Discover Plants
Plants for mental health
Mood Health
Support your mood or alleviate anxiety with plants
While many seek the quick fix, I find plants work gently and on many levels. Don't rush out for the strong 'plant medicine experience' - I feel there is great and sustainable healing in the subtler allies. Each day, I'm trying to engage and forge relationships with plants and with my own heart and the world around me. It's not all a linear journey of improvement but attuning to plants in a different way has helped. "...the body responds in an emotional way to the plant medicine they're taking' Some wise words: "It's one thing to get caught up in the physiological, phytochemical, and biological side of herbal medicines... herbs have this awesome underlying "energetic" aspect that touches on emotional states that is much less tangible than, say, xyz herb's effect on ______. This is something that you get to know in a plant after you've been friends/allies for a while." 'When analysing pharmaceutical medications, we generally discuss their therapeutic actions, chemical properties, and possible side effects. Many people approach medicinal herbs in the same manner. I think this is shortsighted, however, because plants interact with and nourish us on many levels–nutritional, medicinal, cultural, emotional, and psycho-spiritual. Beyond the dominant "this for that" pharmaceutical paradigm lies plant medicine, which aims to support the whole self: mind, body, and spirit. Herbal medicines are vital forces that, when used intentionally ... help us heal and evolve. Much of the way we feel emotionally lies in the beliefs we hold about ourselves and our world, including the many norms and assumptions built into our culture and reinforced by our medical system. Expanding one's consciousness to consider a different, integrative approach to healing is itself part of the medicine." - Anita Teigen "...my hope is to help people to shift their conception of what it means to “take herbs”. Instead of simply seeing them as another substance to take to feel better, I like to think of herbs as potential healing allies. That means the process of getting to know an herb takes on a much deeper level of importance. Growing herbs that you take, gathering them in the wild, sifting your hands through dried herbs, smelling their aroma in a garden or in a tea, seeing the beauty of plants and trees in nature, honoring what they have to give by giving thanks are all ways of developing a friendship with a plant. Through that process of developing a “friendship”, there is a greater potential for transformation and loosening the blockages that contribute to dis-ease. Whether you are experiencing depression, insomnia, anxiety, confusion or extreme mental states, that alliance with specific plants becomes the foundation for the healing journey. Those friendships will help bring you home. In essence, the process of connecting with herbs and incorporating them in your daily life becomes more important than the specific result an herb will produce chemically in the body. The process is more important than the result." - Jon Keyes |
Other concerns
Evidence based research for other conditions
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