We blinked, and it was November. It's dark before dinner now. The clocks fell back on Sunday, the holiday calendar is filling in, and maybe you’ve noticed your nervous system signaling you to take it easy more than it did a week ago. Your belly feels braced, like it’s waiting for something. If you’ve been lying awake at 3 a.m. while your mind makes lists, dragging through the afternoon, then feeling strangely alert at bedtime, you’re in good company.
In fact, in a 2023 poll by the American Psychological Association, nearly nine in 10 U.S. adults said something about the holiday season stresses them out, with money worries named most often. This conjures an old image that should give us all pause: a candle lit at both ends burns twice as bright, and runs out twice as fast. Many of us feel stuck in “on” this time of year. What would tending the flame this season look like, before the overwhelm arrives?
One of the body’s daily rhythms gets cast as the villain more than others. We can hardly doomscroll for five minutes in peace anymore! Someone’s always blaming this one thing for everything. Its name is cortisol, and it tends to rise after we wake and ease down through the evening. The feelings people describe are indeed real: wired but tired, 3 a.m. risings, afternoon slumps, and a gut that feels more like a hard fist than a soft belly.
But cortisol itself isn’t the enemy. It’s part of how the body organizes our days. In healthy adults, cortisol follows a daily rhythm, peaking in the morning right after you wake up, then reaching its low point in the evening. That morning rise helps us get up and go. The evening dip makes room for rest. Trouble starts when the rhythm loses its shape, when the “go” signal keeps playing long after the day is done.
The stress response runs through what scientists call the HPA axis: the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands. In her book, Adaptogens, Adriana describes the stress response as a small office: the hypothalamus is the boss, keeping watch over everything. When it senses a threat, it tells its personal assistant, the pituitary, which passes the message to the general managers, the adrenals, who put the workers in motion by receiving the message and acting on it. Heart rate rises, energy is mobilized, and you can handle what’s in front of you. When a stressor passes, the office settles down again. Hormone levels ease, the heart slows, and the body returns to its regular work.
What happens when the stressors never stop? The alarm stays on. Picture a pesky smoke alarm with batteries that need changing! The problem, as Adriana explains, is when stressors are always present, and you feel constantly under attack: the fight-or-flight response simply stays switched on. Her book also offers a hopeful outlook: “Our bodies are incredible at adapting to basically anything,” she writes. The same sensitivity that keeps us on alert also signals when something needs attention. When you're thirsty, you drink water. When you're hungry, you eat. Stress has its signals too, and we can learn to listen.
Many of us treat rest like a reward we earn once the to-do list is done. Then the weekend comes, we finally stop, and we still feel wired. Holistic and herbal traditions tend to see rest as a practice, something we return to every day in small doses: sunlight in the morning, warm, cooked foods to nourish us throughout the day, an evening that gets softer and dimmer, and a few minutes of slow breathing. The body learns rhythm through repetition. One long nap can’t make up for a month of running hot. The old Chinese medical classic, the Huangdi Neijing, warns against waiting too long to tend to deep depletion, comparing it to “digging a well when one already feels thirsty.” Let this be a sign from your friendly neighborhood herbalists to make November your time to dig the well.
Here’s some good news you might not know about Sunday’s time change. Sleep scientists at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine say standard time better fits human circadian biology, and they’ve called for keeping it year-round. So “falling back,” in theory, moves us closer to our natural rhythm. The bigger shift this time of year is the light itself. Mornings are brighter for now, and darkness comes early. That's an invitation to step outside in the morning light when you can, and let your evenings be low (dim, quiet) and slow.
The plant kingdom has a whole category of allies to align us with the season’s rhythms, as well as our own internal metronome. Adaptogens are part of an ancient continuum in traditional medicine: Chinese medicine calls these plants qi tonics, Ayurveda calls them rasayanas, and in rainforest herbalism, similar plants are called para toda, “for all.” These plants work gradually over time to improve our overall resilience. These are four we come back to every winter.
Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera)
Its Sanskrit name is often translated as “smell of a horse,” for the root's earthy scent and the strength it was said to bring. Ayurveda counts it among the rasayanas, plants for vitality and long life. In a 60-day randomized, placebo-controlled trial of 64 adults with a history of chronic stress, those taking an ashwagandha root extract reported lower stress scores and had lower serum cortisol than the placebo group. One study is a starting point, not the final word, and the trial used a specific concentrated extract. Still, this is one of the best-studied adaptogens, and the most beloved by herbalists for returning to a steady wellness baseline.
Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum)
In China, it’s lingzhi, and it appears in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, the first book devoted to medicinal herbs, from the Eastern Han dynasty. Researchers note that reishi’s legendary reputation grew partly from its rarity, and that modern studies are still catching up to the lore. We particularly love it as an evening companion. It’s earthy, bitter, and grounding, just the kind of plant that makes you want to take slower, more mindful sips!
Tulsi, or Holy Basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum, syn. O. sanctum)
In India, tulsi is grown in courtyards and honored daily—yes, daily!—in many places, and it’s often associated with the god Vishnu. It is preeminent among Ayurvedic herbs, with mounting evidence that it may help the body meet physical, chemical, metabolic, and even psychological stress. As an added bonus, it’s also delicious, making a daily cup of tea an easy ritual to keep.
Rhodiola (Rhodiola rosea)
This golden root grows on cold cliffs and mountainsides across the Arctic, Siberia, and Scandinavia, where folk medicine has long used it for endurance through hard winters. A 2010 review found robust traditional and pharmacological evidence for its use in fatigue, and the European Medicines Agency recognizes it as a traditional herbal medicine for the temporary relief of stress symptoms like fatigue. Rhodiola is more energizing than calming, so herbalists tend to think of it as a morning plant.
Adaptogens are slow companions, best taken consistently and matched to the time of day: brightening herbs like rhodiola in the morning, grounding allies like reishi in the evening. For the nights you need to come down sooner, there’s a tool you carry everywhere: your breath.
What’s magnesium doing in the cortisol conversation? Magnesium is involved in hundreds of reactions in the body, and adults need roughly 310 to 420 mg a day depending on age and sex. A 2020 review in Nutrients highlights a dynamic relationship between inner tension and mineral reserves, noting that prolonged demand can draw down the body's natural magnesium stores. No wonder Cacao has been called the “food of the gods,” as it is one of a very small group of natural magnesium sources. Unsweetened cocoa powder contains roughly 27 mg per tablespoon. Our new Tayrona Ceremonial Cacao comes from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, known as the Heart of the World, and is sourced with Jaguar Siembra and the Indigenous Kogi people who steward those mountains.
Once reserved for ritual, prayer, and rites of passage, elders, healers, and those walking between worlds consumed it; this is cacao the way it’s ancestrally meant to be shared and served: 100% pure, single origin, and grated directly into your cup. Rich in naturally occurring magnesium, a warm cup is a wonderful ally for soothing your evening state of being. A warm cup is considered a sacred pause in the Americas, one practiced for thousands of years. Stir it into warm milk with our Golden Moon Milk for an evening wind-down, or enjoy on its own. Beyond softening the edges of a long day (which it does brilliantly, too!), engaging with this cacao means entering into relationship with the land, the people who care for it, and the deeper intelligence it carries.
You don’t need to rush to snuff out a candle burning at both ends. More likely, your inner flame needs to be lit from one end again, and tended. This season, that might look like getting morning light, as early as you can, or dedicating time to mastering one or more warm, cooked meals that ground you through the day. It could also mean deepening your relationship with a particular daily adaptogen, taken consistently rather than urgently through the fall and winter months. Even five minutes of slow breathing as the evening comes down can make a meaningful difference in avoiding full-on burnout mode as we enter the holiday-season mad dash. A warm cup, a dimmer room, and one thing set down before bed is enough. Don’t make being well another thing to stress over.
If you’ve been going through a hard “season” of life, none of these will undo it overnight. Yet together, repeated, they will light your way to a body that knows its rhythm again. That’s how the well is dug: a little every day, starting now.
