This Endolife

Today I want to shine a spotlight on maca, a herb you’ve probably heard lots about in the wellness space, but for those of us with endo, it can be confusing to know if it’s helpful or whether we should avoid it.Because maca can help us handle stress and burnout, I thought this busy time of year is a perfect opportunity to talk about it!Maca is an adaptogen herb, which means it helps our bodies to adapt to physical and emotional stressors. Maca does this by acting on the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis (HPA axis) to promote a more normalised stress response. The HPA axis is a system between our brain and adrenal glands that controls our stress response and our cortisol and adrenaline output. If you want to learn more about the HPA axis, I’ve linked to an episode in the show notes.Read more.Show NotesMaca adaptogenic propertieshttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10910417/https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3991026/https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3614567/https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articl