OH MY GOSH, IT’S ASH-WA-GAN-DHA. Run for Your Lives!!!

Ican see the Super Bowl advertisement now:  A cold metropolis drenched in gray misery.  People running blindly through the streets while cars and buildings are knocked aside.  Brave and opportunistic paparazzi snap photos as it draws nearer, releasing a roar that shakes the ground.
 
And then like it’s cinematic ancestors, Godzilla and Mothra, the great monster appears, everyone screams… and then relaxes, as this cheesy B-movie monster bends over and sprinkles the frozen citizens with little flowered plants.  Their gray world is suddenly full of color, the citizens smiling as their bodies are filled with renewed energy, and men and women rejoice and embrace, their chipper expressions indicative of their newly functional nether regions.
 
The commercial spokesman-monster voice croons:

Ashwagandha.  Put a little monster back in your life!

 If you’re thinking,

Hey, I saw a lot of Super Bowl ads for erectile dysfunction pills, but I sure never saw THAT...

you can relax, it never aired.
 
Pharmaceutical companies are dropping billions of dollars on ads for Viagra and its myriad knockoffs.  In most of these ads, half of the time allotted is spent telling you about the numerous side effects of these happy erection pills.  No doubt, a better sex life is a key ingredient to the dish known as happiness.  But what about the other way around?  What about feeling healthy first, and performing better because of that?
 
Curiously, for the past 5,000 years or so, people have been using herbal remedies not just to enhance sexual performance, but to improve their health in many other ways, with minimal side-effects.
 
I’m no lawyer, but I just guessing when I say that the reason you haven’t seen a Super Bowl ad for a purely herbal remedy is that corporations cannot patent something that grows naturally around the world.  No patent, no billions of dollars, no Super Bowl commercials… but I digress.  My point is not to discuss the marketing strategies of this penis pill or that penis pill.
 
My point is to discuss possible treatments for what makes the modern world at times such a gray one, and in particular, one herbal remedy whose benefits extend well beyond the penis.
 
When taking into consideration your options for better sex, doesn’t it make sense to also consider what’s good for the rest of body as well?  Put another way, if I were to offer you a natural remedy that not only helped you in the bedroom, but on the playing field, in the boardroom, and made you feel younger too, wouldn’t that be of interest? 
 
Ashwagandha (L. Withania somnifera) is a small shrub or herb in the Solanaceae family that grows usually about 2 feet in height native to Africa, the Mediterranean and Eastward into India. Ashwagandha is also sometimes called “Winter Cherry” and the “Indian Ginseng”.  In fact, where Ginseng is considered the most popular and perhaps most important herb in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Ashwagandha is considered likewise in Ayurveda – India’s 5,000 year old comprehensive body of knowledge encompassing medicine, diet, and conscience.  Ayurveda translates directly as “Science of Life”.  In Sanskrit, the name Ashwagandha means “the smell of a horse,” a reference to the belief that this aromatic herb provides the strength of a stallion.   
 
While most of you reading this are men, perhaps many of you being older men looking for another helpful sexual boost, Ashwagandha is certainly not just for men, or just for middle-aged people, nor is it just for sex.  Rather, the “suite” of benefits provided by Ashwagandha certainly points to a natural target market of millions of Americans, especially the middle-aged and even elderly.

Consider, Ashwagandha is known to support the body’s own efforts to combat:

• Anxiety
• Physical Fatigue – (low energy and stamina)
• Mental Fatigue – (lack of concentration, mental clarity)
• Insomnia
• Arthritis
• Inflamed tissue / pain reliever - (as an anti-inflammatory)
• Cataracts - (for tissue restoration)
• Damaged Tissue (limiting free-radicals)
• Stress
• Sexual and Reproductive Performance

OK—so we can agree that the above list, taken as a whole, might very well apply to thousands if not millions of people middle-aged or older.  What’s more, in India, Ashwagandha has been used to treat mental deficits in geriatric patients, including amnesia, senility, and even Alzheimer’s.  The portability of Ashwagandha (it can be easily grown in North America, it matures quickly, and carries a lower cost than its fellow herbs) has other researchers in the field proclaiming that there is nothing short of know-how and doctor’s orders preventing the aging population from growing Ashwagandha right outside their bedroom windows!

Fortunately, you don’t have to be an herbalist and grow your own.  It’s available in:

• Cut & Sifted Leaf & Root
• Capsule & Vcaps
• Tablets
• Organic Powder
• Liquid Extract
• Ashwagandha Oil
• Ashwagandha Bala Oil
• Massage Oil
• Formula

More detail information on usage, comparison guide, preparation, recipes, and formulation can be found at the extensive this website. In both men and women, Ashwagandha reduces anxiety and calms the mind to promote restful sleep.  Ashwagandha is an adaptogen, adapting to the body’s own needs and ability to bolster itself against the rigors of modern life.  Where diet imbalances, lack of sleep, mental and physical strain may lead to illness and disease, Ashwagandha works by bolstering the body’s own ability to resist stress.  Therefore, stress-related disorders such as arthritis, hypertension, diabetes, and insomnia are often treated with Ashwagandha.

Research has shown that some of the chemicals within Ashwagandha are powerful antioxidants.  These compounds were tested in animal and clinical trials, and were found to increase the body’s own natural antioxidants, most notably superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase.   This supports the anti-stress, cognition-facilitating, anti-inflammatory and anti-aging claims related to Ashwagandha. While reports on the efficacy of Ashwagandha to treat insomnia vary, it is usually described as having a relaxing effect, not an out and out sleeper effect.  It is generally considered milder than other sleep aids such as kava and melatonin.  For best results, Ashwagandha should be taken 2-4 hours before bedtime.
 
It should also be noted that the warming, rejuvenating effects described by those who take Ashwagandha may take anywhere from 1 to several weeks to kick in.  This is possibly attributed to the time it takes for food, in this case the herb, to become fully digested and increase the red-blood cell count. For women, Ashwagandha’s adaptogenic qualities may also function as a blood tonic, working to not only build sexual energy but also to stabilize irregular menstrual cycles. Like a lot of medicinal herbs, ashwagandha is not championed for its taste, but this is easily overcome by taking the herb in powder form, mixing the powder into milk, honey, tea, or simply swallowing it in pill form.
 
In light of these benefits, it will be interesting to see if Ashwagandha is adopted en masse like its herbal brethren, ginseng and tongkat ali.  For an aging population (and aren’t we all “aging” to one degree or another?), there is potential on top of potential.  I guess it’s like we say in the marketing department when we’re about to give a new product a major launch: