So I have some lemon balm and peppermint in my garden and we use it to make tea.

I really like the smell and aroma of lemon balm and if I look online, it mentions for example that lemon balm is used for relieving anxiety, stress and can improve cognitive function.

But how is this tested, how can people even tell?
Does it really have this effect? And what would happen if you drink a lot of it?

  • solo@slrpnk.netEnglish
    51·
    3 months ago

    For teas, the only thing I can tell for sure is that when I drink chamomile, I just fall asleep. For others, I am not the best person to tell because I drink tea rarely.

    Tinctures, I started making them just a few years back, so I’m a quite new, but I do use them all the time. So, tinctures can be used to eliminate a symptom (ex. take X tincture to break a fever). You can take tinctures to prevent stuff / balance your system, for me this is extremely important (ex. X tincture in lower dosage boosts immune system, so you take it during winter not to get a cold). If tincture X doesn’t work for you, maybe Y would or Z, so in a way the more you use them, the more you know about what works for you.

    And lets remember that the base of pharmaceutical medicines come from all the collected knowledge of the effects of plants for millenia. Consequently, there is a tone of scientific research on plants and herbal therapy. For example, here are several scientific articles about herbal therapy and multiple sclerosis. In the same time the scientific research is not enough because pharmaceutical companies prefer creating elements in the lab instead of harvesting them from plants.

    Personally, I use both western medicine and herbalism. I don’t trust herbalists who tell you not to go to the doctor and stuff like that. I don’t trust doctors blindly neither, because scientists can disagree on diagnoses, cures, approaches, etc. Appart from genuine disagreements, some love too much what the pharmaceuticals offer them. Herbalists have very different opinions, so if I dare say so, you have to formulate your own and allow it to evolve with time. There are a lot of amazing resources online for that. I use some resources relevant to where I live, and for more general info I like this site a lot: https://www.herbalreality.com/.

    • SolarBoy@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      31·
      3 months ago

      Thanks for your insights!

      I do find people to very much quickly grab certain medication or such when feeling bad. Like taking a pain-killer when they have a headache. I’ve never heard a person drinking like 2 liters of tea and taking it every day.

      • solo@slrpnk.netEnglish
        41·
        3 months ago

        I tend to agree with you about pain-killers, they can be a tricky thing. Sure, if you have a terible hangover and you take a pil every now and then, it’s one thing. Taking them often is another.

        If you don’t know why you feel the pain, it can be a totally different story, especially if the pain, discomfort, etc is reoccuring. Pain can be like an alert the body emmits to make you aware that something is wrong, and needs your attention. Shutting down the alert doesn’t fix the problem. On the contrary, pain-killers can make you ignore it until it’s too late for it to be fixed.

        With herbal medicine you first need to discover why you feel the pain and then try a few things in relation to the cause, not the symptom. If something works great, if not the solution is to go to the doctor to get examined. When (should I say if?) the docs tell you that you have this condition you can see what herbal medicine you can use to complement the suggested medical treatment, after talking about it with them. At least this is how I see things with what I learned so far.

        (I seldom write that much. it’s a topic that I find so fascinating and I haven’t thought about for a while, so thank you for reminding me. And now I stop, I promise! hahaha)

        • SolarBoy@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
          3·
          3 months ago

          Thanks for writing! I do agree it can be tricky.

          Perhaps that’s why I find myself avoiding medication and traditional medicine in general.

          My pain/discomfort is often recurring and does not have clear reasons (at least not to me) And I think it’s usually not because of a single reason, which makes it difficult to treat.

          So I could take one medication and it might actually help, but I would still feel bad because there are maybe other things still affecting me. That makes it feel like no medication helps. But the reality might just be complexer than that.