Your Healthy Supplement Source – All About Nutritional Supplements
Sad but true — if you live in the Western world, you are probably no stranger to stress.
There’s never seems to be enough time in the day, what with deadlines to meet, children to raise, pressure from your job, relatives with their own demands, and so on. It all adds up!
When the body suffers stress, it’s a well-known fact that crucial nutrients and vitamins are depleted much more rapidly. That’s why taking vitamins to combat stress is so important.
By taking such vitamins, you will help ensure that the harm stress causes your body is minimized.
On the other hand, people who have poor nutrition, and suffer a great deal of stress, will almost certainly succumb to diseases and illness sooner or later due to a compromised immune system.
Which Vitamins for Stress do you need? Vitamins for Emotional Stress…
The entire range of B vitamins is important for combating stress. These are what are known as the B-complex vitamins. They include Vitamin B6, B12, folic acid, biotin, and so on.
Studies have shown that people who suffer a lot of stress tend to have lower levels of these vitamins in their systems…and a deficiency in any of them can lead to depression, abnormal nerve function and irritability, to name just a few possible symptoms.
Vitamins C and E, two well known antixoidants, are also known to be rapidly depleted when the body is under stress.
Vitamins for Stress: Minerals and other Nutrients
You need more than just vitamins to combat stress.
You need minerals as well…and not only minerals, but specialist nutrients, which work synergistically with them.
For example, it has been shown that the minerals magnesium and zinc are sapped from the body during stressful times.
But, what is less well known is that powerful nutrients such as alpha lipoic acid help to recycle vitamins in the body.
Levels of Vitamin C and E in the body, for example, can be kept higher when taken in conjunction with alpha lipoic acid. This is very important for those who lead stressful lifestyles.
Certain herbs, too, can be very beneficial for boosting the immune system and combating the adverse effects of stress on the body.
Beta Glucan, for example, has been shown in many studies to enhance immune system function.
Maitake mushroom — maitake stimulates the immune system. Maitake is an adaptogenic herb — it actually helps the body adapt to stress.
Gotu Kola — long used in Indian medicine, gotu kola helps the body cope with stress and reduces anxiety levels.
Precautions
As always, pregnant women or women who are nursing should refrain from taking any supplements until they have discussed them with their physician.
Anyone on prescription medicines should also seek the advice of a physician first, as some herbs and vitamins can interact with medications.
Healthy Supplement Source’s Tips on Choosing Vitamins for Stress
1. Always purchase your vitamins for stress from pharmaceutical GMP compliant facilities, which adhere to the most rigorous manufacturing standards.
This is an issue consumers need to take seriously, because supplements in the US and many other countries are largely unregulated. Many products on the market do not have the full amount of ingredients stated on the label, or — worse — harbor contaminants. It’s more common than most people realize!
2. Always purchase herbs for stress made from standardized herbal extracts. Standardized extracts contain the highest proportion of active ingredients, which are what give the herbs their therapeutic properties.
Most supplement manufacturers do not use standardized herbal extracts, because they are much more expensive to make. And the cheaper the product is for them to make, the higher will be their profit margins. The only person who loses is you — by purchasing an inferior, and quite possibly ineffective, product.
A Comprehensive Product
One company making a product that meets all the above requirements — and more — is Xtend-Life Natural Products from New Zealand. This country has one of the strictest regulatory environments in the world for the manufacture of dietary supplements — far exceeding US FDA standards.
Their flagship product, Total Balance, contains all of the vitamins for stress mentioned above…plus minerals, powerful immune system enhancers, and the standardized herbal extracts discussed above — and much more.
We here at Healthy Supplement Source personally take Xtend-Life’s Total Balance as the foundation of our own health regimen, and have noticed a substantial increase in our energy, mental acuity, and general sense of wellbeing as a result.
