Tongkat Ali (Longjack) for Stress Relief

Research suggests that Tongkat Ali (Eurycoma longifolia) may help reduce physiological and psychological markers of stress, with the most direct human evidence coming from a small randomized controlled trial that found reductions in salivary cortisol and improvements in self-reported mood measures including tension, anger, and confusion compared to placebo, and a longer 24-week RCT that found within-group improvements in emotional well-being and vitality, though that study did not demonstrate statistically significant between-group differences across all participants. Supporting this, animal studies indicate anxiolytic effects comparable to diazepam in behavioral models, and more recent mechanistic research points to a potential role for eurycomanol in restoring normal cortisol metabolism through modulation of inflammatory signaling pathways in the liver. The overall body of evidence — which includes two human RCTs, several animal and mechanistic studies, and two narrative reviews — consistently points in a supportive direction, though the human trials are small, short, and in some cases involved combination products or subgroup analyses, which limits the strength of conclusions that can be drawn. More rigorous and larger-scale human trials focused specifically on stress outcomes would be needed before confident claims about efficacy can be made.