Ginseng & Stress

America may be the land of the free, but certainly in our day, not free from stress. Job insecurity, the high costs of a college education, steadily rising costs of medical care-all leave their marks on our national well-being, or lack thereof. People must have some stimulation to perform their daily tasks, but that’s a different “good” kind of stress. For instance, the stress that alerts an actor before she appears on stage, or the stress of an athlete in competition. Stress comes in many different forms. What I am concerned with here are the results of extended “bad” stress experienced by the busy executive with the telephone constantly ringing or the factory workers who suffer from noise pollution and tension on the production line, and the postal clerk with the problems of daily routine sorting of mail. These situations are made even worse when difficult human relationships come into play.

• High blood pressure
• Heart problems
• Mental breakdown
• Alcoholism, etc.

In addition, physicians and scientists are now realizing a clear relationship between stress and the appearance of such conditions as diabetes, hypoglycemia, backache, migraine headache, cancer, arthritis, asthma and a host of other allergies.

Ginseng has repeatedly been shown to protect the body against stress. A researcher at the Institute of Advanced Medical Training in Sofia, Bulgaria, Professor Petkov, has been occupied for some twenty years with elaborate experiments to access the effects of ginseng in the body. In one experiment, Professor Petkov subjected a group of mice to stress.

1) An increase in weight and function of the adrenal glands, together with less abnormalities of behavior and distress. Those taking ginseng were in fact more able to “absorb” stress.

2) There was an actual restriction of the long term stress response and its harmful effects. The body had increased its resistance. When ginseng was taken, they coped better with actual stress and the body actively settled back to normal more rapidly.

Ginseng extract is very soothing to stress related diseases because it is very soothing to the nervous system, without causing the drowsiness associated with narcotic type relaxants or tranquilizers. In conclusion, one might say that this ancient, time tested herb, ginseng, has a most useful modern application­p;to see us healthfully through this most stressful time in the history of mankind.