Before You Take Ashwagandha Again… Watch This

Stop taking ashwagandha for a moment, not because it's a harmful herb, but because most people are using it incorrectly. Ashwagandha is one of the most powerful herbs in Ayurveda, and power, when misunderstood and misused, can quietly create havoc in your body instead of healing it. Hi, I'm Salila Sukumaran, a generational Ayurveda practitioner based in sunny California, helping you activate your inbuilt AI, your Ayurvedic intelligence. And today I want to explain what ashwagandha actually does in the body and who truly benefits from it and why it is not meant to be taken because someone on your Instagram feed said it was awesome. So I've had this client who was in her late 40s and she used to take a strong brew of ashwagandha every morning when she woke up on an empty stomach. And when she came to me, she had such bad hot flashes that she would have to go off the video 3 to 4 times during a consultation just to cool off. And she was a fire dominant pitta body type individual going through a hormonal phase like perimenopause taking a fiery herb that resulted in daily chaos in her body. Yes, ashwagandha is classified in Ayurveda as a rasayana, from rasa meaning essence and ayana meaning path. Ashwagandha is the path to rebuilding your deepest tissues, to cellular rejuvenation itself. It is grounding, nourishing, and strengthening, and traditionally it has been used to rebuild depleted tissues, calm the nervous system, and support long-term vitality. But here is a big but. Here is what most people do wrong. Ashwagandha is restorative in nature, but it is heavy to digest and so heating that Ayurveda expressly forbids it. Mixing it with even buttermilk, which is a gentle coolant, when taken daily without understanding your digestion or your constitution like my client, it can cause sluggishness, bloating, brain fog, anxiety, and irritation instead of calm. And if your digestion is already weak, the herb cannot be properly absorbed. Instead of nourishing you, it becomes a burden on your system. And this is especially important for people with imbalance of kapha tendencies. If you already are struggling with weight gain, congestion, lethargy, or slow digestion, Ashwagandha may aggravate imbalance rather than correct it. Want to know easily How? Check your tongue. If your tongue looks heavily coated, you must not take ashwagandha without a practitioner's advice. For a fiery pitta imbalanced person, ashwagandha has to be cooled down with ghee and milk. Even for a vata dominant body type, timing matters because vatas have good digestion one day and terrible digestion on the other day. Ashwagandha works best when the body is genuinely depleted and you are taking a break to recover, not when stress is continuously driven by daily overstimulation and excess. Another common mistake is taking ashwagandha for long periods of time without breaks. In classical Ayurveda, herbs are used with intention for the right duration till your body is brought back to balance, and a practitioner has to have an opportunity to reassess your health before prescribing more. They are not meant to be taken taken daily like a vitamin pill. Ashwagandha also requires the right preparation and timing. It is traditionally taken with warm milk or ghee to balance its heating nature and to support absorption and digestion. Cold ashwagandha-laced protein smoothies, capsules taken on an empty stomach, or combining it with stimulating drinks like coffee and tea in the morning can reduce its benefits and increase side effects. If ashwagandha made you feel worse, more tired, irritable, or unable to sleep, does not mean the herb failed. It means your body was asking for a different kind of support. Ayurveda is not about taking herbs willy-nilly. It's about taking the right support at the right time in the right manner. Before continuing with ashwagandha, pause and observe your body. Notice your digestion by checking your tongue every morning when you wake up. Check your energy levels. And your emotional state. Are you sleeping better? Are you more pleasant to be around? Do you get overwhelmed by even little asks from your family and your co-workers? Remember, your body is always communicating with you. Learning to listen is where healing begins. If this brought clarity, share it with someone who will benefit. Hit subscribe and I will be back with a new video.