Mushrooms have been long appreciated for their culinary value—but in recent years, medicinal mushrooms have exploded in popularity in the health and wellness world.
Medicinal mushrooms are a unique type of fungi that are more powerful than the standard white button mushrooms you see at a salad bar or topping a veggie pizza, but not quite as potent as those other types of mushrooms (no hallucinating here).
Most commonly consumed in their extracted form in a powder or capsule, medicinal mushrooms are becoming an increasingly popular way to support health—including reducing anxiety or stress.
Although there are many types of medicinal mushrooms—sometimes referred to as functional mushrooms—the three that are most associated with reduced anxiety are reishi, lion’s mane, and cordyceps.
What Are Medicinal Mushrooms?
Medicinal mushrooms provide additional therapeutic benefits above and beyond their nutritional qualities and have been used in Eastern healing practices for millennia.
Some functional mushrooms also function as adaptogens, meaning they help the body adapt to stressors.
Medicinal mushrooms support immune and digestive health due to a compound called beta-glucan, a polysaccharide carbohydrate in the shrooms’ cell walls.
Beta-glucan is a soluble fiber and prebiotic, providing food for healthy gut bacteria to flourish.
Another family of compounds that provides medicinal mushrooms with their benefits is the terpenoids, which have been shown to protect against neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.
In addition, medicinal mushrooms have been found to:
- Reduce inflammation
- Act as antioxidants
- Provide antimicrobial and antibacterial activity
- Increase natural energy
- Support cognitive, immune, metabolic, and cardiovascular health
What Are Mushroom Supplements?
Mushroom supplements typically are made up of extracted and then dried functional mushrooms.
They can be consumed in capsule, tincture, or powdered form.
The most potent mushroom supplements will use a double extraction process, which utilizes both water and alcohol-based extractions to pull out the full benefits of the mushrooms into the supplement.
As medicinal mushroom powders tend to be bitter, they can be mixed with other ingredients to create a tasty tea or coffee or simply packaged into capsules to avoid the bitter taste.
Best Mushrooms For Anxiety
With their high content of beta-glucan fiber and terpenoid compounds, medicinal mushrooms are thought to provide cognitive and mental health benefits.
Many people wonder how many mushrooms they need to take for anxiety.
The mushroom dose will vary by person and mushroom—as mushroom pills for anxiety tend to come in supplemental form, stick to the recommended dosage you see on the bottle.
Reishi For Anxiety
Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) is sometimes referred to as the “mushroom of immortality,” as it exhibits potent anti-inflammatory, stress-relieving, and immune-supporting properties.
In addition to containing beta-glucan polysaccharides, reishi is the only known dietary source of ganoderic acid, a triterpene compound with strong inflammation-fighting potential.
Reishi also contains 5-hydroxy-L-tryptophan (5-HTP), a direct precursor to serotonin—a neurotransmitter that is sometimes dysregulated in people with mood disorders.
Reishi’s adaptogenic qualities also provide its ability to improve sleep quality, reduce stress, and improve mood.
In a clinical trial of women with fibromyalgia, those who took reishi mushrooms daily for six weeks had trends of improved happiness and life satisfaction with reductions in depression compared to baseline levels.
Another study with reishi found that cancer patients taking the mushroom had significantly better markers of subjective well-being with reduced anxiety, stress, and fatigue.
Lion’s Mane For Anxiety
With its name originating from the mushroom’s likeness to the long hair of a lion, the lion’s mane mushroom (Hericium erinaceus) is known to benefit the brain and central nervous system.
Lion’s mane contains bioactive compounds called erinacines that support nerve growth factors like BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), which increases neurogenesis—the growth of new neurons in the adult brain.
Low BDNF levels are linked to depression and anxiety, so this is one possible way that lion’s mane supports mood regulation.
Lion’s mane also reduces the activity of pro-inflammatory signaling molecules called cytokines and scavenges for free radicals that cause oxidative damage to cells.
This neuroprotective role lends itself to reducing anxiety, as lion’s mane aids in coping with stress and prevents a decrease in serotonin and dopamine.
In research with stressed mice, supplementation with lion’s mane exerted anxiety-reducing and antidepressant-like effects, which were mediated by enhancing neurogenesis in the brain’s hippocampus.
Cordyceps For Anxiety
Cordyceps is a parasitic fungi genus containing over 700 species, although Cordyceps sinensis and Cordyceps militaris are the two most commonly studied.
Traditionally, the cordyceps mushroom has been used to stimulate energy, stamina, and endurance—which you might think would be unhelpful for anxiety.
However, cordyceps’ anti-inflammatory and adaptogenic qualities have associated this mushroom with reduced anxiety and depression.
Research suggests that cordyceps exhibit anti-depressive activity by acting on certain receptor sites in the central nervous system, which are thought to play a role in modulating neurotransmitter activity and mood.
Although many studies have reported the anti-stress abilities of cordyceps in animals, we don’t have research with humans yet.
However, a triple-blind randomized controlled clinical trial is currently underway in Taiwan, looking at the impact of cordyceps supplementation on mood and cortisol levels in adults.