Ashwagandha

19th April 2017 In Boost By Floris Wolswijk

So, you’re interested in the Queal Flow. But you want to know a bit more about what’s in it, and why it works. In this blog, I’m going to expand on one particular ingredient in Flow: Ashwagandha.

What is Ashwagandha?

Ashwagandha is known by many names. Among them: Indian Ginseng, Withania Somnifera, Smell of Horse, Dunal, Inverno Cherry, and Solanaceae.

It is a herb, often used in traditional Indian medicine. It is a plant in the nightshade family, which commonly grows in drier regions throughout India, Nepal, Yemen, and China.

Supplementing Ashwagandha has been shown to improve cognition and motivation, by means of reducing anxiety.

Ashwagandha is an adaptogen. It is supplemented primarily for its ability to prevent anxiety. It also shows promise for relieving insomnia and stress-induced depression. Ashwagandha can significantly reduce cortisol concentrations and the immunosuppressive effect of stress.

Beyond reducing stress levels, Ashwagandha might improve the formation of memories, and may be able to treat Alzheimer’s disease, though more human-based research evidence is needed to confirm this.

What does Ashwagandha do?

In other words, why did we put Ashwagandha in the Queal Flow?

Ashwagandha has a notably wide variety of positive effects.

First and foremost, it has been shown to significantly reduce stress and anxiety in human adults.[1][2][3][4][5] As measured by cortisol levels, anxiety symptoms were reduced by around 30% compared to a placebo-controlled (double-blind group. Measuring anxiety/stress through C-reactive protein[4] showed very similar results, which is notable, as this is a much larger effect than many other supplements with the same purpose.

Ashwagandha was also shown to improve motivation, though this appears to be an effect of the lowered anxiety and not a result of Ashwagandha supplementation per se.[3]

It induces antioxidant enzymes in the brain, which may underlie neuroprotective effects (rodent studies only).[6][7]

Lastly, there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence of Ashwagandha improving sleep quality. Though this mostly concerns rat-studies[8][9][10], as well as a human study that was not blinded.[11]

There is bio-neurological evidence gathered from animal experiments that support the purported effects mentioned above, supporting the abovementioned research and the hundreds of years of anecdotal evidence from traditional Indian medicine.

Ashwagandha as part of the Queal Flow

As you can read above, Ashwagandha has a quite definitive positive effect on certain aspects of bio-neurology, with a lot of signs pointing towards additional positive cognitive effects as well. More research needs to be done before those other claims can be solidified.

Adding Ashwagandha to our Queal Flow increases the clarity of mind, as already enhanced by the L-Theanine, by reducing levels of stress. It also enhances the neuroprotective effects of the CDP-Choline, and may even improve your quality of sleep (though this is not successfully supported by well-founded research).

Read more about all the effects of the Queal Flow here.

Read more about our stance on science-based nutrition and research with regard to the Flow here.

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