Ranking the best ashwagandha supplements of 2022

Ashwagandha is a plant native to India that has been used in traditional medicine and Ayurveda for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Ashwagandha is one of the most powerful herbs used in Ayurvedic healing, and is thought to help alleviate difficulty concentrating, fatigue, lack of energy, and stress. 

It is also recommended as it provides a sense of wellbeing, rejuvenates the body, and also provides a lot of energy as well.

This Ayurvedic herb is becoming increasingly popular today due to the many health benefits it has to offer people today.  It’s believed that ashwagandha grants energy, strength,and stamina; ancient Indians thought it contained the essence of horses.

If you want to feel more energized, vigorous, and boost your immune system, Ashwagandha is an option to consider. We’ve gone in-depth and ranked the ten best Ashwagandha supplements on the market.

Rankings

Last updated: September 20, 2022
Ashwagandha supplements considered: 20
Hours of research: 41
Experts reviewed: 9
Scientific papers referenced: 14

1. Organic Ashwagandha + by Nuzena

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Nuzena is a new, premium brand known for its potent formulas.

For those who are serious about their health, Organic Ashwagandha + by Nuzena is at the top of our list. 

Nuzena offers a high strength 1300mg dosage of organic Ashwagandha powder per serving, making it the most potent on the list.

Organic Ashwagandha + also includes 10mg of organic black pepper per serving for further bioavailability and maximum absorption — something we’d like to see more companies doing. 

Where Nuzena really stands out for us though is the quality of the ingredients inside the formula. The formula is non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan friendly, 100% organic, and sustainably sourced — quite an impressive list.

Organic Ashwagandha + is made inside an FDA registered facility within the United States and is GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) certified, which ticks even more boxes for us.

This is our clear pick as the #1 Ashwhagandha supplement. No-brainer.

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2. Essential Elements Organic Ashwagandha

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Essential elements offers a mega dose of stress-relieving ashwagandha, at 1950mg per serving. Combined with black pepper extract to improve absorption, you can be certain every capsule provides a sledgehammer to crush cortisol levels and help level you out. 

Completely organic and free of any GMOs, preservatives, gluten, soy, and dairy, this supplement is as pure as it gets.

3. NutraHerbals Ashwagandha

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NutraHerbals offers a high strength Ashwagandha supplement with 600 mg of Ashwagandha root powder per capsule, alongside black pepper extract to boost absorption.

With the only other ingredients being a vegan-friendly capsule made with vegetable cellulose and non-GMO rice concentrate, this supplement is a great choice.

4. Organic India Ashwagandha

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Organic India’s Ashwagandha supplement has 400 mg of Ashwagandha root per capsule, which isn’t the highest on the market, but its big selling point is the fact that it is USDA-certified organic.

That means these Ashwagandha plants were grown without synthetic pesticides and herbicides. If you care about the purity of what you are putting into your body, this is a big plus.

5. Himalaya Ashwagandha

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Himalaya Ashwagandha has a modern take on this ancient herbal extract. Most companies create a root powder from the Ashwagandha plant, put it in a capsule, and call it a day.

Himalaya, on the other hand, uses modern processing technology like supercritical carbon dioxide extraction to deliver a higher dose of the active ingredients in the plant. Depending on your perspective, this could be good or bad.

The end result is that the Ashwagandha content per capsule is 670 mg, and much of this is at a higher concentration than a standard supplement. It’s not traditional, but it definitely is potent.

6. Sun Potion Ashwagandha

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If you want to integrate Ashwagandha into other blends, mixtures, or drink it with tea (as some Indians do), Sun Potion is the way to go.

It offers loose powdered Ashwagandha root extract, from an organic source no less. While this makes measuring out quantities very difficult without a precision scale, the versatility of loose powder is unparalleled.

7. NaturaLife Labs Organic Ashwagandha

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NaturaLife Labs makes a Ashwagandha supplement that includes equal proportions of Ashwagandha root extract and whole Ashwagandha plant powder.

The total Ashwagandha content per capsule is still 650 mg, but this is split between the two plant sources. Its organic certification is a boon to purity enthusiasts, though.

8. Havasu Nutrition Ashwagandha Premium Stress Response

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Havasu Nutrition puts their own twist on Ashwagandha supplements by including artichoke extract as well. Each capsule has 500 mg of Ashwagandha and 50 mg of artichoke leaf, together in a gelatin capsule.

While the product is fairly well-reviewed, strict Ayurveda adherents might want to keep their herbs separate so they can be used with as much versatility as possible. It also isn’t vegan-compatible, thanks to the gelatin capsule, though that will only be important to a small minority of people.

9. NOW Ashwagandha

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NOW supplements often end up being the economy option, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but can sometimes lead to cutting corners.

This may be the case with NOW’s Ashwagandha supplement—the dosage, at 450 mg per capsule, is pretty middle of the road, but it’s got a lot of stabilizers and preservative agents added to the capsule, likely to extend its shelf life.

10. Pure Encapsulations Ashwagandha

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The Ashwagandha supplement from Pure Encapsulations comes in a pretty standard format—vegan cellulose capsule, 500 mg of Ashwagandha root extract, and cellulose as a binder. With a lower than usual dosage, it doesn’t make it very high in the rankings. 

Category winners

Best ashwagandha overall: Organic Ashwagandha + by Nuzena

Nuzena takes care to provide a high dosage, high purity, and highly absorbable form of ashwagandha, making it the most versatile and best overall pick. 

Best ashwagandha for sleep: NutraHerbals Ashwagandha

For better sleep, you want a moderate dose of ashwagandha that’s easily absorbed and highly bioavailable. NutraHerbals delivers on both fronts, making it a great option for use as a sleep aid.

Best ashwagandha for stress: Essential Elements Organic Ashwagandha

Essential Elements stands out for its incredible purity and simple supplement design, which is great for dealing with stress—with fewer ingredients, you don’t have to worry about a negative psychophysiological reaction to ingredients like binders, stabilizers, and preservatives.  

Best ashwagandha for anxiety: Organic Ashwagandha + by Nuzena

The same properties that make Nuzena our overall winner serve it well when it comes to using ashwagandha to deal with anxiety. You get a strong dosage and a guarantee of pure, high-quality ingredients.

Best ashwagandha for hair: Essential Elements Organic Ashwagandha

If you’re interested in the increasingly popular trend of using ashwagandha for improving the quality of your hair, we again recommend Essential Elements Organic Ashwagandha. At nearly two grams per serving, the incredibly potent dose is best-situated to improve the texture, shine, and fullness of your hair. 

Best ashwagandha for ashwagandha tea: Sun Potion Ashwagandha

For making ashwagandha tea, the story is a little different: you want pure ashwagandha powder, preferably sourced organically. Sun Potion hits the mark on both fronts, making it the perfect option for making ashwagandha tea. 

Who should buy ashwagandha?

Ashwagandha is an herbal remedy that’s popular for increasing libido, boosting testosterone, and reducing stress. For all three of these reasons, it’s popular among a few specific categories of users.

People with high-stress lives. Ashwagandha is renowned for its stress-relief abilities, and as a consequence it’s a popular supplement among people with high-flying careers, busy schedules, or other sources of chronic stress.

Men over 40. Testosterone levels start declining steeply in your 40s, and ashwagandha’s abilities to boost libido and increase energy levels makes it an excellent counter to the drop in both of these health factors that’s caused by declining androgen levels.

People who want a higher libido, lower anxiety, and an elevated mood. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that ashwagandha is only for men, though. It’s also been used to boost libido in women, as well as reduce anxiety and depression in both genders.

Though the precise mechanism is not fully understood, ashwagandha has been demonstrated to have anti-anxiety effects, which may be related to its ability to reduce cortisol levels, which is a reliable biomarker of stress.

People who want to combat systemic inflammation in their body. Ashwagandha may also hold promise for people with stress and inflammation-related health problems. The cortisol-lowering effects of ashwagandha, combined with its anti-inflammatory properties, make it popular for both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis.

Its anti-inflammatory effects tie in closely with the mental well-being effects described earlier, perhaps because of the link between stress and systemic inflammation.

Older adults who want to preserve cognitive function. Some people seek out ashwagandha for its potential cognitive benefits. As with many herbal compounds with antioxidant effects, ashwagandha has been investigated as a neuroprotective agent to slow or prevent the onset of dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases.

While most of the research has focused on the therapeutic uses of ashwagandha for brain health, it’s actually become more popular for its potential as a nootropic agent: some people find that ashwagandha can sharpen their thinking, calm their mood, and hone their focus.

Given what we already know about the popularity of using ashwagandha as an herbal treatment for depression and anxiety, it shouldn’t be surprising that some people report these mood-enhancing effects from the herb.

How we ranked

In formulating our ashwagandha rankings, we started with all of the top of the line products currently on the market, then applied increasingly stringent criteria to narrow the field. 

Pure ashwagandha formulation. Since we were specifically looking for sources of ashwagandha, and not general herbal blends, we eliminated products that had blended ashwagandha with other herbs and ingredients.

You’ll find ashwagandha as part of the blend of many different supplements, but in our rankings, the focus was on the exclusive benefits of ashwagandha.

The only exceptions we made were for products that included small amounts of black pepper extract, as this herb has been found to increase the bioavailability of other herbs, and isn’t known to have any strong independent biological effects.

Carefully-calibrated dosage. From here, we narrowed the field by cutting products whose ashwagandha dosage was too low or too high. Many commercially available ashwagandha teas don’t provide the kind of dosage chosen for clinical research studies on ashwagandha, so we ended up cutting all of these.

Since most research uses ashwagandha taken either once or twice per day, we looked for capsules in the range of 400 to 650 mg, since this would correspond to the lower end of the recommended dosage for this herbal compound, and could be doubled up or tripled up to deliver the higher doses used in some research studies.

Effective method of delivery. Because of challenges getting an appropriate dose, there weren’t any ashwagandha tinctures that made our list. Tinctures also pose a problem because it’s not known which of the biologically active compounds included in dried ashwagandha root powder are responsible for which biological effects.

For example, Herb Pharm uses an alcohol solution to deliver its ashwagandha tincture, but not all of the biologically active compounds are necessarily alcohol soluble.

Triethylene glycol, which helps with the sleep-promoting effects of ashwagandha, is water-soluble, but not very soluble in alcohol. Because of concerns like this, we stuck with solid powder-based or capsule-based ashwagandha supplements.

No unnecessary fillers or additives. Finally, as always, we cut out anything that had too much in the way of unnecessary fillers, additives, and bulking agents, so our top-ranked ashwagandha supplements would have the cleanest ingredient design possible.

FAQ

Q: What is ashwagandha tea?

A: Ashwagandha tea is made by steeping the dried root of the ashwagandha plant in boiling water for approximately fifteen minutes, then is served hot like any other tea.

Unlike green tea and matcha tea, ashwagandha tea does not have any caffeine in it, but still boasts some pretty good antioxidant properties.

As such, it’s great to drink for its health benefits at night, since it won’t keep you up. It’s quite popular for its calming effects, and can even be used as a sleep aid at night thanks to the sleep inducing effects described earlier.

Q: How long does it take for ashwagandha to work?

A: Most research on ashwagandha is conducted in the context of six or eight week studies. Some of these studies have conducted interim analyses at four weeks into the study, which sometimes show significant results.

Based on this research, one could infer that good results may take up to two months, but you may start to see benefits after as little as a month on an ashwagandha supplement. One thing is clear, though, which is that this is not a quick-fix supplement for acute problems.

Q: Which is better, ashwagandha or rhodiola?

A: Ashwagandha versus rhodiola is an interesting comparison: they are both herbal extracts with potential antioxidant, neuroprotective, and anti-anxiety effects.

No studies have directly compared rhodiola to ashwagandha when it comes to anxiety, so it’s unclear which supplement is better in this case.

Rhodiola boasts more robust evidence for a potential neuroprotective effect, but on the other hand, ashwagandha has ben used as a sleep aid, testosterone booster, and aid for libido and sexual health in both men and women—the range of effects of rhodiola is somewhat more narrow.

So, the relative advantages and disadvantages of ashwagandha and rhodiola depend on the application you’re planning to use them for; both have strengths and weaknesses.

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Recap

Ashwagandha is a powerful herbal supplements whose roots in ayurvedic medicine go back hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

It has potent antioxidant and anti-stress effects, though the health problems that have been studied the most are anxiety, depression, libido and sexual health, and (among men) boosting testosterone levels.

It’s typically used in doses ranging from 200 to 2000 mg per day, and is fairly well-tolerated, though in high doses it may cause an increase in thyroid hormone levels.

While the research on the range of possible health benefits from ashwagandha is still emerging, it holds quite a lot of promise on several fronts. This should be no surprise given how long it’s been used in herbal medicine in India.

For BodyNutrition‘s #1 ashwagandha recommendation, click here.