Modern life runs on stimulation. Coffee in the morning. Energy drinks in the afternoon. Something sweet when the crash hits. Yet despite all these quick fixes, many people still feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and prone to burnout.
If energy is everywhere, why do we feel so depleted and prone to illness? The answer may lie in something deeper than calories or caffeine. The answer may be found in our body’s ability to adapt to stress.
Every day, your body faces dozens of stressors: mental pressure at work, environmental toxins, lack of sleep, emotional strain, intense physical activity, and the list goes on and on. To stay healthy, your body must constantly adapt and rebalance itself.
Adaptive energy is a concept found in ancient healing traditions around the world. It is often defined as one’s innate life force — prana in Ayurveda or Qi in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In modern stress theory, it’s more closely defined as our “ability to resist stress,” whatever the stressor might be, including environmental, emotional, or physical pressures.
When we have adequate adaptive energy, the body remains balanced and resilient despite the many demands of a dynamic world. Adaptive energy allows us to stay calm in moments of crisis and respond rather than react. Instead of the rollercoaster whiplash of overreaction followed by recovery, life begins to feel more like a gentle stroll along a hillside. The energy we once spent on constant reaction can instead be redirected toward rebuilding and restoring the body, mind, and spirit.
Adaptive energy is vitality and we can choose to nourish or deplete it.
Much like a trust fund we inherit, we are each born with our own unique reserve of adaptive energy. However, we are also responsible for how we manage it— whether we choose to preserve it or spend it carelessly.
We protect and nourish our adaptive energy reserve by eating a wholesome diet, practicing healthy lifestyle habits, and incorporating adaptogens into our daily routines. We deplete it by doing the opposite: living with chronic stress, maintaining poor habits, and consuming a nutrient-deficient diet.
Blood Sugar Balance
When cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone, is released it signals the liver to dump glucose into the bloodstream. In an emergency situation, this is very helpful, it gives our bodies the quick fuel needed to run from danger.
However, when the body is locked in a chronic stress state cortisol stays elevated. When this happens, the glucose isn’t being used by our muscles and has nowhere to go so our blood sugar spikes.
Over time, the cells become less responsive to insulin, the hormone that clears glucose from the blood. Chronically high cortisol damages mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, which leads anywhere from energy crashes to more serious metabolic issues.
Adaptogens help interrupt this cycle by calming elevated stress hormones and thus easing the hormonal pressure that drives blood sugar irregularities. Neuropeptide Y, a calming neurotransmitter that adaptogens support, plays a role here too. Among its many stress-mediating effects, it has been shown to help lower elevated blood sugar.
Adaptogens also support a cohesive parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic state, the body's rest-and-digest mode, is where healthy digestion and metabolic function actually occur; when we are stuck in sympathetic overdrive, the body cannot properly break down food or regulate energy from it.
Supporting a well-functioning nervous system through adaptogenic herbs, alongside the healthy habits mentioned above, creates the internal conditions where blood sugar regulation can stabilize naturally, rather than constantly reacting to a stress-driven hormonal environment.
How Adaptogens Contribute to Adaptive Energy
Adaptogens act as personal trainers to the networks connecting your brain and body, specifically your HPA axis. They gradually build their capacity to handle stress rather than exhausting it while constantly playing catch up to an over-stimulated stress response.
At the cellular level, they support molecular chaperones, proteins that ensure other proteins fold correctly and function properly. These amazing proteins keep your cells performing at their best even under pressure.
Adaptogens also contain anti-inflammatory phytonutrients that help eliminate toxins and metabolites. All of which is very important for Adaptive Energy.
From a Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective, adaptogens are one of the only things, alongside sleep and nourishing food, that can actually build Jing — your body's deep energy reserves — rather than simply spending them.
Because this cellular training doesn’t carry a long lasting memory on its own, daily use is what creates the compounding effect: a stress response system that grows steadily more resilient, efficient, and capable over time.
ILA Bars
We wanted to create a tasty package for our daily adaptogens, and so ILA bars were born. Developed by herbalists with a well balanced formula that doesn’t only give you adaptogens but other supportive herbs alongside clean ingredients - that are exceptionally delicious too! We like to incorporate adaptogens in many different foods and drinks throughout the way, and the bars are perfect for on the go.
Did you know that 75-90% of doctor’s visits are due to stress-related issues, or that stress is a major player in 5 of the 6 leading causes of death (heart disease, cancer, stroke, lower respiratory disease, and accidents)? How about 80% of patients report uncommon/extreme emotional stress before the onset of disease?1,2
Adaptogens are part of the answer to living a long, vital life. What makes them unique is their ability to directly support our adaptive energy reserves, improving our resilience and our capacity to handle whatever life throws our way. Many modern energy fixes, like caffeine and processed sugar, fall short because they don’t truly support our adaptive energy. While they may give an initial burst of energy, over time they can actually deplete our reserves and create dependence. Adaptogens offer a different approach.
By nourishing the systems that regulate our stress response, adaptogens can have a strengthening effect throughout the body when used appropriately. While each adaptogen is unique with its own taste, energetics, and organ affinities, they all share the ability to support adaptive energy so we can live more robust, resilient and vital lives.
References
1American Psychological Association 1997. How does stress affect us? APA HelpCenter. Available from: http://www.helping.apa.org/work/stress2.html [Last retrived on 2003 Jab 07].
2Rao, T. S., & Indla, V. (2010). Work, family or personal life: Why not all three?. Indian journal of psychiatry, 52(4), 295-297.