We often get questions along the lines of feeling herbs effects, such as:
“Approximately, when should I expect a marked improvement in my health combining the Cistanche, Black Ant Extract, and He Shou Wu?”
And like many answers in life the answer is…
It depends.
But, I’m not just going to leave you with that. Instead, let me explain that, in general, feeling herbs effects can be broken down into five groups as you can see below.
- Right Away
- A Week
- A Month
- Once You Stop Taking It
- Not At All
Now, let’s go into a bit more detail on each of these.
Note that dependent on you, with different herbs, even different effects from a single herb, they can all be spread throughout these different categories. One herb may be in category one for you. Another may be in four. For that reason, I’ll give you many examples with our different herbs.
Feeling Herbs Right Away
Some people will notice benefits right away, literally after their first dose. This may be as soon as it touches your body, or within about half an hour. This happens mostly in three different ways.
First of all, some herbs are just far more powerful in their immediate effects than others. Ant extract is a good example. Generally, this gives people energy they can feel right away.
The nervine class of herbs, that help you to relax, can also be typically felt immediately. Albizia, as well as the soon to come Blue Vervain, are good examples of this.
We’ve designed some of our formula’s, such as Hercules and Thor’s Hammer, for such immediate effects in working out and sex that are desired.
Secondly, this stuff is dose dependent.
I’ll use an analogy that many will understand quite clearly. Take a hallucinogen such as psilocybin mushrooms or LSD. A hot trend right now is micro-dosing these, where you don’t feel the effects at all. They’re operating more on the unconscious level.
And we all know you can take a large dose and it is very different. You’ll be “tripping balls”.
This is to say that dosage matters. With a larger dose, it is typically much easier to feel the effects of just about any herb. Reishi isn’t something many people feel, but you take a larger than normal dose, and you’ll notice the calming shen effects for sure.
(That being said, not all herbs respond with linear dose-response curves. A normal dose may be good. A bigger dose even better. But an even better dose could have opposite effects. More is not always better. The dose-response relationship will be covered more in an upcoming article.)
Third, some people are more sensitive than others. More on this in a bit.
Feeling Herbs After A Week
There is nothing magic about seven days. It may be three or four days. Maybe it’s two weeks. But sometimes your body needs a bit of time to acclimate to the herbs and what they do.
Personally, I can feel pine pollen tincture or tongkat ali right away. But if I take them for every day for five days, watch out! In this picture you can see a little spike upwards with each dose, then the body moves towards baseline. But each next dose brings you a bit higher. Around a week in, the effects pass the conscious threshold line where you notice the effects.
Feeling Herbs After A Month
Once again, this is give or take days, or even a couple weeks, not exactly a month.
It is essentially the same as before with the week. Your body needs time to acclimate to the herbs. Sometimes things take some time to correct.
He Shou Wu isn’t something that is normally felt right away, though some notice it’s calming effects too. Restoring jing is a longer-term job. But take it regularly for a period of time, and you might notice some of the symptoms associated with jing depletion (low energy, back aches, impotence, etc.) begin to move in the right direction.
Remember, all of these categories are dose dependent, though not necessarily linear. If you take a small dose every day for a month, maybe you feel it. If you take a larger dose over that same period of time, you increase your chances of feeling something.
Feeling Herbs Once You Stop Taking Them
So, if it takes time for herbs to gradually work their magic inside your body over a month’s or six weeks time, the question is, will you even notice it?
Human beings are notoriously bad at noticing gradual things.
It’s like the frog in boiling water analogy. (So, I guess it’s both frogs and human beings.)
But that doesn’t mean benefits haven’t come. For many people, because let’s face it, we all have lots of important things to focus our attention on besides whether herbs are doing anything for us, they will only notice after they stop.
Maybe you run out of the herbs. Maybe you think they’re not doing anything so you stop.
And sometimes here, it is only in contrast that you notice the difference.
Let’s say you’re taking Lion’s Mane Mushroom. By most standards, not a very “feelable” herb. (Especially when contrasted to another nootropic like bacopa). You take it every day for a month. You don’t notice anything. Its effects are so subtle that with the buildup over time you just don’t notice them. So you stop. But then you notice your brain isn’t quite as “on” as before. You’re searching for words that so easily came to you before, or other small things like this.
It is at this point that you realize it very much was doing something, it just came on so gradually it was not picked up consciously, even if it was past your threshold. However, stopping it, “drops you off the cliff” and that difference is within conscious awareness.
Don’t Feel Anything At All
We can’t promise that you’ll feel the herbs at all, or even notice any benefits…period.
It is not, contrary to popular opinion of 1-star reviewers, that the herbs are low quality, or a scam altogether.
First of all, just because you don’t notice anything doesn’t mean they’re not working too. While we like to specialize more in potent extracts of powerful herbs that many people will notice benefits of, any individual person’s awareness is beyond our control.
Secondly, it may just be that they’re not the right herbs for you. It may even be that you’re not right for the herbs!
There are a bunch of reasons that the herbs may not “work”. We cover 16 of those in this article here.
One thing I’d like to point out is that an herb may not be suited to you. That same herb or formula may work wonders for other people, based on a variety of factors, but not for you. That’s why we recommend experimenting. If pine pollen doesn’t work, try tongkat ali. If that doesn’t work give cistanche a go, and so on and so forth.
Mindfulness
In our age of flavor chemists, quick-cut 24/7 TV, internet porn (<– that’s not a link to what it looks like, but instead our article about one of the dangers of such), and the wide variety of other heavily stimulating things, some people just don’t have much self-awareness at all.
Still, we do want people to get results. That’s why our dosage ranges go pretty high. That’s also why we tell them to try many things out and make use of our 365 Day Empty Bag or Bottle Money Back Guarantee.
Yet, by being mindful you can increase your awareness in feeling herbs. You can essentially decrease what it takes for something to enter your conscious awareness.
There are many pathways to this. Meditation. Various forms of energy work. Or, just plan taking lots of herbs, while tuning into their effects.
Instead of just powering down your herbs and going about your business, take a moment to pause and reflect. Notice anything that goes on in your body-and-mind, however subtle or fleeting it might be. Tune in and notice what you notice.
With time and practice, you can feel effects of herbs that most people wouldn’t feel, even with tiny doses.
Because I’ve have been doing this for years, sometimes I’ll describe some of these subtler effects, like in this video on feeling herbs energetics. This shouldn’t be construed to mean that you will necessarily get that same awareness right away. But with time and practice you certainly can. And this awareness can go very, very far. I am still a newbie compared to certain masters that are out there.
Train your awareness in anything and you will notice more, it’s as simple as that.
We’d love to hear your stories of how long it takes for herbs to work for you in the comments below.
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Lost Empire Herbs
Happy Holidays, Thank you for taking the time to reach out to me with the email that addresses alot of my questions, and concerns. I’m constantly trying to learn and utilize all information towards a better lifestyle. Alot of contradicting reports, studies, make it more confusing. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Looking forward to sharing my results.
What quantitative techniques do you use to measure whether, for example, you want to determine whether mental cognition has been improved?
Sorry it took so long to answer this nafdef. Quantitatively measuring mental cognition improvement isn’t something we have much practice with. I know there are certain brain game apps that you would show improvement on with certain herbs. I assume this only because of using herbs while playing video games and noticing a considerable performance increase. That might just be reaction time increasing but many people equate wit with intelligent and that has a lot to do with quick reactions.
Another way would be to go and get some tests done, either by a doctor for neurological biomarkers or written tests such as a IQ test. Then take them again after utilizing nootropic herbs for a time and see if there is a difference. Many of the studies done on the mental herbs do just this. The usual time frame for significant change in a sample population seems to be around 2-3 months which is interesting in its consistency across multiple herbs.
Hope this helps!
You do need no herbs if we can train ourselves like Eckhart Tolle teaching us. This whole world is one egoïs illusion and if we think that when we identified ourselves with all this herbs stuff, supplements, superfoods and what not… then we are even more dead than living because we do not live in our heads when we are truly alive and everyone that is truly alive, he do not need all this mindstuff. Look at Eckhart Tolle 15 years ago and look at him now. Look at Krishnamurti in his old age and how he was and they do not take all this. They do not need it becasue living in the NOW is al you need and no sup or herbs will make you life longer. That’s an illusion and all the old sages new that. I take the best stuff for years now but am I happier? No, we need to go out of our heads with all this theories, opinions,… want that is all what they are and will be.
If you aren’t happier KeZa, perhaps it has more to do with your outlook and philosophy then the herbs. Herbs are a tool just like mediation to make ourselves better. The ego too is a tool, either you are the master or it is but that doesn’t mean you should get rid of it. If you did you would likely be dead as it is a natural product of living in time and space and having this intelligent brain of ours, a by-product of consciousness. You wouldn’t cut off your leg if you thought it was controlling your life would you? Herbs are a great way for people to help people grow and it’s surprising to me that you would tell people that may not be as aware as you to go elsewhere when they aren’t necessarily where you are at. I am sure you will learn as I did that being scared of the ego isn’t necessarily the best way to live a life. Fear never is.
Love your herbs but are there any plans to make capsules or tablets for convince? It would definitely increase my purchases….
Our first capsules should be released by the end of November…
Great article. Very well described. Good work guys. You ROCK.
Thank you.
Great Article,
I have realized, for example, Tribullus work for me in cycle, and on a great amount (more than 10 gr, if protodioscin – wich is what really matters – amount is low) but people who are not experienced with it, dont lose time to make a bad review about the brand. Maca is another thing wich seems do nothing for me in low dosage, hence, i bought your Maca and will try on a more than 20gr scheme.
Going off topic quickly:
Logan, i’ve just ordered Tribullus of another brand ( if Lost Empire had Tribullus i would buy of course because i now your serious commitment), and i am thinking of making a tincture of it opening the capsules and using the content, would be bad do that?
We’ve looked into tribulus in the past, and perhaps will again. Thanks for the suggestion.
As for making a tincture out of it, that depends on whether or not it is just raw tribulus in the capsules, or already extracted. If it is raw, yes you can. If it is extracted (typically by water) than it is not the best idea to do, as alcohol and water usually draw out different things.
Thank you so much!