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Ashwagandha And Anxiety

Anxiety is a condition that’s becoming more and more common in society in 2025. As a result, people are trying all manner of different things to rectify the situation. However, while people often look to seek more out-of-the-box solutions to their problems, one of the safest and most effective is staring them right in the face. The solution in question? The relationship between ashwagandha and anxiety.

A supplement that is becoming increasingly popular due to the range of beneficial effects it can produce; it appears it may be one of the best ways for people with anxiety to take back control of their life. In the following article, we’ll show you exactly how it does this, to hopefully give you the confidence to try it for yourself.

Table of Contents

What Is Ashwagandha?

Ashwagandha is an adaptogenic herb extracted from the roots of an evergreen shrub found in Asia that is also called the winter cherry, Withania somnifera, and Indian ginseng. Widely used in ayurvedic medicine and other forms of traditional Asian medicine for centuries, due to the extensive range of health benefits it was said to offer, recent clinical trials have proven that most of these claims are indeed true.

The benefits it is capable of producing include combatting anxiety, depression, stress, inflammation, arthritis, diseases, and infections, improving testosterone and energy production and levels, brain and heart health and functions, exercise performance, mood, sleep latency, cycle and quality, and blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and helping deal with various other health issues (1).

We previously examined all of these beneficial effects in two previous articles, which people who want information on them can read here and here.

What Is Anxiety?

Anxiety is the human body’s natural response to stress or perceived threats, and it can be a normal and even helpful response to certain situations in life, like before an important exam or presentation. While usually triggered by a specific event or situation, it can also occur without an obvious cause.

Common symptoms of anxiety are usually fairly mild and can include feelings of worry, fear, nervousness, a sense of impending doom, restlessness, irritability, or being on edge, as well as physical symptoms like an increased heart rate, shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness, muscle tension, stomach issues, headaches, difficulty sleeping or concentrating, racing thoughts, and overthinking.

However, when anxiety becomes persistent or overwhelming, the symptoms can become intense and start interfering with daily life, work, and relationships, and quickly spiral into an anxiety disorder that requires treatment.

These disorders include things like Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), which causes excessive, uncontrollable worry about various life situations, even when there is little or no reason to be anxious. Panic Disorder, which causes recurrent panic attacks that involve intense fear and physical symptoms like chest pain, heart palpitations, or dizziness. Social Anxiety, which leads to an intense fear of social situations, often due to concerns about being judged or embarrassed, and even Phobias, which cause people to develop an extreme fear of a specific object, situation, or activity.

The most common forms of treatment for anxiety include cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), lifestyle changes, relaxation techniques, medications, and supplements (2).

Ashwagandha And Anxiety: How Ashwagandha Helps With Anxiety

Reduces Cortisol Levels

Ashwagandha has been repeatedly shown to lower your level of cortisol, which is a steroid hormone known as the “stress hormone”. Naturally made by the adrenal glands of all humans, cortisol is produced in response to stress, and very high levels can lead to a range of health issues. This includes everything from anxiety to depression, weight gain, inflammation, high blood sugar, a slow metabolism, and reduced mental functions.

Ashwagandha achieves this as it can balance and regulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which is what controls the body’s stress response, including the production of cortisol. By balancing this system, ashwagandha helps reduce the overproduction of cortisol, particularly during times of stress, keeping your levels within the normal range (3)(4).

Learn more about Ashwagandha and Cortisol Here

Regulates Neurotransmitter Production

Ashwagandha supplementation has been found to greatly influence the production of certain neurotransmitters in the brain, such as serotonin and dopamine, both of which are involved in mood regulation. By balancing the levels of these two chemicals that are present, ashwagandha can help to significantly improve a person’s mood, which will help reduce anxiety and relieve any of the symptoms that it can cause (5).

Combats Inflammation

Chronic inflammation has been linked to various mood disorders, including anxiety, as the pain that high levels of inflammation can cause places the body under a great deal of stress. Ashwagandha contains many compounds with potent anti-inflammatory properties, which enables it to help significantly reduce inflammation in both the brain and body, preventing anxiety and its symptoms or alleviating any that have already occurred (6).

Helps You Sleep

Sleep disturbances can commonly be both a symptom and cause of anxiety, and ashwagandha is perhaps better at helping people sleep than it is anything else. It is so popular in this area that we have even written an entire article dedicated to it, which you can read here.

In short, ashwagandha can improve a person’s sleep latency, sleep quality, and sleep-wake cycle by promoting relaxation and a feeling of calmness. This will not only help to reduce anxiety on its own, but it will also further help lower cortisol levels, as it relieves the stress that being unable to sleep can cause, improving your mood and generally supporting the nervous system (7).

Learn more about Ashwagandha and Sleep Here

Produces A GABA-Like Effect

Some studies suggest that ashwagandha supplementation can have a calming effect on the brain similar to the neurotransmitter GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid). It does this both by generally helping a person relax, while also promoting the more efficient production of GABA itself. As one of the main jobs of GABA is to help reduce excitability in the brain, it can significantly alleviate feelings of anxiety in the process (8).