ANTIFRAGILE VS ADAPTOGENIC
Antifragile and adaptogenic are both words becoming popular in the herb world that are often confused with one other and used interchangeably to describe an asset of many of the same botanical medicines. Yet (pushes up nerd glasses) these two terms *actually* diverge in some fascinating ways.
So what’s the difference?
Antifragile is newer to the scene, growing from a concept described in 2012 by stock trader and statistician Nassim Taleb, whose book title helps sum it up: Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder. The main difference between antifragilility and adaptogenic to me lies in Taleb’s words:
“The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”
Adaptogenic is a much older term coined in 1947 by the Russian pharmacologist N.V. Lazarev “to refer to a substance which was claimed to increase ‘non-specific’ resistance to adverse influences to organism and stress.”
To sum up, adaptogens build resilience; antifragiles go beyond it. Adaptogens withstand, while antifragiles overcome and may in fact use stressors to make the organism at hand better than before. In effect, antifragiles raise the level of resilience.
BLACK SWANS
Taleb had another concept central to his career that he called the black swan, which he used to refer to so-called seemingly improbable events that are in fact predictable by virtue of the fact that unpredictability is predictable, kind of like how deep within the chaos of chaos theory exist patterns, when one looks close enough. Taleb’s black swan concept rides in tandem with his concept of antifragility, if we’re to believe we’re in his universe — all things inevitably crash, at times. The stock market, our bodies, our spirits. The idea is: how soon does it bounce back? Does it become stronger?
The right amount of exercise is a common example of a practice based in antifragility. This relies on the fact that the exercise isn’t done in excess and lead to injury, setting the process backwards rather than forwards. You can apply this same concept to many things, including, say, an immune system strengthened by exposure to germs or a human undergoing any kind of stressor that actually raises their level of resiliency — kind of like “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” but within more reason. Emotional resilience built up by overcoming emotional trauma, for instance — in the best case scenario. And when not the best case scenario? — you can see my thoughts On Stress.
THE ANTIFRAGILITY OF THE MUSHROOM
The reishi or lingzhi mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum) and the turkey tail mushroom are examples of botanical medicines commonly referred to as adaptogens that, by the standards of Taleb and herbalists like Renee Davis, seem to act as agents of antifragility. Both of these fungi stimulate a body’s immune response to strengthen the host’s defense against bacterial, viral, fungal, and parasitic infections, and help the central nervous system to exhibit stronger resilience to stressors (Chen et al, 2014).
All of these beneficial factors have most often landed reishis and turkey tails in the category of both immunomodulators and adaptogens, and I would argue that by virtue of both of these attributes, they also qualify as antifragiles like Davis does. By building up the body’s ability to be resilient to unexpected punches such as sickness and psychological trauma, they in turn make the body a vessel capable of antifragility by developing pathways that can stand up to said punches next time. I think this concept adds something knew to our understanding of herbal pharmacology, in the nuanced way of things that already exist but just haven’t had a word to describe them yet.
Davis puts it well when she calls this class of mushrooms “fitness for the immune system” and writes:
“Learning about Turkey Tail mushrooms is a welcome lesson in antifragility. Antifragility refers to the concept that certain systems thrive from shocks, volatility, and stressors in the environment. We see this phenomenon in post-traumatic growth...evolutionary paths of species, and adaptive mechanisms in human bodies. We not only tolerate shock, but we need a bit of it.”
Interestingly, in the Chinese tradition, the term lingzhi signifies “the essence of immortality … long regarded as the herb of spiritual potency, symbolizing success, well-being, divine power, and longevity” (Wachtel-Galor et al, 2011). While speculative in nature, these factors could be considered antifragile attributes of the reishi mushroom, applied energetically.
When you think of it spiritually and energetically, many herbs are thought of as enhancing the spirit, like roses, rosemary, lemonbalm, licorice, and essentially all tonic herbs (any herb thought of as holistically beneficial for the whole body and safe to take on a daily basis) and so many others, building a gift for antifragility in the host.
THE DANGER OF SAMENESS
The way Taleb describes it, the concept of antifragility can be well illustrated with examples of systems like economic ecosystems that benefit from market volatility, and respond negatively to prolonged homogeny. The human body is the same in that a homogenous diet of prolonged intake of say, refined carbohydrates (of any one thing really) may negatively respond by developing something like candida overgrowth while a varied diet can promote better gut diversity and therefore a more resilient gut. In agriculture, monocultures like what’s happened with the banana puts it at risk for a situation like the Bananapocalypse. In social systems, sameness obviously breeds social viruses like discrimination, xenophobia, and intolerance.
We understand by now that antifragility is the ability to roll with unexpected punches and grow stronger as a result of them — but it’s important to point out that, were it to come to a prolonged period of repeated stress, suffering, or trauma, antifragility would cease to apply as the whole concept of antifragility relies on a certain expectation of volatility and randomness rather than sameness.
THE BEAUTY OF INTERCONNECTEDNESS
ILLUSTRATION BY PAULA SCHULTZ
Another factor important to the concept of antifragility is interconnectedness and the strength born from it, as applied to a superorganism or supercomputer type of system. As the mycologist Paul Stamets has said, “the invention of the computer Internet is an inevitable consequence of a previously proven biologically successful model” — here, like I wrote about earlier in The Web, he’s talking about how the fungal threads underground called mycelia allow plants to communicate, share nourishment, and fight toxins with each other, all while physically separated, by using those threads to connect their roots.
When you take this existence of the vast network of mycelia connecting plants, you can see how this fungal network might actually build antifragility for a plant system, and how this concept can symbolize the way fungal medicine and tonic herbs may build antifragility within the human body and spirit.
SOURCES
Chen, S., Chang, C., Hung, M., Chen, S., Wang, W., Tai, C., & Lu, C. (2014). The Effect of Mushroom Beta-Glucans from Solid Culture ofGanoderma lucidumon Inhibition of the Primary Tumor Metastasis. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 1-7.
Wachtel-Galor, S., Yuen, J., Buswell, J., & Benzie, I. (2011). Ganoderma lucidum (Lingzhi or Reishi). CRC Press/Taylor & Francis. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92757/
Davis, R., Turkey Tail Mushrooms and the Antifragility of the Immune System. Journal of the American Herbalist Guild, 12(2), 31-37.
Nassim Taleb: A Definition of Antifragile and its Implications. (2014). Farnam Street. Retrieved from https://fs.blog/2014/04/antifragile-a-definition/