Nikolai lazarev biography of christopher

Much of the information in this blog post was derived from Adriana Ayales' Adaptogens: Herbs for Longevity and Everyday Wellness. This book contains a wealth of knowledge on the history and use of adaptogenic herbs, and we recommend consulting it if you would like to learn more.

If you've dipped your toes into the world of natural health, you've no doubt seen a widely trending term, "adaptogenic," used to describe a variety of products, supplements, herbs, and mushrooms. What many of these advertisements fail to do is explain what an adaptogen truly is, and the effects they have on your body. Further, some companies claim their product is adaptogenic, when in reality, they are using ingredients that have not been researched enough to definitively qualify as adaptogens. All of this can be confusing, but that's where today's post comes in: Read on to learn about adaptogens, their history, their uses, and how to separate the trend from the truth.

What Are Adaptogens?

In the 1940s and 50s, Russian researcher and toxicologist Nikolai Lazarev studied plants from all around the world, conducting a search for natural substances that could increase the body's resistance to stress. In previous research, he had found that certain industrial chemicals triggered a stress response in the body. As a citizen of Soviet Russia during the industrial revolution, Lazarev sought to find a way to counteract the harmful effects these chemicals on factory workers, and he was recruited by the military in order to find ways to reduce fatigue in soldiers. All of this led to his research and classification of several plants as "adaptogens," or substances with the ability to assist the body in negating stress response and returning to a state of homeostasis.

It is important to note that although Lazarev was the first to describe these substances as "adaptogens," these herbs and mushrooms had been used as traditional medicine for hundreds or even thousands o

Stephen Barstow´s book Around the World in 80 Plants came out in 2014 and immediately made a huge impact on my life. I had the bright idea that I would try to add 20 of the best of his 80 plants to my farm and slowly move towards making a business out of selling permaculture plants. The logic was that these were plants that anyone could enjoy and harvest once they were established, but not everyone had the knowledge or time to get from the seed to the established phase, and plants are not always available and often expensive. I figured this should be a simple problem to solve, and that I could do some ecological good in the process.

Stephen made a big impression on me when I visited his garden in November 2015. As he looked over the list of about 40 plants that I wanted cuttings or seeds from he turned to his Excel list of some 3000 varieties that he had grown in his garden and made some brief nots on a sheet of paper of the location of the plants. We then put our raincoats on and headed to the garden. I stood still holding a tray as Stephen quickly zipped off with his paper, returning seconds later with a cutting. This went on in what seemed to me to be one of those fast forward clips where a house is erected over a 24-hour period and we experience it in 2 minutes. Suddenly I had a tray of 40 perennial cuttings or roots, and a bunch of seeds to boot. I felt I too wanted to be connected to the soil and diversity like that. It seemed so vibrant, healthy and fun.

Around the World has since become one of my main references and I have slowly added more and more of the plants in it to my farm. One of the first plants I established was Udo (Aralia cordata) a Sansai plant (which in Japanese means mountain vegetable).

 Udo is in the Ginseng family and is thus closely related to the number one Chinese and Korean traditional medicinal plant Panax ginseng. It is considered an adaptogen which David Winston in his book Adaptogens: herbs fo