Author: waldoherbs

Botanical Name – Leonurus cardiaca

Family: Lamiaceae

Energetics: cool, dry, relaxant

Taste: bitter, aromatic, acrid

Parts used: leaves and flowers

Affinities: cardiovascular and nervous systems

Actions: nervine, sedative, emmenagogue, cardiac tonic and antispasmodic, diaphoretic, digestive

Preparations: tea, tincture, oil infusion, vinegar infusion

Cautions: Generally regarded as safe. May have some interactions with heart medications. Just pay extra attention to how you are feeling when you start working with motherwort. As an emmenagogue, it is probably best to avoid motherwort during menstruation if you are prone to heavy flow. It can, however, help bring on a period that is slow to start.

Therapeutic Uses:

• Motherwort can help you when you need to set healthy boundaries. If you are a person who is prone to always saying yes to everyone, motherwort can help you care for and protect yourself by helping you say “no”.
• As a cardiac tonic and antispasmodic, motherwort will help relax the heart muscle which is particularly useful for issues such as heart murmur, palpitations, and angina. It is also a gentle vasodilator helping lower blood pressure and allowing blood to flow better. 
• As a cooling diaphoretic, motherwort will help cool you down when heat has risen due to anxiety, heart issues, stress, or just hot weather. As a nervine and sedative, motherwort can help cool you down enough to get to sleep on hot, summer nights.
• A soothing nervine, motherwort helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system which is the “rest and digest” system. It will help calm anxiety, tension, nervousness, tension headaches, and can help with insomnia. It is particularly useful for helping you sleep through the night without waking up often. 
• It is a bitter herb which means it will help aid in digestion especially when the digestive issues are due to stress and tension.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.

Botanical Name: Ganoderma lucidum

Family: Ganodermataceae

Energetics: warm, dry, tonifying

Taste: bitter, salty, earthy, umami

Parts used: mushroom

Affinities: cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune systems

Actions: cardiac tonic, hypotensive, nervous tonic, parasympathetic nervous trophorestorative, immune modulator, adrenal tonic, adaptogen, antispasmodic, digestive, hepatic, anodyne

Preparations: tea, decoction, tincture, capsule, soup

Cautions: Generally regarded as safe for all ages. 

Therapeutic Uses:

• As a nervous system tonic, reishi has the ability to build up a weakened nervous system, particularly the parasympathetic or rest and digest system.
• Reishi can help repair damaged adrenals helping the body cope with stress better and more effectively.
• As an immune modulator, reishi will either bolster up a weakened immune system or relax an overactive immune system.
• Reishi is a cardiac tonic that will help repair and strengthen the nerves of the heart. It also helps with blood clotting and lowers blood pressure.
• Reishi is extremely helpful for dealing with high altitudes and altitude sickness. It helps with oxygen uptake when the air is thin. It’s best to start taking reishi at least a couple of weeks before traveling to high altitudes.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.

Botanical Name – Glycyrrhiza glabra

Family: Fabaceae

Energetics: warm, moist, relaxant

Taste: sweet

Parts used: root

Affinities: gastrointestinal system, adrenals, liver

Actions: demulcent, antitussive, expectorant, emollient, adaptogen, cortisol fixative, stomachic, digestive, harmonizer

Preparations: tea, tincture, syrup, candy

Cautions: Generally regarded as safe for all ages. Licorice increases aldosterone, which can raise blood pressure. If you have high blood pressure, it is best not to take high doses of licorice and to use it in formulation not on its own.

Therapeutic Uses:

• A sweet demulcent, licorice is an excellent herb for people with dry constitutions. It can also help to balance out a formulation that is drying.
• Licorice is an excellent herb to add to a blend for hydrating a dry GI tract. If your stool tends to be dry and hard to pass, licorice can help with this issue.
• Licorice helps repair a dry, damaged liver.
• For dry, unproductive coughs, licorice helps calm the cough and moisten things up so that you can actually cough up what your body is trying to get rid of (phlegm that contains the bad stuff your body is trying to expel).
• For adrenal fatigue, licorice is excellent for restoring balance and making the adrenals happy.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.

Botanical Name – Crataegus oxyacantha, C. monogyna, C. laevigata

Family: Rosaceae

Energetics: cool, dry, tonifying

Taste: sweet, sour, astringent

Parts used: berries, leaves, flowers

Affinities: cardiovascular system

Actions: cardiac tonic, circulatory relaxant, hypotensive, cardiac trophorestorative, diuretic, nervine, digestive, vulnerary

Preparations: tea, tincture, food, honey infusion

Cautions: Generally regarded as safe for all ages. Because hawthorn is so effective as a heart tonic, it can sometimes interfere with prescription heart medication such as beta–blockers, calcium channel blockers, ACE inhibitors, digoxin. Just pay extra attention to how you are feeling and adjust as necessary.

Therapeutic Uses:

• Hawthorn helps the heart work more efficiently, increasing the amount of blood flow while decreasing the frequency of beats.
• As a cardiac tonic, hawthorn helps repair a damaged heart (emotionally and physically). The increased blood flow brings nutrients and oxygen and hauls off dead and damaged cells, metabolic waste, and just any natural detritus.
• Hawthorn is a trophorestorative for the heart which means it helps repair the heart and restore it to optimum health.
• This herb helps to restore homeostasis to blood flow meaning it can decrease blood pressure if that’s what you need, or it can increase blood pressure when it’s low.
• Hawthorn can help lower the bad cholesterol and increase the good cholesterol.
• For emotional health, hawthorn is soothing to matters of the heart. When you feel like your emotional heart needs protection, hawthorn to the rescue. It will also help with feelings of restless anxiety or when you are feeling emotionally fragile.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.

Botanical Name – Zingiber officinale

Family: Zingiberaceae

Energetics: hot, dry, relaxant

Taste: aromatic, pungent

Parts used: rhizome

Affinities: digestive, circulatory, and reproductive systems

Actions: stimulant, carminative, rubefacient, diffusive, relaxant, antispasmodic, stomachic, antiemetic, anodyne, emmenagogue, diaphoretic

Preparations: tea, tincture, food, poultice, compress, honey infusion

Cautions: Generally regarded as safe for all ages. Please note that ginger has blood thinning properties. If you are on prescription blood thinners, don’t take ginger in large doses. Ginger is also an emmenagogue. Women with heavy menstrual flows may want to be cautious during their cycle. 

Therapeutic Uses:

• Ginger is excellent for most digestive issues. It will help get things moving when digestion is slow or sluggish. 
• Ginger is extremely useful for any type of nausea including nausea from chemotherapy, food poisoning, motion sickness, hangovers, migraine and morning sickness. I like to keep a jar of honeyed ginger in my fridge to chew on when a migraine is making me sick to my stomach. 
• Ginger helps promote sweating which can help detox the body. If I am sick or feeling like I might be coming down with something, I like to make a strong cup of ginger tea and pour it into my bathwater. Make sure to rinse off well after to wash off all of the bad stuff you just sweat out. 🙂
• As an emmenagogue, gingers warming actions can help soothe menstrual cramps and get things moving. It can also help bring on a sluggish period.
• Used topically, ginger helps get blood moving which is helpful for bruising, tight muscles, sprains, and strains. Not only does ginger help get blood moving which brings in nutrients to the area and move out the damaged cells, it is also an anodyne which means it will help ease pain. A ginger poultice or compress is great for this. Just shred up some fresh ginger, wrap it in a thin cloth, and place it directly on the affected area. You can warm it up if that feels better, but ginger is warming on its own, so you don’t really even need to warm it.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.

Botanical Name – Foeniculum vulgare

Family: Apiaceae (Umbelliferae)

Energetics: warm, moist, relaxant

Taste: aromatic, pungent, sweet

Parts used: seeds

Affinities: digestive system

Actions: carminative, cholagogue, choleretic, antispasmodic, galactagogue, anti-catarrhal, diuretic

Preparations: tea, tincture, food

Cautions: Generally regarded as safe for all ages.

Therapeutic Uses:

• Fennel is a warming herb that helps slow, sluggish digestion. It helps to dispel gas and bloating and is useful for colic in children.
• Helps the body process and digest fat so is a particularly useful herb when creating fatty meals.
• It helps improve liver function and is useful for gout and jaundice.
• It thins mucus making it easier dispel which is useful for bronchitis and colds as well as IBS when there is a lot of mucus present in the digestive system.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.

Botanical Name: Symphytum officinale, S. x uplandicum

Family: Boraginaceae

Energetics: cool, moist, tonifying

Taste: salty, astringent, bitter (this doesn’t really matter, because comfrey should not be taken internally)

Parts used: aerial parts, roots

Affinities: mucosal & integumentary tissues, respiratory system

Actions: demulcent, astringent, vulnerary, expectorant, antispasmodic, anti–catarrhal, anti-rheumatic, anodyne, refrigerant, cell proliferant

Preparations: infusion, poultice, decoction, hydrosol, oil infusion

Cautions: Comfrey should not be taken internally, and long-term usage is not recommended.

Therapeutic Uses:

• Extremely effective as a wound healer as it helps any tissue that needs to be knit back together. However, because it is so proficient at this, it is not recommended for puncture wounds or any wound where infection might still be lurking.
• Comfrey is also excellent for healing burns due to its cooling and demulcent properties.
• When made into a salve, comfrey is extremely effective for use on cuts, scrapes, strains, sprains, burns, stings, and bone breaks.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.

**This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any illness or disease. It is for educational purposes only.