Read more about reishi and find out why it's one of the most valuable fungi for your health and wellness.
Also known as the mushroom of immortality, reishi may be our most valuable fungus for longevity and long-term vitality. It is a large, dark mushroom with a glossy exterior and a woody texture. Referred to as "Reishi" in Japanese and "Lingzhi" in Chinese, this medicinal mushroom provides a bounty of medicinal benefits. Its adaptogenic properties are components of herbal medicines that are said to help the body's resilience by creating a healthy challenge to the immune system and improve cell signaling, making it less fragile to pathogens.
Origins of Reishi
Recognized as a medicinal mushroom for over 2000 years, its powerful effects have been documented in ancient texts back to the Han dynasty. This variety of mushroom was first discovered by Chinese healers in the northern mountain range of the Changbai Mountains. Known for its frigid conditions, the rare reishi mushroom flourishes at the base of the mountain’s large temperate forest. According to ancient texts, healers believed that the reishi mushroom is “useful for vital energy, increasing thinking faculty, and preventing forgetfulness,” and can “refresh the body and mind, delay aging, and enable one to live long,” and “stabilizes one's mental condition.” Before people began cultivating and growing this mushroom, wild reishi remained a rare commodity limited to Chinese nobility. Today it is being increasingly used across the world to assist with general health and wellness.
11 Ways Reishi Boosts Health + Wellness
1. Boosts immunity - Medicinal mushrooms improve your immune function by challenging it. They contain complex starches (polysaccharides), including glucans, that when consumed, the body perceives as a threat and mounts an immune system response in defense even though the mushrooms themselves are harmless. This might sound like a bad thing, but it actually benefits your immune system. This inner battle gives your immune system an opportunity to train and strengthen immune function, bolstering your resistance to everyday infections. This allows your stronger, smarter immune cells to become more adept at fending off true pathogens like the common cold.
2. Strengthens respiratory function - All of our medicinal mushrooms have immune supportive benefits, but reishi particularly strengthens respiratory function and structure. Reishi mushrooms aid in improving oxygen utilization, which helps those who are prone to asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and similar conditions.
3. Helps with fatigue and stress - The adaptogenic properties of this mushroom helps fight fatigue and decrease the effects of stress.
4 - 11. So many other benefits - Reishi also decreases inflammation, reduces pain, protects and improves liver function, protects the heart, decreases cholesterol, lowers blood pressure, fights viruses and bacteria, and protects and improves nerve and brain function. Expect slow, building results.
Eating Reishi
Fresh or dried, there are many ways to incorporate this ingredient in a recipe. Reishi is most commonly available in a dried, powdered form, although it is possible to forage for them in certain regions of North America. You can get the most out of mushrooms by cooking them. They’re tougher than common varieties of medicinal mushrooms, so with fresh reishi they should be simmered for a few hours to make broths, teas, or tinctures. Cooking the mushrooms makes the beneficial starches more digestible and usable to the body. Similar to cooking raw food, when using dried reishi it is still necessary to break the cell walls down in order to properly absorb the nutrients that are so beneficial. At Thistle, we use dried mushrooms powders which can be added to soups, broths, and in delicious treats like our Fig Sunflower Reishi Smoothie or our Reishi-Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough Balls.
Medicinal mushrooms and adaptogenic remedies can play an important role in strengthening and modulating immune function, which makes them useful for preventing illness and balancing autoimmune and allergic conditions. We’re grateful to traditional Chinese medicine for introducing this fabulous fungus to the Western world!
Read more about reishi and find out why it's one of the most valuable fungi for your health and wellness.
Also known as the mushroom of immortality, reishi may be our most valuable fungus for longevity and long-term vitality. It is a large, dark mushroom with a glossy exterior and a woody texture. Referred to as "Reishi" in Japanese and "Lingzhi" in Chinese, this medicinal mushroom provides a bounty of medicinal benefits. Its adaptogenic properties are components of herbal medicines that are said to help the body's resilience by creating a healthy challenge to the immune system and improve cell signaling, making it less fragile to pathogens.
Origins of Reishi
Recognized as a medicinal mushroom for over 2000 years, its powerful effects have been documented in ancient texts back to the Han dynasty. This variety of mushroom was first discovered by Chinese healers in the northern mountain range of the Changbai Mountains. Known for its frigid conditions, the rare reishi mushroom flourishes at the base of the mountain’s large temperate forest. According to ancient texts, healers believed that the reishi mushroom is “useful for vital energy, increasing thinking faculty, and preventing forgetfulness,” and can “refresh the body and mind, delay aging, and enable one to live long,” and “stabilizes one's mental condition.” Before people began cultivating and growing this mushroom, wild reishi remained a rare commodity limited to Chinese nobility. Today it is being increasingly used across the world to assist with general health and wellness.
11 Ways Reishi Boosts Health + Wellness
1. Boosts immunity - Medicinal mushrooms improve your immune function by challenging it. They contain complex starches (polysaccharides), including glucans, that when consumed, the body perceives as a threat and mounts an immune system response in defense even though the mushrooms themselves are harmless. This might sound like a bad thing, but it actually benefits your immune system. This inner battle gives your immune system an opportunity to train and strengthen immune function, bolstering your resistance to everyday infections. This allows your stronger, smarter immune cells to become more adept at fending off true pathogens like the common cold.
2. Strengthens respiratory function - All of our medicinal mushrooms have immune supportive benefits, but reishi particularly strengthens respiratory function and structure. Reishi mushrooms aid in improving oxygen utilization, which helps those who are prone to asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and similar conditions.
3. Helps with fatigue and stress - The adaptogenic properties of this mushroom helps fight fatigue and decrease the effects of stress.
4 - 11. So many other benefits - Reishi also decreases inflammation, reduces pain, protects and improves liver function, protects the heart, decreases cholesterol, lowers blood pressure, fights viruses and bacteria, and protects and improves nerve and brain function. Expect slow, building results.
Eating Reishi
Fresh or dried, there are many ways to incorporate this ingredient in a recipe. Reishi is most commonly available in a dried, powdered form, although it is possible to forage for them in certain regions of North America. You can get the most out of mushrooms by cooking them. They’re tougher than common varieties of medicinal mushrooms, so with fresh reishi they should be simmered for a few hours to make broths, teas, or tinctures. Cooking the mushrooms makes the beneficial starches more digestible and usable to the body. Similar to cooking raw food, when using dried reishi it is still necessary to break the cell walls down in order to properly absorb the nutrients that are so beneficial. At Thistle, we use dried mushrooms powders which can be added to soups, broths, and in delicious treats like our Fig Sunflower Reishi Smoothie or our Reishi-Chocolate Chunk Cookie Dough Balls.
Medicinal mushrooms and adaptogenic remedies can play an important role in strengthening and modulating immune function, which makes them useful for preventing illness and balancing autoimmune and allergic conditions. We’re grateful to traditional Chinese medicine for introducing this fabulous fungus to the Western world!
