Many of us lead stressful lives.  Stress can arise from pretty much anything: overwork, unhealthy diet, not enough sleep, overthinking, relationship issues, illness, etc.  When people come to me and ask for herbs for stress, I’m faced with a few questions:  are you willing to change a few things in your life or do you just want some herbs to support your lifestyle? What part of your stress do you want to address first?  If you want to maintain your lifestyle, there are herbs that can support your adrenals that’ll keep you going.  However, you run the risk of not listening to what your body really needs (eg: sleep, movement, good food) and in the long run may end up with chronic exhaustion or disease.

If you’re willing to change, what are you willing to change?  Substituting a 20 minute meditation 3x/week for three of your adrenal-exhausting workouts?  Going to bed one hour earlier?  Eating healthier fats?  When you start making changes like these, you can focus on more nourishing, tonic herbs that might not directly support your adrenals, but they are slowly building strength in your whole body as you find ways to calm the “fight, flight or freeze” response down.  It’s your choice.