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Rhodiola Rosea: 4 Experts on the Cortisol Herb
Rhodiola rosea keeps surfacing on the biggest health podcasts as the adaptogen people reach for when stress and hard training collide. Adaptogen is the loose term for herbs said to help the body handle stress, and cortisol is the hormone that spikes when that stress hits. What makes rhodiola stand out is that, unlike a lot of supplement hype, several credentialed guests describe taking it themselves and dosing it in specific, repeatable ways.
This post gathers what four experts said about rhodiola on the record, quotes them, and links the exact clip so you can judge the source yourself. It is a summary of their views, not medical advice, so treat it as a starting point and check with your own clinician before adding any supplement.
Note: Sourced expert opinion from public episodes, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before changing supplements or treatment.
The recurring claim is that rhodiola is an adaptogen that helps regulate the stress hormone cortisol. On Diary of a CEO, Dr. Sara Szal put it plainly, calling rhodiola an adaptogen and an herbal therapy that has been shown to help with cortisol and to lower it. Asked whether she prescribes it to athletes, she said she does.
That view is echoed by Sarah Gottfried, who told Andrew Huberman that rhodiola is very effective and has been shown in multiple randomized trials to lower cortisol, which she framed as a genuinely useful effect for people under chronic stress. The detail worth noticing is that both are practicing clinicians rather than brand spokespeople, and both point to the same cortisol mechanism from independent conversations. When two doctors on two different shows converge on one effect, it is a stronger signal than any single testimonial, which is a big part of why the herb keeps coming up.
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Andrew Huberman is unusually specific about his own use. He revealed that he started taking rhodiola rosea about six months earlier, using it as a cortisol modulator before high-intensity workouts rather than as a daily calm-down supplement. The timing is deliberate: he wants the effect during the session, not around the clock.
Speaking on the Tim Ferriss Show, Huberman called rhodiola his standout recent performance addition, because it reduces perceived effort and the post-exercise energy crash without suppressing cortisol the way ashwagandha does. That distinction is the crux of why he chose it. A short cortisol rise during a hard session is part of the signal that drives adaptation, so a supplement that softens the crash without flattening that signal is doing something different from a general stress reducer taken at any hour.
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The dosing advice is consistent and easy to follow. Huberman describes a typical rhodiola rosea dose of 100 to 200 milligrams taken about 10 to 20 minutes before a workout, which lines up with using it as an acute performance tool rather than a background supplement.
On the higher end of that range, he singled out 200 milligrams taken pre-workout as the amount behind the reduced perceived effort and softer energy crash he described. The pattern across his comments is small, precise, and timed to the session, not loaded up daily in the hope of a slow build.
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The biggest caveat comes from performance scientist Andy Galpin. On the Tim Ferriss Show he explained that he has published an open-access review specifically on rhodiola, and separately a review on how frequently supplements are adulterated. Putting those two pieces of his own research side by side, his message was blunt: the evidence for the herb is worth taking seriously, but the reliability of what you can actually buy is not something to assume.
His practical guidance was to prioritize third-party tested and certified products. He noted that genuinely clean options can be hard to source, using pure NSF-certified ashwagandha as an example of how tough sourcing can get, and he pointed to reputable brands for rhodiola such as Momentus. The takeaway is that the herb only does what the studies suggest if what is in the bottle actually matches the label, so where you buy it matters as much as whether you take it at all.
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That is the main claim the experts make. Dr. Sara Szal described rhodiola on Diary of a CEO as an adaptogen shown to lower cortisol, and Sarah Gottfried told Andrew Huberman it has been shown in multiple randomized trials to lower cortisol. Both frame it as useful for people under sustained stress.
Huberman draws a clear line. He said rhodiola reduces perceived effort and the post-workout energy crash without suppressing cortisol, whereas ashwagandha does suppress it. For training specifically, he prefers not to blunt cortisol entirely, which is why rhodiola became his standout recent addition.
Huberman describes a typical dose of 100 to 200 milligrams taken about 10 to 20 minutes before a workout, using it as an acute tool rather than a daily supplement. He pointed to 200 milligrams pre-workout as the amount tied to the benefits he noticed.
The consistent thread across all four experts is that rhodiola gets used as a targeted, pre-workout cortisol tool, not an all-day sedative, and that sourcing a clean, third-party tested product is the step most people skip. None of them present it as a miracle, and each ties the benefit to a specific use case and dose. Use the timestamps above to hear each one make the case in their own words, then decide with a clinician whether it earns a place in your own routine.