Thinking about taking Lion's Mane? It seems like most videos only talk about the benefits of Lion's Mane mushroom and that's in order to push affiliate links and make money on people buying the supplement. But very few people are talking about the downsides and the dark side of Lion's Mane mushroom, which there are. Unlike other videos, I'm not going to sugarcoat the truth.
I'm going to share my personal experience as well as the experience of others who take Lion's Mane so you can be fully aware of it. the risks and way to see if it's worth the reward if you're new to the channel welcome my name is sumner and every week we crank out valuable content about e-commerce entrepreneurship and videos like this so if you find this valuable consider hitting that subscribe button without further ado let's go ahead and get to it if you're not already familiar lion's mane is a mushroom that's been used over the past about 2 000 years in traditional medicine for its anti-inflammatory properties cognition boosting even to heal wounds by the ancient Greeks. And yes, lion's mane has been shown to boost neural growth and regeneration and is antimicrobial, but some of the benefits that result from this also have risks. So first of all, if you're currently taking lion's mane and you're taking it every single day, stop immediately.
I fell into the exact same trap when I first started taking lion's mane mushroom about eight months ago, and there's a very good chance that is going to lead to burnout. So like I said, when I first started supplementing with Lion's Mane, I was taking this powder, taking basically a scoop of the recommended daily dosage, mixing with some water and drinking it during breakfast. And I did this daily for the first about 21 to 30 days.
And around that time, I started noticing that I would wake up even after sleeping eight or nine hours and feeling mentally tired, fatigued and cloudiness. I actually thought that I had COVID. Because those are the exact symptoms that I experienced when I had COVID personally, like a year before that, I would get nine or even 10 hours of sleep, wake up feeling just exhausted, tired. It was so hard for me to have mental clarity, to make decisions, to work.
It felt awful. So I thought, oh, I may have COVID again. So let me like keep taking this dosage daily because that'll probably help. And it didn't. That kind of mental cloudiness remained even after getting a lot of rest.
And I'm like, man, what is going on? I didn't even think that it was would be because of the lion's mane. And around that time, I actually came across this TikTok of a gentleman that I don't know his name, but it was really valuable at the time, saying, don't take lion's mane every day. Because as we know, like I said before, lion's mane promotes neural regeneration and growth.
So it's sort of like working out. When you work out, you make micro tears in your muscles. So you make those tears kind of stress or strain your body, but then you feed your body and give it proper rest and then do it again.
When you're taking Lion's Mane every day, you're not giving your brain rest. You're kind of like forcing all this new growth and some of these benefits, but when it's too much, it actually has the opposite benefit. Instead of giving you clarity, it takes it away. So that was my personal experience and many others have also experienced this. So it's a good idea if you're considering using Lion's Mane to make sure that you have some sort of regimen of rest.
So after watching that, what I began doing is five days on and two days off, meaning I would consume lion's mane five days per week and have two full days of rest where I don't take any lion's mane whatsoever. And from implementing that change, my brain fog went away. So, you know, it's tough to ever determine exactly what the cause of something is.
Correlation versus causation. There's so many different factors at play. However, I definitely do believe that was the cause of it. And that was kind of my solution to solve that specific issue. But there's more.
Danger number two is a big one and something that I can... personally speak to. So first started taking Lion's Mane in Malaysia, you know, getting the burnout, kind of figuring out how to deal with that burnout. My wife and I kind of travel around the world, living from Airbnb to Airbnb.
So we left Malaysia, went to Thailand. And once we were in Thailand, we ran out of our initial supplement and we wanted to order more to take. We couldn't find any in any pharmacy nearby. So we ordered some Lion's Mane powder online.
Unknowingly to us, we ordered from China. We thought it was a Thai company, but it was a Thai company that's sourced basically from China. And this is why this is important. So we order the Lion's Mane Mushroom Supplement.
It gets delivered finally, right? And I'm super excited to try it. So I'm like, I open it up and I'm about to go scoop, you know, out a little bit to take.
And as soon as I open the bag and smell, it's like the smell of dry pollution just comes out of the bag and hits me in the face. Like, it was just crazy. This is the best. definitely polluted or this isn't even lines made.
I don't know, but this is, it smelled awful. Just like if you would smell rancid meat, it was sort of like that same feeling to where your nose is telling you, yeah, this is not going to be good if you ingest it. So of course we threw the entire thing out. And I realized that.
you need to be really careful about where you get your lion's mane mushroom from, right? A lot of people just talk about, oh, make sure you're taking, you know, let's say ashwagandha, lion's mane, vitamin D. Be very careful about the source of that. Like, let's say eating, you know, chicken or beef in general is healthy, but the quality of that beef or that chicken that you're consuming is obviously extremely important.
Does it have a bunch of antibiotics in it? Does it have chemicals in it or pesticides or whatever that might be? The same is true for lion's mane.
So what I learned and I learned this firsthand, I can attest to it, is that a lot of companies will source Lion's Mane from China, which is actually one of the places that Lion's Mane was first used in traditional medicine. But China has very, very low pollution standards compared to parts like European Union or Canada or the United States and these other countries has much lower standards and very, very high rates of pollution due to all the manufacturing all throughout the country. So they will produce Lion's Mane very inexpensively. but that lion's mane will contain more pollutants than other parts of the world so number one you could or you know be wary of ordering lion's mane from a chinese company that manufactures and produces in china because there's a good chance that that will be polluted and my data you know to kind of back this up other than just my opinion is some work done by mycologist paul stamets and his team who actually pulled samples of you know lion's mane mushrooms from different areas of the world And specifically, China had the highest number of pollutants per capita.
I forget what the metric was exactly, but a very high number of pollutants in, you know, per sample versus other countries, way, way higher. So yeah, like really dangerous, literally do the opposite to where you could be taking it and it actually hurts you. So be super aware.
Also, if you don't already know, you don't already follow me on the channel, I sell on Amazon. I source products from China and sell those products on Amazon. I have literally multi-million dollar, you know, million... multi-million dollar net worth friends who sell supplements on Amazon. They source, you know, from different areas and then sell on Amazon.
And I can tell you, there's a lot of crap that goes on in the supplement space. There's a lot of backend things, people, you know, kind of getting under the radar, you know, trying to like, there's different law gets passed and do something to kind of get under that review manipulation, all this kind of stuff. So just because it's from the U S doesn't mean that it's a great product either. It could say made in the USA, manufactured in the USA, but the USA company. is basically sourcing cheap lion's mane because they can legally say, hey, here's lion's mane, but that lion's mane contains a bunch of pollutants.
Where the quality lion's mane, let's say from Germany or from the US or Canada or something like that, is much higher quality and therefore more expensive. So just be careful that just because it's made in the USA doesn't mean that it's from the USA. They could be sourcing it from China and pawning it off to you.
And especially if you're taking capsule form, there's a very good chance you may not even notice it. So this is a recommendation from... mycologist Paul Stamets, who originally is the inspiration for why I started taking Lion's Mane.
And what he recommends is to make sure that the Lion's Mane supplement you're taking is either USDA certified organic or EU certified organic. Not sure for the EU, if the European Union, that's the exact terminology, but just to make sure there is that certification that really requires some pretty strict rules to make sure it's the highest quality. So yeah, big thing to watch out for.
Now these next five negative side effects, I haven't... personally experienced by taking lion's mane but others have so something to kind of be aware of they're a bit more typical of any sort of supplement or medication you've probably heard this if you've ever had to endure a medical advertisement like we do here in the us but i'll just go ahead and run through them because they are important so number one potential negative side effect of lion's mane is abdominal discomfort number two is skin irritation or skin rash number three is negative interaction with other medication So obviously the human body is already extremely complex. When you add in other medications, it's extremely difficult to actually have definitive data and science on, oh, this causes X.
And when you mix with this, then this happens. We don't really know. It's this huge experiment. So if you are taking kind of some other medication, then just kind of be aware of that. Number four is reduced blood sugar.
And number five are other allergic reactions like getting hives, swelling, difficulty breathing. So like I said, Probably heard this about almost every other medication or any other supplement you've ever taken. Still important to kind of keep in mind and be aware of when you start taking or decide if you even want to take or not. And my final verdict, if Lion's Mane is worth taking given all these potential risks and hazard, for me personally, the answer is yes. I've been taking Lion's Mane now weekly for the past eight months and plan to do so.
And my reasoning for why is number one, like I said, for those last five negative side effects, I've not experienced any of them. With the brain fog kind of happening, that has been completely eliminated by giving me some rest days every single week. And I make sure that I source, you know, quality USDA organic certified lion's mane.
I specifically take the Stamets 7 supplement by Host Defense. I'll be linking them in the description section in case you want to learn more about them specifically. In my opinion, an amazing company and an amazing founder, Paul Stamets, who has completely opened my eyes and changed my life when it comes to mycelium.
kind of mushrooms as an important aspect of the human diet for the past thousands of years. And by taking Lion's Mane consistently, it's actually reduced my stress and worry and helped me generate $1,500 more per month in income. And if you don't believe me, I have a full video explaining exactly how that happens. And no, it's not from affiliate links and pushing, you know, Lion's Mane supplements. It's from the impact that it's had on my business and my relationships.
And like I said, full video talking about the benefits of Lion's Mane, which I'll be linking in the description section below. If you or a loved one has experienced anything good or bad when taking Lion's Mane, help the community out by letting us know in the comment section below. And as always, thanks for watching.
I really hope you found this valuable. And of course, make sure that you do your own research and seek out a medical professional's opinion before making any decision on your health. God bless you, your family, and your business.
I look forward to seeing you in the next one.