Common and Accessible Herbs for Stress and Anxiety | Plant-Based | Well+Good

Hi, I'm Rochelle, an herbalist, the founder of Supernatural, and today I'm going to talk to you about herbs for anxiety. Stress and anxiety are the most common combined symptom that I treat and see and receive requests for herbal remedies for, and it's been that way for years. Herbs are a great way to treat stress and anxiety in a holistic way, either safely with medication or in place of medication. Herbs have personalities just like people, and when we sort of introspect and reflect and unearth how anxiety manifests for us specifically, we can then find the plant that is perfectly suited to treat it. So the first thing that I recommend for people when we're treating anxiety with herbs is to get really specific about the symptoms, understand where in the body, what time of day, how often, any other sort of environmental factors that may be contributing, and then we look at, always first, diet and lifestyle. And then we probably look at adaptogens and nervines, and nervines or nervines are herbs that I think most people need. Most people think they need adaptogens. I think nervines are where it's at for anxiety. Nervines are herbs that work more acutely than adaptogens, so more quickly, immediately, kind of on the spot, and also over time with a cumulative effect. I would say the most common five and the most sort of broadly effective five are lavender, chamomile, oat, passion flower, and lemon balm. Lavender is my absolute favorite nervine. It is the plant for peace. It is something that I recommend more and more often. Lavender actually shares a terpene with cannabis and many other plants. That terpene is called linalool, and linalool is partially responsible for lavender being antidepressant, muscle-relaxing, mood-lifting, it's also antioxidant. Some herbs will lift us out of the darkness kind of above normal, and that would be sort of an antidepressant action. Lavender takes us to a place of peace, so it's much more neutral, it's much more balanced, and I love it for just about anybody who's experiencing stress or anxiety. The other nice thing about lavender is you can use it in so many different forms. So it's beautiful in tea, you can use it as a tincture, there are capsules of lavender, essential oil is something I think we've all used lavender for, the list goes on and on. Chamomile is a wonderful nervine for fussiness and irritability and especially gastrointestinal issues. So if stress is giving you an upset stomach, chamomile can help with both the stress anxiety and also the upset stomach. Passionflower is a plant that we use a lot of times for daytime anxiety relief, especially for the type of anxiety that manifests as a monkey mind or recursive thoughts, that thinking that just doesn't quit. Passionflower works really well in blends with other nervines. Oat is a phenomenal plant with lots of different parts that are used and the most medicinal part for our nervous system is the milky oat top. Herbalists think of oat as nourishment for the nervous system. It's high in vitamins, minerals, especially B vitamins which tend to be helpful for people with anxiety. It's considered a food for the nervous system. Oat is one of herbalism's favorite herbs for overreactive people. So if anxiety is making you jumpy or sort of fried, you've exerted all of your energy, then oat can help to restore and nourish you back to normalcy. All right, and lastly, we have lemon balm. So lemon balm for me is partial sunlight. It is a gentle mood lift, so more of an antidepressant than, say, lavender is. And lemon balm, I think, is another one that is really wonderful to have in a tea form because it's so beautiful to just sip and smell and also essential oil. Okay, so I'm going to show you how to make tea two different ways, featuring all of my favorite nervenes. So here we have oat. And I like to use a big pitcher like you see here or a mason jar is perfect. And I always recommend just kind of filling the bottom of the container. It's an approximate science. So that was our oat. This is our chamomile. Just doing a few scoops of each. This is our passion flower, each. And for the passion flower and the oat, it is always helpful to look at herb shops, farmer's markets, sometimes places like Whole Foods or health food stores. I mean, health food stores will generally have these herbs. My favorite is to try to support local herbalists or farmers in your area who grow these plants. So this was our lemon balm. I could smell that lemon. And then last but not least, our favorite, the lavender. And for the lavender, I like to do a little bit less actually because it's so potent. Just do like one and a half scoop where before I did have three or four scoops. So the bottom of the container is just nicely filled here. Also speckling the outside because we have a little bit of static electricity. What I'll do now is fill it with tea hot water. So just under boiling. So beautiful. Give it a little stir here. And then putting a lid on. We put a lid on because all of those volatile oils I told you about will stay inside and then you can consume them instead of them evaporating. So to have this tea two ways, we will either let this steep for five to seven minutes, 10 minutes if you want, and then pour a little into a mug and call it a day. Or we'll let this steep overnight. And that is an overnight infusion. That is a medicinal strength tea. There are lots of different ways to call it, but it's just a way to really, really ensure that you're extracting all of the nutrients, all of the plant medicines, all of the volatile oils out of those herbs. And then you can strain it and drink it as a cup and store the rest in your fridge to have on demand. So this blend is almost identical to Supernatural's Nerveless blend. So if you don't want to deal with any of this, you can just grab a pre-made tea from our website. But if you like the beauty and the experience of getting to know the plants individually, this one's for you. Okay, so here we have our quick steep, our cup of peace. It smells like citrus and floral. Tastes like happiness. It's so mild and gentle. None of these plants have an overly strong flavor, which just means that this is something that you could sip all day long, and I highly recommend that you do. For more recipes, subscribe to Well and Good's YouTube channel. And for more herbalism, follow at RachelleRobinette on Instagram.