Podcast 014: Alternatives to Adaptogens for Burnout

Episode Transcript

Ryn (00:00):
Hi, this is Ryn at the Commonwealth Center for Holistic Herbalism on the internet everywhere. This week we’re going to air a replay of episode 14 from back in February, 2018. This was called Alternatives to Adaptogens for Burnout. And we wanted re-up this one because well, you know, lots of folks are feeling burnt out right now and because the algorithms know it. And we’re seeing an uptick in ads for adaptogens and adaptogen-enhanced products everywhere we look. So we thought it would be a good time to share again these thoughts about why adaptogens, and especially the really stimulating ones like panax ginseng and rhodiola may not be the right choice for everyone, and what you might want to consider instead. Before we get to the episode, though, I want to let you know that we’ve just updated our live events schedule for the rest of the year. If you’re in the Boston area, or really just in the Northeast, generally, we have some great forest adventures herb walks, and kind of like movement x herbalism hybrid events coming up. And we’d love to see you there. At all of these events we’re going to meet wild herbs and weeds in their natural environments and in some human made environments, too. And at the movement-centric events, we’re going to explore different ways to crawl, jump, climb, and carry, and all kinds of other fun stuff. If you’ve been a podcast listener for a while, you know that that’s what I’m all about. So that should be really fun. But if you’re from further out, don’t worry, we have live online workshops for you starting with our digestive case studies workshop coming up in September. And then we’re going to do one on nutrition case studies in October and then cardiovascular and respiratory in November and December. These events are particularly designed for folks with a bit of herbal know how to get a chance to see how those fundamentals play out in a real life complex situation. Because I mean, sure, hawthorn is great for the heart. Yeah, we all learned that in our first year of our class or first time we listened to an herb podcast. But what does go work with hawthorne actually look like in practice? How do we make targeted attainable suggestions about food and sleep and movement and stress? You know, we’ve been teaching for a long time and we’ve seen with our students that it’s easy to get overwhelmed when you’re first learning about these methods, or to be unsure about how to prioritize the recommendations. So case based learning is an excellent way to cut through the confusion and get a sense of what clinical herbalism looks like from the inside. So you can find out all the details about all these events at commonwealthherbs.com/events, that’s commonwealthherbs.com/events. Check it out. Okay, on with the show.

Katja (02:31):
Hi, I’m Katja.

Ryn (02:51):
And I’m Ryn.

Katja (02:51):
And we’re from the Commonwealth Center for Holistic Herbalism here in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ryn (02:55):
And on the internet everywhere through the power of podcast. So as we tell you every week, we are not doctors. We are herbalists and health educators.

Katja (03:06):
Ideas discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalist in the United States, so these discussions are for educational purposes only.

Ryn (03:18):
Whenever we’re talking about an individual health problem, a condition, a symptom, we try to keep our conversation general enough so that we can outline the major relevant factors. The things that we understand are going to be playing into the problem. And we also try to provide you some guidance and some insight into the way that things are going to vary between individuals, and the ways that that’s going to affect your plan or your protocol.

Katja (03:40):
But most importantly, we want to remind you that your good health is your own personal responsibility. So the final decision in considering any course of therapy, whether you heard it on the internet or it was prescribed by your physician, is always yours. Which just means that you’re the one with the power. You’re the one in the driver’s seat. So go out there and get lots of education and then make your decision. And make it in consultation with your doctor and all the other people who are educating you about how to move forward, and most importantly with yourself and with your body. Consult your body.

Ryn (04:14):
Right on. Yeah. That’s a good thing to remember at all times. And also it’s particularly relevant, I think, for today’s topic. So, today we’re going to speak a little bit about adaptogens, but I think we’re not going to talk about any adaptogens.

Adaptogens May Not be the Answer to Burnout

Katja (04:31):
No, we’re not. So, you maybe are feeling run down and maybe you’ve heard about adaptogens. And maybe you’ve heard that they give you energy and help you deal with stress and fix your endocrine problems. And maybe you’re thinking perfect! Consult your body. It might not be the right answer. So back in episode two of our podcast, we talked about adaptogens. And we were talking about how sometimes getting more energy to help you deal with stress is not necessarily the best answer. So adaptogens, like we said, then, they are a widely varied category. And some adaptogens are slow building and restorative in nature, like codonopsis or even ashwagandha. And so those are adaptogens that it’s much easier to work with in sort of a restorative kind of way. But a lot of the adaptogens are really very stimulating. And ginseng is at the top of the list here, or like eleuthero.

Ryn (05:40):
Rhodiola.

Katja (05:41):
Yeah. And they are almost like taking coffee. I mean, they don’t have caffeine in them, but they’re stimulating and it’s very much a solution to like, give me energy now. And that’s not really what we’re going for. Most of the time when people are thinking I need an adaptogen, what they’re really thinking is give me energy now. And so we want to think about some alternatives to that. Because in our culture we value the idea of like work more, sleep less. But when you’re feeling run down and you’re feeling depleted, even though it’s really tempting to just find something that will help me keep going, and sometimes it is even necessary. But sometimes help me keep going isn’t really the right answer.

Ryn (06:35):
It is sometimes necessary. But we have this tendency to believe that in all cases, or we sort of like might lose our ability to distinguish between times when it is necessary to keep going and times when we actually could take a break or we could get some help, but it hasn’t been our habit. Maybe it’s not what we were acculturated to do in those situations. Instead we were told, always push through. You can sleep when you’re dead. You know, we really take that lesson to heart. So trying to change or to identify when things are different, that can be difficult, but it’s necessary.

Katja (07:14):
Yeah. A lot of times when we’re feeling burnout, that’s a sign that we really need to pay attention to. It isn’t a sign that we need to just get more energy as if like, Oh, well, if only I had more energy, everything would be okay. That’s not necessarily the message that your body is trying to give you. Your body may be trying to tell you, Hey, what I really need is just to take a night off and rest. Which for some people is like, yes, that’s what I really need. And for other people is like, you know, you might be breaking out in hives at that idea of like, just take a night off and rest. But if this idea is intriguing to you, if you’re like, wait a minute, what? Take a night off? Rest? Tell me more. Then what we want to give you in today’s podcast is some alternatives to adaptogens and some other herbs that can help you deal with stressful situations and help you kind of deal with that feeling of burnout, but without the stimulation and just sort of forcing you to keep going, using other strategies to deal with burnout. So I guess maybe we should start off with talking about why you’re feeling run down and burnt out to begin with because there’s like different types of burnout feelings. And I think maybe because it is 2018 in the United States right now, one of the biggest reasons that I see in my clients and certainly that we see in our students, and I think this is probably true in your clients too, is that politics is a huge reason that people are feeling run down and burnt out. Even people who were not overtly political before, like right now just the political environment is so toxic even. And the idea of, I don’t really love the word microaggression, because when we start off with micro, it’s almost like making it small. I understand that the concept of that word is it’s little things that add up and little things that have a bigger effect than it might seem. But they’re not micro. They’re real. It’s a thing. And right now I feel like just living in this world, it’s just not an easy place for people with open hearts or for people who have feelings about inclusiveness and diversity and valuing those things in our society. And there’s a lot of aggression towards that. So even if you’re not normally a person who feels like your job wears you down, or you’re mostly happy in your life. Even that kind of a person right now, may be feeling just completely run down and worn out just because of the political environment in the world right now. And so, more energy might not necessarily solve that problem. More energy might just make it be like, ah! So instead I have some other thoughts there. And my first thoughts are, um, kind of around the heartache and the pain of watching our current culture with so much negativity. I’m looking for a word and I’m not finding a good one, but I’ll go with negativity. It feels understated, but it’s accurate. So I’ll go with that.

Seeking Soothing: Hawthorn, Linden, & Violet or Tulsi & Betony

Katja (11:24):
And so hawthorn and linden and violet sort of all together are just a beautiful trio there for that. Hawthorn is a great herb for sadness and for grief. And I think that a lot of people are feeling a lot of grief at the loss of kindness and the loss of compassion and loss of prioritizing taking care of the people in our communities. And so hawthorn can be very soothing in that. Linden and violet are both very moistening and also soothing both to the nervous system and to the heart. And I feel like that those feelings of depletion and run down and burnt out. Like when something’s burnt out, it needs soothing. It needs lotion, you know, so like a balm. So these three together are just a lovely balm for the heart and also quite tasty. So all of these that we’re going to talk about today can be tea or tincture. I personally love tea whenever that is an option. I think that tea is the best way to get herbs, at least into my body. And so I would definitely promote these guys as tea. But a tincture or an elixir is also a great option.

Ryn (12:56):
Yeah. Right on. Another set of herbs that you might find might find helpful here if everything’s kind of stressful or scary, and you’re trying to find a way to cope with that and get through your day. One pair that we find really useful is to put together tulsi and betony. So the two of them are interesting because on some levels they point in opposite directions just to a little bit. So for instance, the tulsi has a kind of an uplifting, not so much stimulating, in the colloquial sense of making you feel more energetic and spritely, and let’s go around and run around and do some stuff. Tulsi is more about lifting your mood, lifting your spirits. It’s one of the herbs we class as an exhilarant herb that can help you if you’re feeling downtrodden. It can help you if you’re feeling kind of sluggish and de-motivated. Tulsi helps you to take a nice deep breath and feel like there’s real oxygen in it.

Katja (14:06):
Yeah. That’s a nice way of saying it.

Ryn (14:09):
And then that’s kinda got an upward motion to it, but then the betony, right next to it there, has more of a grounding motion. Sometimes we would talk about it as a sedative, mostly in the context of excessive, nervous, agitation or excitement, overstimulation. Betony can be very helpful when you’re feeling like the world is intense, like there’s a lot coming at you all at once. And it’s hard to sort through and really get some clarity around which things really are on fire and which ones just sort of feel or look like they are. So having the, both of those together is I find really a nice pair for this sort of existential dread or all the monsters have come out and ensconced themselves in our institutions sort of experience of the world you may be having right now. And the other nice thing about tulsi and betony is that, you know, there’s a distinct flavor to each of these herbs, but they blend really well with lots of other things. So if you like the taste of mints or of ginger or whatever it is, then you can feel fine to go ahead and add that to your blend here. And these other herbs are going to get into you and just taste nice, be pleasant, have these good combo effects. They work really well for that sort of situation.

Anxiety Bubbling Up (or Down): Chamomile & Ginger or Catnip

Katja (15:35):
A lot of times when you’re feeling sort of burnt out from agitation or burnt out from this kind of frustration, then sleep can be hard to come by. And I really love chamomile and ginger at night to help go to sleep. They’re antispasmodic and relaxing to the nervous system, to the musculoskeletal system, just all the way around, and just very soothing. But Ryn has always been a catnip person. And lately I’ve been really getting on the catnip bandwagon. Really kind of getting into it.

Ryn (16:25):
Yeah, it’s pretty great. Catnip is a really good friend, particularly if your discomfort or your anxiety manifests with gut upset. Chamomile is the same way on that level. But we distinguish between the two of them in this way: that the chamomile is a little more appropriate if your anxiety has a descending nature to it. It’s getting down into your lower guts and causing things to roil up and get tense and kind of uncomfortable down in there. Whereas catnip is a little more for when your anxiety is rising in the body and it’s giving you maybe some heartburn or some nausea or some need to burp a little bit once you get stressed out. Which, that happens.

Katja (17:11):
It’s a thing.

Ryn (17:12):
Which is not to say that the two of them can’t be paired and work really well together.

Katja (17:19):
Which we’ve done. Yeah.

Ryn (17:19):
We’ll often put catnip, chamomile, a bit of ginger, maybe some fennel seed in there. That’s a really nice soothing blend for people who carry their stress in their belly.

Katja (17:31):
So another reason that you can get rundown and burnt out is just flat out working too hard. And if that’s the reason for burnout, then more coffee or more stimulating adaptogens isn’t going to fix the problem. That’s going to push you even further into burnout. And you can only work that trick for so long before it doesn’t work anymore. So really rest or vacation is a much better solution. And when I was thinking about this you can definitely tell my orientation here, because I was like, yeah, because there’s all these studies that show that resting from work will create a more productive person. And then I’m like, Oh my God, I sound so mechanistic, or so human resource-y. I can’t even believe I just said that.

Ryn (18:26):
Your production of widgets will increase by nearly 27%.

Katja (18:30):
So then I was like, no, no. Okay. No, what I really mean is that like, even if you’re a person who derives your self worth through productivity, taking time to rest is still very valuable, because rest can actually improve your productivity. And I was like, no, that’s not any better. But it is true.

Ryn (18:55):
Yeah, it’s both.

Katja (18:57):
It is, yeah.

Ryn (18:57):
Right. You know, you could say also that taking some time to rest from your stressful work schedule could help you to feel more delight in your world or reconnect you to the actual truth of nature and human being in this universe.

On the Hamster Wheel: Skullcap & Passionflower

Katja (19:15):
But like, what if you love your job and you like thinking about your job and you want to do a great job. Even if you’re that person, sometimes you just need a break so that you can come at it again with fresh eyes. And regardless of whether you love your work or you just do it to support yourself, either way, sometimes you only have a limited amount of time to rest. And it might not be as much time as your body really would like. So it’s important to make the most of the time that you have. And if you go to bed and you’re still thinking, like your brain is still on the hamster wheel of your to do list and whatever else, then that’s not going to be very helpful, because you’re not going to be able to fall asleep. You’re not going to be able to find that restful state. So even if you’re not getting as many hours of sleep as you would like, having that sleep be restful, especially in your mental self, is really, really important. And skullcap and passionflower are two herbs who can help with that a lot.

Ryn (20:25):
Yeah. So both of these herbs help when you have a restless mind, when you have thoughts that are repetitive or recurrent. It will shake out of your brain a little bit and then let you pick them up tomorrow in the morning. So these are a pair of herbs that we find to be extremely helpful when we’re putting together a sleep formula for somebody. Very frequently we’ll start out with skullcap and passionflower and then build from there. We might add in a little betony if the person has some sort of dissociative tendencies. We might add in some chamomile if they have some tension patterns, or they have some gut cramping or whatever that happens at the same time. But the two of these, the skullcap, the passion flower together, they’re just really, really reliable and very effective for when you’ve got that, like you say, the hamster wheel, the merry-go-round, whatever it is that it feels like inside your head. These herbs are going to help you to get off of the whirleygig ride and settle back down. And then that often makes drifting off to sleep easier. We found many times people who maybe had been relying on over the counter sleep medication or something like that, they didn’t really need a heavy sedative drug or something like that to get to sleep. They just needed their brain to shut up for a minute. And many times these two herbs are going to be sufficient for that.

Katja (21:55):
Also, sometimes it isn’t even necessarily that you’re burnt out because you’re overworking or that you’re burnt out because you’re not getting sleep. It can even just be that you’re burnt out because your brain just doesn’t get a chance to rest. So, like, there’s something that’s taking your attention so much that even though you have time to sleep, and maybe you have time even to go for a walk or something like that, but you can’t be in that time because your brain is so focused on whatever it is that is like burning you out or wearing you down emotionally or mentally. And so just getting some distance from whatever that is for a little while, that can be enough to give you that feeling of refresh, and allowing you to come back to the problem with fresh perspective on it.

Ryn (22:56):
Yeah. And more generally we could say that if you’re feeling burnt out with the kind of work that you do, it really helps to do different things in the course of your day. So if you do, you know, very abstract or thinky kind of work, if you’re a creative type, if you’re somebody who’s dealing with a lot of numbers, whatever it is, if it’s keeping you up in your head a lot, that’s important to be able to do. But you might find it easier if you can take a break every now and then do something very physical. Even if it’s just taking a walk or running up and down the stairs a bit, or lifting something heavy a few times. your body mind complex doesn’t like to get all stuck on one side of things. And you’ll find that your performance will improve if you can take a break and go give your cognitive mind a rest for a little while. Which doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be completely vegged out. We need to distinguish a little bit between resting and, I don’t know, vegging.

Katja (24:08):
It could just mean that you draw or make some music or knit for a little while.

Stuck in the Sympathetic: Calamus

Ryn (24:18):
Yeah. Humans are capable of and some might suggest that they need to engage with the world in lots of different ways. And there are some that you’re going to be more comfortable or happier with or that are able to learn a living by, but your humanity is in there saying, well, I’d like to play a little bit too. I’d like to create. I’d like to explore some new ideas. I’d like to be challenged in different ways. And when we don’t get a chance or when we don’t take a chance to provide all those things, then we get a little stressed out.

Katja (24:57):
We need vitamin art.

Ryn (24:59):
Yeah. I was going to say, you can see this pretty well if you have an animal. Your dog is interested in lots of different things. She, our dog right here, is trying to tell us she’s maybe interested in going outside for a minute. Sorry. But they want, they want to learn things. They want to play. They want to eat. They want to chase. They want to smell all the different things. There’s variety there. So we need to have that in our lives too.

Katja (25:26):
We’re just mammals, you know.

Ryn (25:32):
Okay. So another thing that can contribute to that feeling of burnout, that feeling of, Oh, I need something to get me through my day, that can be a matter of getting stuck in what we call the sympathetic state. And this doesn’t mean I’m feeling sympathy for other people and saying, Oh, I want to help others. Although you can feel that. And if you’re in a kind of position to feel that acutely and intensely a lot, like maybe you’re a social worker, for instance. And that can be quite draining and require certain forms of restoration. But what we mean here is what we call the sympathetic state of the nervous system. And so these are just terms that are used to describe the state of your nervous system, and the kind of big distinction here is between what’s called the sympathetic on the one hand and the parasympathetic on the other. You could summarize these two by saying the sympathetic is your alert, aware, and progressing towards fight or flight. Whereas parasympathetic is more on the side of rest and digest and progressing towards sleep. So these are a spectrum and there’s some maybe imaginary neutral point in between. But the reason I highlighted being a spectrum is that you’re not always thrown entirely into life or death fight or flight situation, right? There are many, many things that are going to put you on to that side of this scale, make you a little more aware, a little more alert about what’s going on, a little more anxious, perhaps, a little more agitated without being full-blown fight or flight experience. And likewise, there are many states of mind you can be in where you’re feeling calm, you’re centered, you’re taking it easy. The really deeper states of parasympathetic activation are like meditation and like I said, sleeping. So, you know, it’s a scale.

Katja (27:32):
But in our current environment the sympathetic state, that sort of alert, aware, and then even like fight or flight, or like even low level threat perception, kind of whatever. We can get stuck in that state. And it’s really easy, because maybe there’s contention at work, and maybe when you go to work there’s a lot of sirens, and now you’re driving in nasty traffic, and there’s just like all these things kind of one after another. And maybe when you were a kid and you like rolled your eyes at your mom or something, she ever said your face is going to freeze that way. Like, it’s kind of that way with the sympathetic state too. We can get frozen, we can get stuck in that place of Ahhh! stress, Ahhh! threats, Ahhh! nasty, terrible commuting traffic. And it can be really hard to come down into that relaxation state. Even if once you get home things are reasonably quiet and actually safe and you could relax, but you can’t relax because you’re really stuck in that other state. So this is one of those situations where you could be feeling burnout, even if actually there are several hours in the day that you could just relax. But Law and Order Special Victims Unit or whatever is what happens when you get home, and it’s like one more stressful thing. And it feels relaxing because, Oh, well, I’ll just sit on the couch for a while. But even so many of the things that we do for relaxation, in particular, like television shows that are high adrenaline television shows also get us in that fight or flight place. So, it turns out that there’s more than one herb that can help you make that shift in an easier way, like get out of the sympathetic and into the parasympathetic, into that rest and digest kind of place. And there are a bunch of herbs that can do this, but Calamus is like the real standout to me. When I’m thinking about this state, I definitely am thinking about Calamus. It’s a very grounding herb. It’s a root, and it’s very, very grounding. It’s very relaxing and really gets you focused. I can’t even say Calamus without thinking about your enteric nervous system, kinda like just that relaxing state. Thinking of Calamus makes me think of the visualization of someone who is comfortably seated and meditating. And that’s just what the picture that comes to mind when I think of Calamus. And the reason even that that picture comes to mind is because that’s what it feels like in my body when I take Calamus. It’s a bitter, and of course, you know, any bitter plants are stimulating the digestive system and preparing the body to be in that place. But Calamus is a warming bitter, and that is unusual. Most of our bitters are cooling. But Calamus is almost like ginger that is bitter. It has that warmth to it. And that warmth is really soothing. It’s really a relaxing feeling.

Ryn (31:24):
Yeah. And you know this. You know this instinctively, even if you haven’t been trained in herbal energetics and differentiations of tissue states and whatever. Imagine that you’re standing around waiting for the bus. And it’s a warm day, maybe just a little bit humid. You might feel yourself wanting to sort of slump down into the bench and maybe you sort of melt off to the side a little bit, right? That’s relaxing. The warmth gets into your muscles. It gets into your nerves as well. You let go. You release.

Katja (31:56):
Or like a sunspot, you know. Maybe it’s chilly outside, but like you’re in the one spot of sun and you’re warm. And you’re like, ah, a nap, you know?

Ryn (32:08):
Yeah. But if you’re waiting for that bus on like a 20 degree day, you’re going to be hiking your shoulders up by your neck and squeezing everything in really tight. And your body starts to shiver, which is an expression of tension. So, you know, that warmth is soothing. And whether it’s calamus or other herbs, oftentimes the ones that we we look to to release that kind of tension that develops, they’re often going to be warming. So this one in particular is really, really good for that. And it’s very, very friendly. My personal favorite way to work with calamus for this purpose is actually to chew on little pieces of the root. Even if it’s the cut and sifted stuff you buy from your herbs supplier, that’s fine. It’s a little nicer If you harvest your own calamus, you can slice it in coins instead.

Katja (32:59):
It’s a little nicer to chew on.

Ryn (33:02):
Yeah. A little easier. But it’s a really great way to work with calamus. It’s a nice way to have just a little tiny amount of herb material, but it’ll last you a good while. You know, you can just take a little pinch and chew on that for a few minutes. But you’ll start to feel the shift in your body pretty rapidly with that. Tincture works fine as well, of course. Just a few drops is usually sufficient there. Calamus tea isn’t for everyone, but we’ve mixed it up into a few blends. I often like to put that with a little touch of ginger, maybe some fennel. That goes really nicely with those warming herbs and lends a touch of sweetness to it. Personally, I like to put some licorice into there along with that.

Dry Depletion: Linden, Seaweed, & Violet

Katja (33:46):
I like Calamus with ginger and angelica. And I even like to put some decaf coffee in there. I think those flavors go really nicely together. But even just ginger, angelica and calamus, that’s really nice. Really, really pleasant. Our dog really wants to play. So there’s one other thing here about burnout that is on my mind. And so many times a big component of being burnt out is actually dryness, like that dry depletion. And we say it like, Oh, I’m so fried or like I’m frazzled or whatever. Those are dry words. And those like depleted words like I’m burnt out, I’ve used it all up. I don’t have any more resources. So for me, getting some moisture into the body and some minerals into the body really becomes a priority in that state. Because if you really want to resolve burnout, if you have burned out, you have burned up all your resources. The best way to recover from that is put those resources back, like build them back up again. So in terms of moisture, I love Linden, a nice overnight infusion or a cold infusion of linden. It really gets quite demulcent and nice and soothing. And in terms of minerals, nettles often is the first thing that comes to mind for people when they’re thinking about a high mineral herb. But frankly, in this kind of state where we’re also dealing with the probable dryness, I’m thinking about seaweed or about violet, which are two super high mineral plants, but they’re also really, really moistening. And, you know, seaweed can go right into broth. You can actually make seaweed tea. That’s not everybody’s cup of tea. But you can put it into chicken broth or any kind of bone broth, and it’s really great. You don’t really taste the seaweed-iness of it. But violet is also fantastic. It’s it also has a moistening aspect. It is super high in minerals. And it’s got that soothing action to the heart. So I really love either one of those to just be in acknowledgement of, Hey, if I’m feeling used up, well, then I should put stuff back in there. And that’s really, I think, an important part. Whether you’re going to go with coffee or adaptogens or whatever else, or whether you’re going to go with an adaptogen alternative strategy, either one of those, we still need to put that stuff back, because you used it up.

Ryn (36:50):
Right. These aren’t going to happen in isolation there. Cool. So those were some thoughts again on when you’re just feeling run down, when you’re feeling burnt out, when you need some way to restore really. And again, there are some adaptogens that can play that role well. We even mentioned tulsi as one of our herbs here, but that qualifies.

Katja (37:11):
Oh right, yeah that does count as an adaptogen.

Ryn (37:11):
That qualifies as an adaptogen. You could think of maybe goji berries in a similar way, or there’s an herb I really like called jiaogulan or sometimes called gynostemma. So, those are, you know, basically we’re just trying to get away from the idea that more stimulus is going to be the solution, right? Oh my coffee’s not cutting it anymore. I better get some ginseng. I better get some rhodiola in here and that’s going to give me what I need. We tried to highlight in many cases, more stimulation is not the solution here. It’s relaxation, it’s restoration, it’s nourishment. So we need to look for ways to bring that in.

Katja (37:50):
And even if you’re thinking, but I don’t have time for that. All I have time for is more coffee. You might be surprised. You might have time. And that’s why I get back to that idea of like a little bit of rest can actually increase your productivity. If you’re thinking, ah, no, I can’t take a break. I have to write this paper. I have to whatever. Actually try taking a break, because when you come back to it, you’ll actually write faster and the quality will be better. So even though our culture says that the answer is more speed, like no. Sometimes the answer is actually slow down a little. Slow and steady wins the race.

Ryn (38:37):
All right. Well, we hope that was helpful. And we can talk more about some other reasons you may have been working with adaptogens in a future podcast. Because it’s not always just this idea about, you know, burnout and that. There’s other elements here, like with the endocrine problems. Many people are drawn to adaptogens because they hear they can help you balance hormones. And we have a number of other ways we might approach that kind of problems.

Katja (39:04):
Although actually one of these days I need to do a podcast that’s just like in praise of ashwagandha, because that is an amazing plant.

Ryn (39:13):
One of your friends.

Katja (39:13):
Yeah.

Ryn (39:13):
So we’ll be back to this topic again. But in the meantime, if there’s anything you’d like to hear us speak about, you can always contact us and let us know. Our website, of course, is commonwealthherbs.com and there’s lots of ways to reach us through there.

Katja (39:30):
We love to hear from you guys, actually. So if you have topics you want us to talk about, don’t be shy.

Ryn (39:35):
Yeah. And if you are enjoying what we do, then feel free to go ahead and leave us a rating or a review wherever you found us.

Katja (39:44):
Yeah. Or on the iTunes app. That’s a good place to put a review. And we do appreciate it.

Ryn (39:50):
Yeah. All right. So we’ll be back again next week and until then take care. Be well.

Katja (39:57):
And drink lots of tea.

Ryn (40:00):
Go get some tea, yeah.

Katja (40:00):
Bye bye.