Mental Health: Ashwagandha for Everything!

This new study found that one herb, ashwagandha, can help depression, anxiety and insomnia and improve your quality of life.

Having depression or anxiety is bad enough. Having depression and anxiety is even worse. Unfortunately, the two often come together. And, as if that’s not bad enough, many people who suffer from depression also struggle with insomnia.

This double-blind study of 70 people with mild to moderate depression and anxiety gave half of them a placebo and half of them 500mg of ashwagandha root extract standardized for 2.5% withanolides. They each took one pill after dinner for 90 days.

The results were broad and remarkable. 100% of the people in the ashwagandha group experienced improvement in depression and anxiety versus 66.6% on placebo. And the improvement was significantly better on the herb.

Scores on the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale dropped from 17.09 to 8.18 in the ashwagandha group versus a drop from 18.68 to just 16.14 in the placebo group. That’s an improvement of 52.1% on ashwagandha versus 13.6% on placebo.

Scores on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale dropped from 15.21 to 8.18 on ashwagandha but only from 15.19 to 13.42 on placebo. That’s an improvement of 52.13% on ashwagandha versus 13.59% on placebo.

As for insomnia, sleep quality scores improved by 68.4% in the herb group compared to an improvement of only 29.5% with placebo. As with depression and anxiety, that advantage was significant.

With all of that improvement, it is not surprising that ashwagandha improved the quality of life of the people in the study. Quality of life improved by 9.57% in the placebo group but by a significantly better 34.47% in the ashwagandha group.

The ashwagandha was safe.

Depression is complex and may have many causes. One of them is a deficiency of the neurotransmitter serotonin. In this study, ashwagandha increased serotonin while serotonin levels continued to decrease in the placebo group. The difference was significant.

This new study suggests that ashwagandha is a powerful and versatile herb for mental health. It significantly and safely improved depression, anxiety and insomnia, leading to an improvement in quality of life.

Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine. May 24 2024;30(5):459-468.

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For much more on treating depression, anxiety and insomnia naturally, see our book The Family Naturopathic Encyclopedia.

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