Anxiety I often offset with significant amounts of CBD (a $100/month expense).
Foods containing rosemary, sage and dill are some things I find helpful with anxiety. Also licorice with real licorice extract.
Foods containing rosemary, sage and dill are some things I find helpful with anxiety. Also licorice with real licorice extract.
Another effective herb for anxiety would be holy basil or tulsi. Easy to grow everywhere. Leaving a few leaves of holy basil in a copper container overnight and having a few sips in the morning on an empty stomach is my old grandmother’s remedy/morning ritual. Later when I started growing holy basil at the farm, one of the herbalist who bought from me said that the copper vessel has something to do with enhancing bio availability of chromium and other trace minerals in holy basil.
Other stress reducing adaptogen herbs that are a tad uncommon(and need herbalist guidance), ashwagandha and rhodiola. I can grow the former but not the latter in CA. Maca too is said to have a balancing effect on adrenals and thereby reducing stress and related anxiety.
Of course, there is always lavender. My favorite.
If you want to go the herbal route I think commonly used herbs with more of a medical precedent could be useful like:
- Garlic - Ginseng - Green Tea - Aloe Vera - Ginger - Chamomile
[1] Singh, S., Majumdar, D. K., and Rehan, H. M. Evaluation of anti-inflammatory potential of fixed oil of Ocimum sanctum (Holybasil) and its possible mechanism of action. J Ethnopharmacol. 1996;54(1):19-26
Rosemary has good anti inflammation properties and it’s proven. However turmeric is superior to rosemary and CBD even better. But rosemary and turmeric* can be easily incorporated in food. Garlic is also good.
One must be careful with rosemary(don’t ingest ‘Rosemary tea’ etc..high in volatiles. you will likely end up with a headache or throw up)..but because it has mild to moderate vasodilation properties, it is excellent for circulation issues tho’ especially when applied topically. I want to say that rosemary’s efficiency is more due to it being a rubefacient rather than a powerful anti inflammatory. Example: you are better off using rosemary infused oil for massaging your scalp than ingesting a cup of even mild rosemary tea. The former application will greatly improve circulation to head as the oil topically works better and has less side effects.
Ditto with arnica..arnica gel is better than arnica tincture or herb for internal use. They are useful for hematomas and bruising. But will cause internal bruising and bleeding/inhibit clotting factor when taken internally or applied over an open wound or cut or used subcutaneously. Topical application? It’s golden!
*anecdote: when I was growing up, one of the home herbal lores I heard was how every mother needs three things: turmeric, holy basil and neem. So every home has neem in the front of the house, a basil shrine at the back(hence ‘holy’. It’s similar to elderberry. If something is ‘holy’, one never over harvests it and will keep propagating the plant species). The turmeric used to hang around the woman’s neck or the dried rhizomes given as gifts. Similarly on the kitchen, for food: Ginger, black pepper and long pepper.
I used to work as a chef and trained classical French. I gave a couple of classes to non indian chefs about loading up spice boxes. A typical spice box(South Indian. It differs regionally) will have seven compartments. cumin, coriander seeds, dried red chilies, turmeric, fenugreek seeds, fennel and cardamom. They are all medicinal. This is all you need in small quantities every day. It’s more effective in food everyday with a pinch here and there 2-3x/day. not as much when taken as capsules or a high medicinal dose sporadically. Herbs and spices don’t act like pharmaceutical doses. You have to think of them as preventative therapies rather than curative ones. Asafoetida goes separately in another shelf and clad in multiple layers of metal as does saffron because they are volatile and delicate+expensive respectively. There is another set of tempering seeds but my system was to use one box for flavoring spices and another for tempering.
From the FDA [2]:
"If you’re 40 or older, eating 2 ounces of black licorice a day for at least two weeks could land you in the hospital with an irregular heart rhythm or arrhythmia."
[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/rare-case-of-black-l...
[2]: https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/black-licoric...