Last month my friend Lisa texted me at 11 p.m.: “I can’t sleep again. Do you think Ashwagandha actually helps or is it just hype?”

She’d been struggling for months — falling asleep at 1 or 2 a.m., waking up at 4 a.m. with racing thoughts, then dragging through the day feeling like she’d been hit by a truck. She tried everything: blue-light glasses, no caffeine after noon, white noise, even counting backward from 1000. Nothing stuck. She was exhausted and starting to feel hopeless. Continue reading →

My son turned 14 last year, and that’s when the anxiety really started showing up.
He’d always been a sensitive kid — thoughtful, quiet, the one who noticed everything — but suddenly school felt overwhelming. Tests, social pressure, the constant comparison on social media, staying up too late scrolling. He’d come home quiet, spend hours in his room, snap at small things, then feel terrible about it. Mornings were the worst: he’d wake up already tense, stomach in knots, saying he didn’t want to go. I watched him shrink a little more each week, and it broke my heart. Continue reading →