Cacao: The medicine for our time & an antidote to lockdown stress & anxiety
We have had our National Health Study updated for Stress Awareness Month. Click below to download the full report.
Updated April 2024
Since the UK Prime Minister announced a second national lockdown in England on Saturday, I’ve received numerous phone calls and messages from people feeling stressed, anxious and generally freaking out.
Many were surprised by this second lockdown and have expressed a sense of a loss of control; others are wondering now how they’ll cope with the demands of work, home or both during the busy run up to Christmas. Some of the people who’ve contacted me are seriously wondering how they’ll manage their mental health amidst this new wave of restrictions…
Here at Ritual Cacao, we feel it’s the right time to release the results of our National Health Study which provides significant evidence that regularly drinking ceremonial grade cacao helps us move from stress and anxiety to peace and harmony, making it THE medicine for these turbulent times.
The cacao polyphenols in commercial chocolate have been shown, in clinical trials, to reduce stress in both healthy and highly-stressed individuals, so we wanted to see if ceremonial grade cacao had the same - if not greater - impact on participants who drank it daily. Whilst the study was not a clinical or scientific trial, the data from real peoples’ experience shows that cacao induces feelings of peace, calm and harmony.
So if you’re feeling anxious about the upcoming lockdown and uncertainty of the winter months ahead, this blog will walk you through our study and show you why drinking cacao is a fantastic, pharmaceutical-free medicine that can support us through times of difficulty and change.
Background to our National Health Study
We wanted to see if people who drank ceremonial grade cacao daily saw a significant reduction in their stress and anxiety levels, so we carried out a National Health Study alongside our 21 Day Cacao Challenge in June 2020.
“It made me realise how much my stress was lifting”
“I think the cacao and other personal work I am doing helped me look for more ways I can make a difference”
Using the Wecudos Platform, a patient reported outcomes software, we asked participants to fill out Sheldon Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale questionnaire once a week for three weeks and record their stress levels. The weekly responses were then recorded and analysed to produce an overall result. We also asked participants to complete an initial PSS-10 test in Week 0 to give us an understanding of their stress levels prior to the 21 Day Cacao Challenge.
“I have been suffering with chronic migraines so for me this was a test to see if they increase or decrease. In fact, I have had more migraines since not having cacao daily”
“The study and cacao combined allowed me to assess my emotions on a deeper level”
Guidelines
Participants were asked to adhere to the following guidelines:
Refrain from drinking coffee and all other stimulants
Only drink 20gms raw, organic ceremonial grade cacao (no sweeteners)
Refrain from consuming alcohol or taking drugs
Drink the cacao around the same time each day
Keep to the 20gms a day (i.e. don't take more)
We asked anyone on SSRIs or antidepressants not to participate in the study, as it would have been too difficult to ascertain whether it was the cacao or their medication that was reducing stress and anxiety.
Key Findings
Before the 21-day cacao challenge, 53% of participants said they felt upset fairly or very often. By the end of the final week, this figure dropped to only 14%. Those that said they never/almost never felt upset went from 12% at the beginning of the challenge to 50% after drinking cacao consistently for 21 days.
In Week 0, 58% of participants said they felt unable to control the important things in life. Yet by Week 3, 65% said they felt in control of the important things in life and only 8% said they felt unable to control the important things in life.
In Week 0, 60% of participants said they often felt nervous and stressed. By Week 3, 56% of participants reported never and almost never feeling stressed, and by the end of week 3 only 6% of participants said they still felt nervous and stressed.
In Week 0, 69% of participants said they often felt able to handle personal problems and by Week 3, this figure had risen to 89%.
In Week 0, 48% of participants said they often could not cope, but by the end of Week 3 that dropped to only 14%. By Week 3, 66% of participants reported that they were often able to cope.
In Week 0, 54% of participants said they could often control irritation in life, but by the end of Week 3 we saw that increase to 83%.
In Week 0, 61% of participants felt like they were never or sometimes on top of things, but by the end of Week 3 we saw that decrease to nobody never feeling on top things, and only 23% feeling on top of things sometimes.
Similarly, in Week 0, 39% of participants felt like they were on top of things, by the end of Week 3 we saw that increase to 76%.
In Week 0, 45% of participants often felt angered by things out of their control, but by the end of Week 3 we saw that decrease to 13% after daily consumption of cacao.
“Just through drinking cacao I could identify my issues. I found the PSS changed each week, sometimes I was doing well, sometimes I wasn’t. Through the PSS I did notice that stress levels definitely went down but anxiety was constantly fluctuating.”
In a recent blog, we discussed some of the mental health benefits of switching from coffee to cacao. We believe cacao can help you move from stress and anxiety to peace and harmony…
Participant Statistics
52 unique participants completed all four questionnaires: 48 were female and 4 were male.
95% of participants managed to drink the recommended daily dose of 20gms cacao per day and also managed to abstain from alcohol, drugs and all other stimulants.
93% drank their cacao unsweetened.
100% drank the cacao before breakfast and 95% drank at the same time each day.
None of the participants were taking anti-depressants.
100% of participants said they would be interested in taking part in a more in-depth, 12-month research study on cacao.
Limitations and Considerations
The majority of participants were female (48 out of a total 52 participants).
The study was conducted whilst people were in lockdown, so participants may have been experiencing a higher degree of stress than normal.
Participants may have already been cacao lovers and have therefore offered a subjective opinion.
About the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was published in 1983 and is the most widely used psychological instrument for measuring nonspecific perceived stress. Psychological stress has been defined as the extent to which an individual perceives that the demands of their life exceed their ability to cope.
The PSS-10 is a series of 10 questions which are used in studies to assess the stressfulness of situations and the effectiveness of stress-reducing interventions (in our case, the daily consumption of ceremonial grade cacao).
The questions ask participants about their feelings and thoughts during the last month; it is designed to show how unpredictable, uncontrollable and overloaded respondents find their lives. Further information about the Perceived Stress Scale can be found here.
Our Conclusions
From the results of the PSS-10 tests we conducted through the Wecudos platform, we feel that consumption of 20g of (raw, organic, ceremonial grade) cacao daily during a period of 21 days appears to be an effective, safe and harmless way of reducing stress and anxiety in people who have normal to high levels of stress and anxiety.
There seems to be a clear correlation between participants consuming ceremonial grade cacao and the reduction of their stress and anxiety levels.
The reduction in participant stress and anxiety levels was seen across all ten PSS-10 questions over the three weeks.
The act of ritualising cacao and consuming it at the same time each day may have helped participants keep to the challenge and feel more in control.
Participants showed a real commitment to the challenge and the rules we asserted. Rather than seeking pharmaceuticals to manage stress and anxiety, they were happy to try and better themselves through a plant medicine-based holistic approach.
Still not convinced that cacao can help improve stress and anxiety?!
There’s only one more option: you need to try it for yourself and see! Rather than being overwhelmed by world events over which we have no control, switching to cacao and strengthening our mental health and well-being is one positive action we can take. Join our community of cacao lovers on Instagram and Facebook today for inspirational cacao recipes and don’t forget to sign up for our next cacao challenge starting on 15 November – it’s the perfect way to get through lockdown and it’s free to join!
With Love & Gratitude,
