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The Benefits of Ashwagandha

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An ancient root is getting put through a modern stress-test.

In “The Benefits of Ashwagandha,” chiropractor and health educator Dr. Eric Berg DC breaks down why Withania somnifera — a shrub used in Ayurvedic medicine for more than 3,000 years — keeps showing up in conversations about cortisol, sleep and chronic stress. Berg isn’t just cataloguing folk remedy claims; he walks through the actual compound responsible for the effect and explains why it maps so closely onto how the body’s own stress machinery works.

• Ashwagandha’s active compounds, called withanolides, are steroidal lactones structurally similar to the steroid hormones the adrenal glands produce to run the body’s stress response.
• Berg classifies it as an adaptogen and credits it with lowering cortisol, reducing blood sugar, increasing testosterone, easing anxiety and depression symptoms, and improving sleep quality.
• He argues supplementation should support — not replace — the work of identifying and removing the actual source of chronic stress, using COVID-19 anxiety as his real-world example.

The Chemistry Behind an Ancient Remedy

Berg’s starting point is withanolides, the phytochemical family that gives ashwagandha its punch. These are steroid-based compounds, and Berg points out the structural overlap with the steroid hormones your adrenal glands manufacture to govern fight-or-flight physiology. That overlap, he explains, is the mechanistic reason the herb can nudge cortisol output rather than just masking the symptoms of stress. It’s the same category of reasoning that shows up around other traditional plant compounds — the way turmeric’s curcumin interacts with inflammatory pathways is a useful comparison, and readers curious about that parallel can dig into the golden spice’s own closer look.

Because ashwagandha functions as an adaptogen, Berg frames its job as widening the body’s margin for handling stressors — physical and emotional — rather than eliminating them outright. That’s a meaningfully different pitch than a quick-fix supplement claim, and it’s why he spends as much time on mechanism as on the benefits list itself.

A Long List of Physiological Effects

Berg runs through a specific set of outcomes tied to the herb: lower cortisol, reduced stress and anxiety, eased depression symptoms, lower blood sugar, higher testosterone, reduced chronic inflammation, less pain, sharper cognitive function, and better sleep. He also affirms three broader qualities — immunoregulatory, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective — that show up across the research he references.

Separately, studies on ashwagandha’s cancer-related properties have pointed to its ability to induce apoptosis, or programmed cell death, in cancer cells, a mechanism that researchers have flagged as worth continued study rather than a settled clinical outcome. Berg’s framing throughout stays consistent: these are documented physiological effects, not a substitute for actual medical care.

The Root-Cause Approach to Stress

The core of Berg’s argument isn’t the supplement — it’s what you do instead of relying on it. He’s explicit that vitamins, herbs and adaptogens are useful tools, but the more durable fix is isolating whatever is actually generating the stress and dealing with that directly.

Find the true source of the stress and do what you can to deal with it — that’s going to help more than any bottle on the shelf.

Berg applies that logic to a very of-the-moment example: fear surrounding COVID-19. Rather than treating anxiety about the virus as something to simply supplement away, he recommends learning the actual facts about it and proactively strengthening the immune system — the same practical, action-first mindset that shows up in discussions of anxiety’s psychological roots, like this look at why you might be depressed or anxious.

Determining Optimal Herb Placement Locations

Berg’s list of benefits is long, but he never presents ashwagandha as a cure-all. The way he sequences the video — mechanism first, benefits second, root-cause philosophy last — makes clear that the herb is one input among several, alongside diet, sleep and actually confronting the stressor itself.

That’s the practical takeaway: reach for the ashwagandha if it helps with cortisol and sleep, but don’t skip the harder step of figuring out what’s actually driving the stress in the first place. Berg’s closing point in the video is exactly that — knowledge and immune resilience beat fear, and the herb is backup, not the plan.