 A lot of people, when they think of the herb ginseng, think of this mystical tonic elixir that will help you live forever. But in reality, it's just one of a large host of herbs that also really, really effectively treats stress. So in this video, I thought I would share some commonly used herbs we use to treat stress and cortisol. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hein, author of The Health Book Master of the Day and Doctor of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Now before we jump in, there's two very important links right below this video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can reach out to my practice and contact us to find a spot to learn more. And in addition, I've put together a free guide which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So those are the links right below the video. So before we jump into this idea of treating stress and cortisol, we have to keep in mind that stress has existed since the dawn of time, right? Humans had much more precarious lives historically than ever before. Young people dying from infectious diseases, getting attacked by animals, etc., getting attacked by warring tribes, and that is significantly less in the modern day. But my point is simply that cortisol did not exist, right? Humans were not aware of stress hormones 2,000 years ago, besides the effects that they had in their body. And so Chinese medicine is well equipped to treat these symptoms without even being aware of this concept, this hormone that we call cortisol. The first thing in Chinese medicine is that we are always treating a pattern. We don't treat cortisol, right? We don't treat necessarily even the stress response. We treat the pattern. And the pattern can be stressed from many different causes. For example, I was seeing a patient about a month ago and the main cause of his stress, his pattern, was he was feeling stressed, feeling anxious, had an elevated heart rate over 110 beats per minute, and was frequently having heart palpitations and insomnia. Now that was a clear clinical pattern in Chinese medicine that is easily treatable with compounded formulas. And I wasn't testing his cortisol levels, right? I wasn't doing a salivary cortisol test, like very often if you go to a functional doctor or a naturopath, but I was able to successfully resolve 95% of those symptoms without even testing his stress hormones, for example. So we treat the pattern, not, for example, cortisol. Now one herb that has been very, very well studied has been ginseng, or renchan. Now the ginsenocytes inside ginseng have been studied quite a lot. So a 2019 review collected current research focused on panics ginseng's mechanism of action, specifically actually as an antidepressant. So they found that primarily it was working on the HPA axis. Now in this particular summary, they noted that mice receiving a ginsenocide extract from this root not only had improved sleep, but had lower cortisol levels in their blood serum, so in their bloodstream, and had a measurable effect in terms of specifically cortisol. Now another herb that is extremely commonly used is licorice root, or glyceryza. Now gansao is used in almost every single formula in traditional Chinese medicine. It's said to basically be something that binds or harmonizes the formula, or it tempers the effects of other herbs. So for example, you're using an herb like ginger. Ginger is spicy and can be very drying. You can combine it with honey fried licorice to still have the effect of the ginger, but not, for example, dry out the mucous membranes too much or dry out your skin too much. So it's often paired within our formulas. Now gansao licorice has been well studied, and one 2010 study used gansao in anxious rats, so they wanted to see the effect it had on stress. Now basically they would put these rats through a maze to basically induce a stress response, right? They would stress out these rats and then give them an intervention or not and then see the effect. Now in particular, the rats in the licorice group had an increase in an enzyme called C-H-A-T, and it's responsible for the synthesis of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. Now acetylcholine, in this case, was essential for triggering voluntary movements. So in this case, utilizing the gansao on these rats had actually altered the expression of certain enzymes that were involved in stress. Now there's also a very famous formula called kaishinsan, or smile powder. Now it's a 2,000 year old formula for depression and for anxiety. Now again, in an equally disturbing study, they exposed rats to chronic random stress, basically producing clinical depression, right? The symptoms of depression. They administered this formula and then they basically assessed the depression related symptoms through a series of tests. Now the study found that, first of all, this formula kaishinsan alleviated these depression-like symptoms. Also one of the ways that it did it was by altering gut microbiota, and they found that by altering the microbiome, they could actually alter the symptoms and really the expression of the stress. Now there are two primary ways that the altered gut microbiota, the microbiome, had basically made the rats less prone to stress. The first was that the actual altered microbiome included a decrease in inflammatory cytokines and an increase in certain proteins that were related to the blood-brain barrier. So very interesting formula, it's four herbs, and it could be literally translated as smile powder for depression, basically. It's a historical herbal formula. So some interesting uses of several herbs. The last two in that formula were yuanzhi and shichangpu, and very historically useful herbs for psycho-emotional problems, mental health, anxiety and depression, and conditions like that. So that's what I have for today, guys. If you want to check out more on this, you can check out the companion article below in the description. And again, if you want to learn more about becoming a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, check out the links right below this video.