[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Adaptogens are natural substances that have the ability to work on the whole body helping it to peak performance. Much like putting the best grade of motor oil in your car, taking adaptogens can keep your body purring.

How? Well, because they work on the hormones adaptogens are useful for a range of conditions.

The roots of ashwagandha and rhodiola rosea are two such adaptogens. Individually they each have some incredible properties. But they’re even more powerful when taken together as one aids and abets the other.

So let’s get to the root of just what these herbs can do for you: whether standing alone or pulling together.

Restorative Rhodiola Rosea
Also called golden root, Artic root and roseroot, rhodiloa rosea hails from the Arctic and the mountainous regions of Europe and Asia. It’s popular in eastern Europe and Asia’s traditional medicine systems. There it’s used to combat fatigue and stress, reduce depression, soothe a jangled nervous system and enhance work performance and fertility too.

As with ashwagandha, rhodiola is a remarkable study aid, an improver of sex drive and performance for men and women, and peps up performance on the sports field. A golden root indeed.

Ashwagandha
Known also as winter cherry, ashwagandha’s impressively wide-ranging list of talents has been used in ayurvedic medicine for eons. It’s only in more recent years though that western science has discovered its versatility and power. The University of Michigan Health system states that ashwagandha contains active compounds called withanolides. And it’s these compounds that account for the herb’s therapeutic prowess.[1]

Listed below are just a few of the ways in which ashwagandha can be of benefit:
• Improving focus and concentration
• Improving muscle to body fat ratio
• Improving memory, learning and cognition – well supposing you remember to take the supplement and can open the container that is.
• Improve libido, performance and sexual satisfaction.
• Decrease inflammation and give the immune system some welly.
• Decrease cortisol – the body’s stress hormone and thereby reduce stress and anxiety levels

In overview: if you seek a calm state of mind while helping your physical body to function as well as it can then ashwagandha is for you.[2][3][4]

Compare and contrast
At first glance both these herbal roots appear to have the same applications. And it can’t be denied that there’s some crossover. Both of them are used by herbalists to beat stress and tiredness, to support the nervous system and to enhance the body’s tolerance for physical activity among other things. For all the overlap though they are not interchangeable – there are points of divergence.

Ashwagandha excels at reducing arthritic pain and swelling and supporting the immune system and is much more of a relaxant. With rhodiola though it’s the ability to help the body to resist stress, increase physical endurance with its stimulant capabilities, and to reduce tiredness and anxiety that has the most scientific support.

A body of evidence
A study undertaken in the year 2000 with students undergoing exams as its subjects, found that rhodiola extract had stimulating and adaptogenic effects that helped to reduce stress-related exhaustion.[5]
A 2004 study showed that taking rhodiola improved both performance and endurance during exercise.[6]
Numerous other studies have all found similar results.
So, each of these super herbs has innumerable benefits when taken on their own. It should be noted though that these herbs are most impressive when combined. They’re compatible bedfellows that work together to produce benefits far stronger than either can produce in isolation.

Perfect harmony
When taken in combination then the benefits of ashwagandha and rhodiola include:

• Extra energy – both physical and mental and delivered in way more pleasant and controlled than via caffeine.
• Improved mental focus. A great study aid if tests and exams are featuring in your life.
• A reduction in stress and anxiety levels. Along with that comes improved moods and a sense of well-being and an improvement in depression.
• Aphrodisiac properties: super-charged sex-drive and performance in both sexes.
• Enhancement of sporting stamina when taken before exercise.

Bearing in mind the individual qualities of each of these herbs: the stimulating properties of rhodiola and the soothing, relaxant abilities of ashwagandha the former is best taken in the morning and the latter in the afternoon when you’re ready to wind down.

References:
[1] http://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/hn-2039005
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3863556/
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4270108/
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4405924/
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10839209
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15256690[/vc_column_text]

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