matters of dosage, there is no one size fits it all. And even though you decide to take a certain amount of the herb, it may take you years to see tangible results.

This is because people experience anxiety differently. Some experience it as social anxiety disorder while others experience it as phorbia. Similarly, some experience it as Generalized anxiety disorder while others experience it as Separation anxiety disorder.

To create common ground, certain research suggests that 250 to 600 mg per day is enough to treat or rather reduce anxiety. However, supplement companies recommend a daily intake of up to 1500 mg while others recommend even higher amounts! Larger doses of ashwagandha are recommended for acute anxiety or panic attacks, while around 500mg per day appears sufficient for keeping chronic or ‘background’ anxiety in check.

Therefore, managing to come up with a fixed amount of the herb to cure all these disorders has proven to be more difficult than expected.

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When to see a healthcare provider about anxiety

There are many conditions that may force you to see a healthcare provider. For instance, if you have any serious pre-existing medical condition, it is highly advisable to seek medical approval before using any drug.

Both pregnant and breastfeeding women are also advised to seek medical approval before taking any medicinal products. This is because such drugs could cause complications like miscarriages, which could have easily been averted in the first place.

In addition to that, people with Thyroids as well as Autoimmune diseases are advised to first seek approval from a healthcare provider before taking the herb.

Natural remedies for anxiety

If you are dealing with the problem of anxiety, it is worth it that you know that with a great stress management plan, you can manage to do away with the problem.

Yes, you read that right.

Currently, there is a vast pool of resources which you can use to effectively manage your anxiety, and gradually do away with it. Some of the techniques you can use include:

• Regular exercise
• Correct breathing techniques
• Counselling
• Mindfulness
• Relaxation techniques
• Dietary adjustments
• Cognitive therapy
• Behaviour therapy
• Learning to be assertive

All you need to do is select one or two that work for you and use them in the best way possible to eliminate or lower your levels of anxiety. And of course, introducing natural anti-anxiety supplements can help if used properly and assuming they do not interact with anti-anxiety medications.

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Conclusion: Can Ashwagandha Increase Anxiety Levels?

Living with anxiety isn’t easy. For that reason, people go to great lengths just to do away with it. Among the known ways through which people relieve anxiety is by the use of the plant Ashwagandha.

The plant has been in use for thousands of years in South Asia and has been known to treat various disorders like anxiety and stress. However, there is no solid evidence to back these facts up.

Therefore, if you were wondering whether the plant can increase your anxiety levels, there is no definite answer for that as different people react to the adaptogen differently.

That said, if you could wish to better manage your anxiety levels, it is highly advisable that you adapt to an anxiety management program. It will help you out greatly and even before you know it, your world will return to normalcy again.