Reishi Mushroom for Stress, Chronic Fatigue, and Anxiety
Article by Stefan Burns - Updated June 2022. Join the Wild Free Organic email newsletter!
Reishi or Lingzhi is the common name for a subgroup of polypore mushrooms that belong to the genus Ganoderma, the main members of this group that are used herbally being Ganoderma lucidum, Ganoderma lingzhi, Ganoderma sessile, and Ganoderma tsugae.
Reishi mushroom is considered to be a panacea for all types of diseases by many and reishi mushrooms has been used in herbal medicine practices for thousands of years. It’s known as the mushroom of immortality. Some of the main benefits of reishi mushroom is its ability to mitigate stress, heal chronic fatigue, and help with anxiety.
This article covers first the basic science of what causes stress, chronic fatigue, and anxiety and how these three conditions are linked together neurologically and neurochemically. Then it’s discussed how reishi mushroom can help with these conditions and where you can purchase raw reishi mushroom and/or reishi mushroom supplements. For the deep learners, visit the reishi mushroom herbal page for the complete health benefits, identification, safety, dosing and more of reishi mushroom. The video below is also a complete guide to reishi mushroom that I made.
Thumbnail image: Ganoderma sessile I wild harvested in PA, USA
How Stress, Chronic Fatigue, and Anxiety are Interconnected
Modern scientific and medical systems have made an art out of breaking down whole complete systems into their constituent parts for individual analysis. This method of scientific dissection has contributed vastly to our understanding of things, but without a corresponding integrative study of the holistic nature of reality, no complete understanding or method of healing will ever be achieved.
When it comes to health factors like stress, chronic fatigue, and anxiety, the human system as a whole must be examined in order for the correct physical, mental, emotional, and lifestyle factors that are causing the health problems to be identified and then holistically treated.
How does the Body Respond to Stress?
Any physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension sends a signal of stress to the body. An acute stressor that isn’t overloading and can be successfully adapted too, like a moderate workout or couple hour study session, is good for the human system because it’s recoverable and causes beneficial adaptation over the long term. Chronic stress or a high magnitude acute stress overloads the human system and causes a breakdown in certain areas depending on what’s being stressed.
When the body is stressed a series of chemical changes take place that help the body to adapt and overcome. Cortisol is one of the main hormones released during stressful events, and cortisol dysregulation is a hallmark symptom of people who experience too much stress. Cortisol like any other chemical requires certain chemical constituents for its creation, cholesterol being a precursor to cortisol and vitamin C is also vital in the creation of cortisol. Stress imbalances that cause cortisol dysregulation places a strain on resources like cholesterol and vitamin C, the chronic deficit of these then places stress on other areas of the body like the immune and hormone systems. Its for this reason that excessive stress can trigger acute and chronic illnesses and disease.
The excessive stimulation of cortisol in response to too much stress also leads to altered functionality of the HPA axis which can manifest as adrenal fatigue.
What is Adrenal Fatigue?
Chronic fatigue syndrome, also known popularly as adrenal fatigue, is a health condition characterized by low energy levels, a lack of motivation, and hypersensitivity to stress. Adrenal fatigue develops when the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis) becomes dysregulated and the following physiological conditions manifest:
Mild hypocortisolism (low cortisol)
Attenuated diurnal variation of cortisol (less cortisol variation)
Blunted HPA axis responsiveness
Enhanced negative feedback by cortisol on the production of certain hormones by the hippocampus, hypothalamus, and pituitary glands.
Cortisol is a hormone that influences other body systems to alter their energy metabolism, and cortisol production is downstream of many other hormones which means many variables have the potential to affect cortisol production and secretion. The timing and release of cortisol is the final responsibility of the complex hormone pathway governed by the HPA-axis.
In short, when cortisol levels are chronically low and cortisol production and secretion are altered away from normal, symptoms of chronic fatigue are the result, and therefore to heal adrenal fatigue the HPA axis must be reset and returned to proper function. Alongside symptoms of chronic fatigue, mental health problems like anxiety and depression can also arise due to the altered state of neurology and neurochemical transmissions present.
What Causes Anxiety?
Mood and anxiety disorders are characterized by a variety of neuroendocrine, neurotransmitter, and neuroanatomical disruptions. Mood and anxiety disorders occur when the emotional-processing brain structures known collectively as the “limbic system” are disrupted in their function.
The hippocampus is a dominant part of the limbic system, having a large degree of control over the functioning of the HPA axis. A large amount of the brain’s neurogenesis (growth of new brain cells) takes place in the hippocampus, and a well-functioning hippocampus provides resiliency to stress and buffers any downstream mood and anxiety disorders that can arise from excessive stress.
In addition to the interactions between different parts of the brain as it relates to stress, chronic fatigue, and anxiety, neurotransmitter balances are vitally important in determining the functionality of the limbic system. The dysregulation of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine are well linked to mood and anxiety disorders, and while there are many factors that influence neurotransmitter production and release, gut health is where a large amount of neurotransmitters are produced in the body, so no protocol to heal from excessive stress, fatigue, and anxiety is complete without adequate consideration for the health of the gastrointestinal system and the state of the microbiome.
Reishi mushroom is effective in helping treat stress, chronic fatigue, and anxiety disorders because it contains nutrients that help the body relax, reduce inflammation, protect the brain, heal the gut, and reset the microbiome.
Reishi Mushroom and the Autonomic Nervous System
If we zoom out in scale and examine what’s happening to the body as a whole when under the effects of excessive stress and fatigue, we see that there is a dysregulation of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system is the mostly unconscious part of the nervous system that controls vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, and digestion.
Excessive stress places the body into a heightened state of sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system activity at the expensive of parasympathetic (rest and digest) activity. Ways to naturally promote increased parasympathetic activity would be deep belly breathing, meditation, yoga, grounding, and many natural herbs also exist that can help with this, reishi mushroom being one of the premiere among them. Learning how to balance the autonomic nervous system is a key component of living a healthy life.
Reishi mushroom is so effective at promoting healing parasympathetic activity mainly because of the large amounts of polysaccharides it contains. Polysaccharides are long chains of simple sugars which have many metabolic functions throughout the body. Reishi mushroom also contains terpenes which have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and other unique compounds found in reishi have their own beneficial health effects, like germanium which increases oxygen transport.
Reishi Mushroom for Stress
Reishi mushroom helps to manage stress by reducing the response the body has following a stressful event. Like ashwagandha, reishi blunts the stress response which is advantageous for someone who’s stress response is already highly out of whack and needs to reset.
For this effect reishi can be taken before a known stressful event is to take place, or reishi can simply be used daily and the cumulative benefits of reishi will help keep the stress response to a beneficial minimum.
Reishi Mushroom for Chronic Fatigue
Reishi mushroom is useful in the treatment of chronic fatigue because it helps to shift the body to a greater state of parasympathetic activity which is critical if the body is to rest and recover. Even though their energy levels may be very low, people who have chronic fatigue are typically in elevated states of sympathetic nervous system activity, which is why one symptom that often comes alongside adrenal fatigue is anxiety.
Like chamomile, reishi mushroom calms the nerves and encourages the body to deeply relax as it so desperately needs. The reason the body becomes chronically fatigued after excessive stress exposure is because it’s the bodies way of forcing that person to slow down. There’s little that can be done when energy levels are in the gutter, and whereas a lot of people fight this and try to regain their normal energy through excessive use of stimulants and possibly exercise overexertion, the best way to recover from chronic fatigue is to listen to what the body is saying and really lean into the low energy state that’s been created. During this time little may get done, but the body will heal at a deep cellular levels, and reishi mushroom supports this process with its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and metabolism normalizing effects.
Reishi Mushroom for Anxiety
With many of the neurotransmitters the body uses being produced by the microbiome in the gut, one powerful of reducing mood and anxiety disorders is to heal the gut of any dysfunction and to shift the microbiome to a more favorable symbiotic state. Reishi mushroom as a natural antimicrobial and antifungal inhibits the growth of toxin-producing pathogenic bacteria while not affecting the growth of helpful bacteria like lactobacillus and bifidobacteria. Drinking reishi mushroom tea overtime can beneficially shift and evolve the microbiome towards greater symbiosis with the host, resulting in the increased production of neurotransmitters in the balanced ratios that are required for proper human health and cognition.
The beneficial effects for reishi mushroom on stress, fatigue, and anxiety take time to manifest, but when reishi mushroom is incorporated into one’s lifestyle as part of a daily habit or routine, then long lasting beneficial health changes occur with time that if maintained are close to permanent in nature.
Where to Buy Reishi Mushroom
Reishi mushroom is relatively easy to identify, and with a little education and luck you may find some wild reishi that you can forage and use yourself in your herbal medicine practice. Finding wild reishi is pretty rare though, so more commonly people purchase reishi mushroom products and supplements for use in their personal health and wellness routine.
Mountain Rose Herbs sells organic reishi mushroom in a variety of formats, each of which has its own uses and benefits. You can purchase whole cap reishi mushroom, reishi mushroom slices, reishi mushroom powder, or even reishi mushroom extract from them.
Reishi mushroom extract is a very convenient yet still powerful way to supplement with reishi mushroom, whereas reishi mushroom powder provides greater benefit as it’s in its whole form and is simple enough to mix into water, coffee, or hot chocolate for consumption.
Nootropics Depot sells a raw 1:1 reishi mushroom powder and also an 8:1 extract reishi mushroom powder which is more highly concentrated in terpenes. Also available are 1:1 reishi capsules and 8:1 reishi capsules for easy on-the-go use.
References:
Batra P, Sharma AK, Khajuria R. Probing lingzhi or reishi medicinal mushroom ganoderma lucidum (Higher basidiomycetes): a bitter mushroom with amazing health benefits. Int J Med Mushr. 2013;15(2):127-143.
Martin EI, Ressler KJ, Binder E, Nemeroff CB. The neurobiology of anxiety disorders: brain imaging, genetics, and psychoneuroendocrinology. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. 2009;32(3):549-575.
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More on Medicinal Mushrooms
Chaga is a medicinal mushroom that has a strong safety profile which has been used for thousands of years as a health preventative and to treat a variety of health problems that affect the digestive, immune, and cardiac systems. Chaga mushroom is unique among polypore mushrooms since 40% of its dry-weight are water soluble compounds, making it ideal for easily brewing as a tea or into coffee.