TRANSCRIPT:
- Today we're gonna be talking about one of my personal favorite herbs, and one of the most powerful, adaptogenic, and immunologically active herbs in the entire world. And that is Reishi Mushroom. Now I've been wanting to make a video on Reishi for a long time. Why haven't I yet, when we've done videos about so many other superfoods, and Chinese and Ayurvedic herbs? Well, I hold this herb in such high reverence that I kind of been hesitant to make a video on it, because I want to make sure that I do it justice. So today I'm finally going for it. I'm happy to have you guys along for the ride with me.
So why is this herb so magical? It is known by Taoists, going back for thousands of years as the herb of immortality and spiritual potency. And they would say that it helps to guide you around the obstacles standing between you, and enlightenment. So it's kinda like enlightenment GPS, obstacle avoidance, right? It's amazing. So what does it do? How does it work? How does it make all this happen?
Well before we even get to its spiritual side. Let's talk about what it does immunologically. So Reishi is known as one of the great protectors. It is able to impart intelligence into your immune system. So when it comes into your body, it has these long chain sugars called Beta-glucans. It actually, if you were to taste them, they don't taste sweet. It actually tasted bitter. It's interesting, a bitter kind of sugar. These long chain sugars called Beta-glucans that are up to three feet long, if you were to unwrap, and they're very tiny of course, but they're actually up to three feet long. And so these get chopped up by your immune system, by your white blood cells into smaller pieces, and they attach to your white blood cells, and essentially teach them how to do their job better. It's like an operating system upgrade for your immunity.
So in studies, what have they shown in the markers? Well, they've shown that it actually increases levels of natural killer cells. It increases the size, and the activity of macrophages, which are kind of white blood cells. And then it also protects those macrophages from oxidative damage. So it's a total upgrade to this immunological army that you have in your body that's working day, and night to protect you. So this is incredible, because when the body is immunologically vulnerable, of course a lot of your body's energy is focused on that, and it can't work on other things. And it can't work on healing. It can't work on bringing down inflammation. There's so much that you want to do in your life, but if your body's energy is having to be fully focused on immunological battles all the time, because your immune system is relatively weak, it limits what else you can do in terms of your health, and your life. And we all know this. If you're sick all the time, you're not gonna be doing much, right?
So that's one thing, and that's really incredible, because Reishi has such a powerful ability to enhance immune intelligence, but it also does so much more. In the Chinese system, it's what's known as it three treasure herb. And to learn a bit more about the three treasures system, we won't go into it today, because there's so much I need to say about Reishi specifically. But if you want to learn more about the three treasures system, we have another video on our YouTube channel. We'll put a link in the description all about that, okay, so Reishi is a three treasure herb. So it's supporting the adrenals, it's supporting moment to moment active energy, and it's also supporting what's going on is your shen, your higher self.
So Reishi is incredible at bringing down stress, bringing down anxiety, getting out of your head, and into your heart, and getting you to stop overthinking, and just go, and come from a place of really pure feeling. 'Cause that's where a lot of the wisdom really is, right?
So Reishi, I have a great story actually. When I first was having my first experience with wild Reishi. Now Reishi can be cultivated, and there's some amazing cultivated Reishis. But the ultimate Reishi in terms of its spiritual benefits is wild Reishi that's growing on dead trees that have fallen over in the wild. And the first time I experienced this was 2011. I was living in Australia, and I was gonna an early morning yoga class. It was like 5:30 in the morning. It was dark out, and I brought a tincture bottle with me from home that had been sent to me from California, and I thought it was a different tincture. I thought it was a different set of different herbal formulation that was gonna be a strong qi formula that was gonna really energize me, and give me the fire, because I was practicing a very vigorous Astanga Yoga at the time. That takes a lot of power to make it happen.
Now I thought that was that, but I opened up the tincture bottle, and could kind of see it in the semi-darkness, and the candle light that instead of being kind of like a milky white colored tincture that this was a like a very dark. So I was like, oh, what is this? And so I took it, and I went over, and I went to the bathroom where there could be some light, and a turn on the light, and I looked at the label of the bottle. I was like, whoa, wild Reishi. I didn't ask for this. It was sent to me by mistake. But this is amazing, because I had only, I'd experienced Reishi before of course, but I'd only read about the power of wild Reishi, and its spiritual benefits.
So I was blown away, and super excited to get to try this. So I was in this, you know, I just see like, you know, in a little bathroom stall, me and my tincture bottle getting ready to do the yoga, and I opened it up, it's like this dark, dark red, and I took the first dropper full under my tongue, and there was an immediate, and powerful effect. There was this wave of relaxation that just came throughout my body. I felt myself instantly and my mind go quiet, and my heart just kind of blossom. And as I said, there was this wave of relaxation. So much so that I just like, I crumpled a little bit, and like fell over. I like crashed into the wall gently. But just like ugh, over into the wall. It's like so much relaxation instantly flowing throughout my body, and just a feeling of bliss, and often like this with many herbs you, I always say when you're, when you're driving for example, you feel acceleration, you don't feel speed. So when you first take something, when that herb is getting you up to a new speed, or a new function, you really feel the shift. When have you been taking it all the time. You don't notice it as much, because you get used to it, right? That's the hedonic adaptation. You don't notice the change so much anymore, but when you first experience an herb it's really, can be very profound. And so this was an incredible experience, and I was just in awe of the power of his wild Reishi, and I closed up the bottle, put it away, went, and went to yoga class, and it was, I was there a little bit early. It wasn't starting yet.
So I rolled out my yoga mat, and I just kind of stood at the front there like this feeling of, wow, this is amazing. This is really amazing. And just my heart was blossoming. So much love, and positivity flowing throughout my body. And I know this may sound, you know, a bit esoteric, and airy fairy for some of you, but I, you know, I can only tell you what my first hand experience really was, and that was my first really powerful Reishi experience, and Reishi has been there as so many times in my life where there has been real stress, and real challenges that I've been dealing with and the stress levels, you know, otherwise it would have just been spectacular. I had just hit the Reishi hard again, and again, and again. And it's always been there for me. It's really an incredible herb, and so many people these days are also dealing with sleep problems, right?
So Reishi has actually been shown in clinical studies to help with sleep. It doesn't increase your REM sleep, but what it does do is increases your overall sleep time in what's called sleep latency, which is the amount of time it takes you to fall asleep, once you actually get into bed. And so many people we hear about these days, right? They see I just get into bed, and I'm tossing, and turning, and can't fall asleep. So it's amazing to be able to have access to an herb like Reishi mushroom that is actually gonna shorten that sleep latency, because there's nothing worse than being so tired, and knowing you got to get up early in the morning, but you just can't fall asleep, right?
Then it also works in a different way, and that is that it helps to reduce blood glucose, and actually helps with the complications of diabetes. And it's also protecting from liver toxicity, and even as antiviral effects. So this herb is working in so many ways, and I think it has these, these immediate stress reducing effects. But I think a part of, and I was alluding to this earlier, part of the stress reducing effects come from the fact that it is taking a burden off of your body. It is helping you with your immune system. It is helping take down the viral load, it's helping with liver toxicity.
It's helping you get more rest, and when all these other pieces fall into place, naturally you're gonna be less stressed. And when you're less stressed you can aspire to higher things in life. You know, once the burden is off of your back, you can expand it, and kind of you know, you're maybe familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You can aspire to some of the higher stuff of the hierarchy of needs and work towards doing things that will have a great deep benefit to your own life, and also help others around you as well.
The other thing that's interesting about Reishi is it has a very high safety profile. So with many herbs like this, they will feed them in a very high doses, to animals in animal studies, and to see what is the maximum dose that it can, they can give the animals with no negative effects. Well, with Reishi over a period of two weeks, I think it was, they fed them five grams per kilogram of body weight, right? Now, five grams may not sound like a lot, but that's actually... Even if you were to do five grams a day for an entire human, that would be quite a lot. So let's say you're, my calculations might be a little off here, but let's say you're 120 pounds, or equate that to approximately, okay, approximately, 50 kilos. I don't have the conversion perfect in my head. But let's say you're 50 kilos, and that would mean you could take 250 grams of Reishi day. That's half a pound of Reishi. Now, I don't recommend that, it's overkill. It would get quite expensive, but it just gives you an idea of how gentle yet effective, and safe this herb is.
It's a great thing to try, especially if you've got a lot of stress in your life, and you're looking to find some more balance, you know, because stress can cause so many problems beyond just the immediate effects of, of not feeling good, and not being able to focus. It totally throws your hormones out of balance, because your adrenals, and your whole endocrine system are producing hormones all the time, it's your hormone factory. And when you are in a state of chronic stress, constantly producing cortisol, and your body will stop producing your other good hormones. Things like testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, oxytocin, they will stop production of these, because it thinks there's an immediate threat to your life. And if the only thing that matters is producing cortisol so you can have fight, or flight response, and survive, I mean that goes on, and on, and on. Your hormone health just gets trashed.
So Reishi can have so many downstream effects just because of the way it sorts out the stress in your life. So if you guys have had an experience with Reishi, please leave a comment. I'd love to hear how it's been for you. And thank you so much for your watching. It's been a pleasure sharing my favorite herb with you, and they'll probably be a follow up video to this, because there's so many things I love to share about Reishi that I will probably five minutes from now think, oh, there was this thing, and I should have said it. So stay tuned for part two, and thanks again for joining me. Wishing you all a beautiful day.