What Can You Expect When You Take Ashwagandha?

I have some personal experience with ashwagandha. When I took my own product, the night after the first dose I had an unusually erotic dream. Other men also report that taking ashwagandha gives them erotic dreams first, then they find themselves "in the mood," and then when the time is right, they find they have more sexual stamina than even before. Then they usually add, "And more sexual stamina than usual for a guy like me is, well, of course amazing."

Women I know well enough to discuss the use of the product on a purely personal level tell me it has a different effect. They start noticing the things about their lives that make them feel secure. It's almost as if ashwagandha is an aphrodisiac for women with a safeguard. It seems to keep women from getting involved in bad relationships or intensifying relationships in bad situations. This is just a personal observation, not a pharmaceutical claim. The important thing to understand is that ashwagandha doesn't change the performance of the sex organs. It releases the mind to be appropriately sexy, or not.

The kind of ashwagandha supplement that has the greatest effect on your life is a supercritical carbon dioxide extract. The herb is placed in a chamber with highly pressurized carbon dioxide, under so much pressure that the carbon dioxide turns into a liquid. The liquid carbon dioxide dissolves all of the compounds that dissolve in water and a few more, and when the pressure in the chamber is released, these compounds are left behind, along with the remains of the whole herb. There's something about supercritical extracts that makes them more useful in treatments of a lagging love life. However, other kinds of ashwagandha preparations also work. They just don't work as quickly or as well.

If you're not concerned about your love life, what else can this Ayurvedic herb do for you? There are scientific studies that support the use of ashwagandha for:

• Reducing the effects of stress on the immune system, and treating colds and flu that develop in people who are under emotional or physical stress.
• Reducing anxiety and/or depression without drowsiness and without reducing libido.
• Improving learning, short-term memory, and reaction time.
• Stabilizing blood sugar levels.
• Slowing down the deterioration of brain tissue.
• Fighting parasitic infections, especially malaria.

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None of this means should throw your medications away and just take ashwagandha. It is an extremely helpful herb, but it is no panacea. Just be sure that you get a water extract or a supercritical extract of the herb, and don't take too much of the extract. A "whole herb" product that the manufacturer tells you take by adding a teaspoon to a cup of warm milk at night certainly won't hurt you (unless you dump in a tablespoon or more of the powder), but you will need to take an extract to get the full range of benefits. Be patient for results. Ground whole herbs will get you slight beneficial changes over the course of a few weeks. Water or supercritical extracts may change your dreams on the first night after you take them, but also take a week or so to kick in to deliver their full benefits.