By: Nick Bitz, ND
Ashwagandha is the It girl of herbs, the star performer of our supplement cabinet, the gem of wellness junkies’ morning smoothies everywhere. Of course, ashwagandha isn’t magic, says Nick Bitz, ND. It’s a science-backed, time-tested tool for easing your body’s stress response over time.
Bitz has been working with ashwagandha and other adaptogens for years, both in his Ayurveda-driven naturopathic medicine practice and as a product innovator at the wellness brand Youtheory. His job involves demystifying Ayurveda for the uninitiated, as well as deepening the understanding of those who have been into this for a while. We fall more into the latter camp and walked away from our conversation with Bitz with a firmer grasp (and renewed curiosity) about what this plant can do—plus a toolkit of free Ayurvedic stress-management tools.
A Q&A with Nick Bitz, ND
Q
Why is Ayurveda a good guide for managing stress?
A
Stress, as a term, is highly subjective—it really defies definition. If you ask ten people what stress is, you’re going to get ten different answers. I look at it this way: Stress is not what happens to you but what happens within you. It’s a physiological reaction inside the body in response to some kind of stimulus, whether physical or emotional or environmental. Different healing models define this stress response differently.
Ayurveda is unique because it looks at the energetic properties of the body. Ayurvedic physicians and experts view stress as a disturbance of the nervous system, which is mainly regulated by vata, an invisible wind-air energy that regulates movement inside the body. Some of us naturally have more vata inside us, and others have less. But when we go through a stress response, the amount of vata, or movement, in the body increases. This kinetic energy can be beneficial in the short term, but it wreaks havoc on the body and mind over time. According to Ayurveda, that’s stress.
To manage stress, Ayurveda aims to quiet the fluctuations of the body and mind. The goal is to pacify this vata energy. There are a ton of ways that you can quiet the wind of vata: through diet and lifestyle measures, through sleep, through botanicals—all these things that are anti-vata. According to Ayurveda, vata is what drives disease in the long term, so pacifying and quieting vata is a primary consideration for health and longevity.
Q
How do you approach stress management from a holistic perspective?
A
Whenever I talk about stress management, I like to touch on something I call the four A’s. They are the four ways that you can theoretically manage the effects of stress inside the body: avoid, alter, adapt, and accept.
I’ve come to believe that adaptation is how we can undercut stress in the most meaningful and most significant way. It’s really hard to avoid stress, alter it, or just be like, “Oh, I’m going to accept how stressed out I am and just let it be like that.” It’s more feasible to find ways to adapt over time so that your response to stress isn’t so intense.
