Does Ashwahandha Have Side Effects? What to know before you take it

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 22:15:40 +0000

As a top Adaptogen Ashwagandha is mostly used to support healthy cortisol and healthy thyroid function in men and women. Ashwagandha can also help improve sleep & relaxation, neuroprotection, and cognitive function.

https://lostempireherbs.com/pr....oduct/ashwagandha-ti

Does ashwagandha have side effects? And if so what are they? That's what we're going to be talking about in this video.

Hey, I'm Logan Christopher from Lost Empire Herbs. Ashwagandha is an amazing plant adaptogen that really helps a lot of people to better deal with stress and has far, wide-ranging functions within the human body helping to support health.

But, anything that has great effects can also have side effects. I will say this, ashwagandha tends to be one of the safer plants out there. There really is not a whole lot as far as side effects are concerned but everyone is different so occasionally some people do have some issues.

So first of all, let's talk about sleep. Ashwagandha the Latin name for that is Withania somnifera. Now, somni you'll see that same root word is used in such things as insomnia, so many of the adaptogens let's say Rhodiola or ginseng right, they can be very stimulating. Actually, most of the adaptogens are more stimulating side. Ashwagandha is one of the few adaptogens that really is more calming and relaxing.

And one of the reasons that may be working on this is that its effects on the GABA receptors within the nervous system. Now, different people are maybe more focused on
dopamine other people have much more GABA or these different neurotransmitters. We're all a bit different in that. So some people when they take Ashwagandha, especially a bigger dose they may it may knock them out. It may make them very tired.

Now for most people, this is not going to happen. I'd say 90-95 % of people, hard to say exactly, but most people you can take it any time the day it may you may feel some relaxation from it but it's not really an herb that most people feel right away. But for a few people based on GABA receptors or who knows what is going on in them, Ashwagandha can be a powerful sedative. So we might look at that as a side effect right?

If you are one of those people and you're taking ashwagandha about your day it could be making you tired. If that's the case then, obviously you would only want to be taking this right before going to bed.

Use it for those effects, but once again, this is not going to affect most people in this way.

A second side effect of Ashwagandha is one of the few herbs that we know can be helpful around thyroid health. Now there is some evidence possibly that it may be modulating to the thyroid hormones. We don't know all the details of how it's working so that if it's over and above it may bring it down or if it's hypothyroid it may be able to help bring things back up. However, there is more evidence that it's helping on that hypothyroid side.

So if you're too low in t3 or t4 the different thyroid hormones, it may be helping to bring these up. And of course, all of our hormone systems are very complex so how this is all working in the body the details still need to be made more clear and how Ashwagandha is doing this. There are a couple case studies I've seen, I think two or three
of these, where people were.. ashwagandha for whatever reason was overly stimulating to the thyroid system. It seemed to exacerbate or give them some hyperthyroid symptoms.

So if you are hyperthyroid, that doesn't mean you can't take Ashwagandha. Some people I think do have some benefits from doing this but do be careful of it and if you are feeling.. hyper.. if you're getting those hyperthyroid symptoms, which you can find a list of those in all sorts of different places then definitely ashwagandha could be the wrong herb for you. So that is something to be aware of as well.

One last side effect I want to talk about, and this is not something that's going to be an issue with our ashwagandha.. ours is a spagyric tincture so this is something that you squirt in your mouth take it sublingually and then it's gonna absorb into your bloodstream
and have the effects this way.

But a lot of people use just dried ground up ashwagandha root powder and it can certainly have benefits in doing this in Ayurveda this would often be mixed with milk and then consumed. The problem is that you know these are woody roots that you're consuming, and you consume too many of these it can cause some digestive upset. This may even be the
case with some extract powders but it generally seems to be an issue if you're just taking that bulk dry raw root and consuming that.

You do that the body isn't.. it's a raw root. Your not... the stomach and digestive system
is not best at consuming this, so it can cause some digestive upset symptoms in doing so.