Empowering Your Family's Health w/ Herbal Medicine

In this episode you’ll learn about the important role of herbal medicine in the home and gain tips for getting started with using herbs in family healthcare. I shared some of my favorite herbs and how to use them for numerous ailments, specifically focusing on plantain, chamomile, and yarrow.

Herbalism requires a respect for nature and sustainability when sourcing herbs. This is also a gentle reminder about the need for safety and professional medical advice when using herbs, particularly in relation to potential allergies, contraindications with existing medications, and treating specific symptoms or illnesses. 

Find what you need here:

00:04 Introduction to Herbal Medicine
00:20 The Importance of Herbal Medicine
02:00 Understanding the Risks of Herbal Medicine
03:18 The Power of Plantain
08:35 The Benefits of Chamomile
10:58 Exploring the Uses of Yarrow
16:08 The Role of Herbal Medicine in Family Health
16:43 Upcoming Events and Classes

For full show notes, transcripts, and all that jazz, head to: https://www.theherbalistspath.com/blog 

If you’re ready to dive deeper in your herbal  medicine studies, join us inside the Apothecary Momma Herbal Mentorship right here: 

And, be sure to join us at the Holistically Healthy Family Summit

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Transcript

Introduction to Herbal Medicine

Well, hello and thank you so much for being here, listening to another episode on the Herbalist Path. I absolutely love that you are tuning in. And on today's episode, I just wanted to chat about like.  

The Importance of Herbal Medicine

Why it's so important to bring herbal medicine into your home. Give some tips for getting started using herbalism with your family and just help you along, maybe share a few of my favorite herbs and how I like to use them.

They're basically herbs that I think that every single family really needs to have on hand or can find. Super duper easily, and for those of you that are new to the show, hi. I am Mel. I am a clinical herbalist. I am an herbal product formulator. I am I am a mom who can't talk all the time.  I am also an herbal educator and I just really, really love helping to inspire a movement where there is an herbalist in every home.

Again, I think it's really, really important because herbal medicine is. Incredibly powerful. It can also be very gentle. It can heal in so many different ways from mental and spiritual and physical health, and it's beautiful. I love the connection that it helps people create to Mother Nature, which can absolutely be calming in and of itself.

It is. Wonderful. When you learn how to grow and craft your own remedies for your family, so you're not relying on the stuff on drugstore shelves anymore, that is like this ultimate empowering feeling. And while herbal remedies, these plants, they are natural. They are beautiful.  Natural is not. 

Understanding the Risks of Herbal Medicine

Always synonymous with safe, although many, many people feel that it is, oh, it's natural.

It's totally okay, but that's not true. Like we could think about different doses that may be too much for your littles, or maybe it's the wrong herb. Maybe they've got an allergy to that herb. Maybe it's not the herb for the particular symptom that that child has Maybe. Somebody is on medications and there's an herb that might be contraindicated with medication.

So those things being said, like it's important when you're looking at like root cause healing of chronic illness and disease, that you do work with a healthcare practitioner or spend hours and hours and hours doing the studies that it takes to truly know and understand this stuff in great depth.  But that being said, I'm not trying to like scare you away from using herbal remedies in your family.

Like I'm here to empower you to do it, but to also empower you to do it in a very safe and intelligent way. Because gosh, you can do so much when it comes to healing and first aid and colds and flu and tummy aches, and really all of the things once you start getting your key herbs for every mama's toolkit.

So that's kinda what I want to do. 

The Power of Plantain

Now is talk about some of my favorites and I think one that always brings me so much joy to talk about is everywhere, and that's part of why I love talking about it, because it's this very common weed that is found in sidewalk cracks. It's found on the sides of the road.

It's at the playground. It's in all the places that you need it to be like when in doubt. Plantain. Yes. Plantain is the herb. I am not talking about the bananas. Like, you know, the plantain kind of, I believe they come from Central America. Those kinds of bananas. I am talking about a weed. It's a tiny little like green leaf lead leaf, green leaf.

We, and.  The more common one that's used is Plantago Major. There is Plantago  Lanciolata. If you were to look at them together, you would never guess that they are family members, but they absolutely are, and they can be used mostly interchangeably.  And it's just nice again that these are so readily available because as more people start to use herbal medicine and get into the world of wildcrafting or start growing their own medicine, the wildcrafting is a, is a beautiful experience.

But sadly, a lot of people in our society are unbelievably greedy. And when they hear that like this potent medicine can be harvested in the wild. They suddenly go out and like take it all without any consideration for future generations. So I dove much deeper in a podcast episode with one of my first herbal teachers, Scott Close where we talked about regenerative wildcrafting.

That's totally not what I'm here to talk about today. So if you wanna go tune into that, definitely do. But I wanted to bring that up because plantain is one of those herbs that you could pick. All the plantain you want for days and days and days and days, and you're never gonna like make plantain go away. 

Like your neighbors probably hate it. They're pulling it outta their garden beds. It's obnoxious weed to them. They wanna spray Roundup or any other kind of nasty stuff on it. And I encourage you to maybe go out and educate them after this episode on why they wanna keep it around, why this is great medicine.

And speaking of that, why don't I tell you why it's great medicine? There's quite a few reasons. There's many, many reasons. It's actually one of the first herbs we did inside of Apothecary Mama for the Herb of the month where we like do a deep dive study and like talk about the different ways that you can use one herb.

'cause there are so many.  Anyways, plantain. I think its greatest claim to fame, like if you've used plantain, you have probably used it for bug bites or bee stings or some type of rash, or really all the itchy skin things is what it's good for, which heck, yeah, we need that. Right. And then so you can like just mash it up with a rock you can chew on it, provided your neighbor's dog didn't pee on it, or there's no pesticides from that neighbor.

All of those will work really, really well. And then you just put it on the sting or the bite and you will be blown away how quickly the pain goes away and how quickly like any redness or itchiness or inflammation might go away. Like what an absolute incredible. Gift that is provided by this stuff, it's, it's so amazing. 

I also love to use plantain for gut health. It is really great at regenerating different mucosal tissues, and so it can come in and help, like when somebody has leaky gut or something along those lines. It can help heal and repair the damaged gut wall, those leaky little, perforations really, that are happening in the gut lining.

Of course, that's, you know, you're not gonna just be like, oh, I took plantain and my leaky gut is gone. You've gotta get rid of what's causing the inflammation and causing all of the problems. So once you do that, then you can bring something like plantain on and have amazing, amazing effects from it. I have used plantain to draw out splinters.

I have used it to draw out like this giant blackberry thorn that was lodged in the back of my leg once. I use it for sore throats and coughs, things along those lines. So like when it's a drier, raspy, sore throat, I will absolutely turn to plantain cuts and scrapes. Plantain, like it was kind of like a little saying in my family, when in doubt, plantain it out.

Like I'll use a plantain oil on a sunburn or a rash, or something along those. Slides, plantain is amazing. And it's like sitting there looking at you in your sidewalk cracks or wherever, just saying, Hey, here, I'm, I'm here for you to pick me. I am your medicine. You can take me.  And the other cool thing is you can, like, you can eat it.

I will, I don't really recommend eating like the older leaves, right? They get kinda rough and, and yucky. But you could absolutely add the younger leaves to your salad. That's definitely a great way to get it into the gut. Nice plantain tea. It works wonders. I just, I have a huge, huge, huge love for plantain and I hope that you develop one too. 

The Benefits of Chamomile

So another herb I wanted to talk about today is chamomile. Have you heard of it? It was, it's actually, this is January that I'm recording this and it's the herb of the month inside of Apothecary Mama right now. And most people think of chamomile and they're like, oh yeah, it's a sleepy time herb. Which, you know, it's not bad for but this beautiful, delicious.

Super powerful plant does so much more than just be a sleepy time herb, for instance.  Chamomile is amazing. If you've got a colicky baby who's got lots of gas or a kiddo with a tummy ache or anything along those lines, it can work wonders. Diarrhea, it has both mucilaginous, so like cooling coating properties, yet it's also going to help absorb some of the extra moisture by some mild astringent properties that it has.

It's going to ease the cramping that might come along with diarrhea or those tummy upsets. So it's what's called an anti-spasmodic, so it helps the smooth muscle tissue of the digestive tract to not cramp up so much. And it's really, really beautiful in that way. I have used chamomile quite successfully for pink eye or conjunctivitis or various. 

Eye inflammatory conditions. It's really wonderful for that. You can use it for a hair wash or hair rinse. You could use chamomile for cuts and scrapes, right? You could use it to cool inflammation on red hot skin. You can use it in a tea, you can use it in a salve. You can use it wherever you have got access to it.

Sorry, getting a little cheesy there. It happens  when you're me. I, I definitely suffer from cheesy itis. So anyways, I absolutely love chamomile and it is absolutely one of my daughter's favorites as well. It is a superhero herb for children dealing with anxiety.  It can really help calm their nerves.

Same with parents. So that is a really, really lovely way to bring more chamomile into your life, and it's absolutely a nerve that you should keep as a staple in your home, right? Definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely. Unless you're allergic to the Asteraceae or the Daisy family, then you might not want to.

Exploring the Uses of Yarrow

So the other herb I wanna talk about tonight or today, whenever you are listening to this, is Yarrow or Achillea. Millifolia. And yarrow is another herb that grew, grows quite abundantly, at least it does, where I live in the foothills of Mount Hood. In Oregon. And it grows quite a few other places if it does not grow in the wild for you.

It is simple to grow in your garden as well. It's a beautiful plant and it has these like long kind of feathery leaves that are so neat and just a beautiful like. Almost like an umbil of white, lovely little flowers, and the smell of yarrow is absolutely wonderful. I will say the smell for me is better with the stuff I gather up in the mountains than it is with the stuff that I grow, but it's still nice to have it just like right there.

So I have used Yarrow many a times to avoid trips to the emergency room when somebody may have gashed themselves open and might be bleeding all over the place. That is one of Yarrow's amazing claims to fame is that it can help stop bleeding, which is super neat, especially if you're like me and you like to go camping and somebody is cutting broccoli for dinner and cuts their thumb instead.

It's really nice to know that you have yarrow around the campground. So like every time I go camping, I'm immediately searching for the yarrow, I'm searching for the plantain. And any other plant friends that I know that I might be able to use in an emergency situation that are just hanging out there, waiting for somebody to see them and waiting for somebody to know that they are great, great medicine that can really, really help somebody in an emergency situation.

And I think one of the great benefits to Yarrow when it comes to those cuts, right? Like I'm talking big cuts where like, I'm sorry for the graphics, but like blood is like squirting, right? I have stopped that blood. Well, the plant, the yarrow has stopped the blood from Squirting in those particular scenarios, but it's also got antimicrobial properties, so that means it can fight off bacteria.

Right. It can also fight off viruses and it can fight off fungal infections, but oftentimes what happens when we have an opening in our skin by a cut bacteria are like, oh yeah, there's an opening. Let's jump into the door and go make a party happen. And that's where infections  come along. So when we have an herb that we're using inside of there. 

That is one, stopping the bleeding from happening, but also fighting off potential bacteria like that is a double, triple whammy win. It also helps with the skin cell regeneration, so it's going to make that whole cut heal faster than it would without the yarrow, like how diggity-duck. How could you not want more of that?

Another reason it's great to have in any kind of mama's toolkit is because yarrow is what's called a diaphoretic herb. So a diaphoretic herb helps your body to release heat by promoting sweating, right? So you release heat from your skin through perspiration and a diaphoretic herb such as yarrow can really, really help during those times.

And I will say like a fever is not something that you really want to fight all of the time. It is something that is a beautifully beneficial process of the immune system, for instance, when a fever is happening. So what it's doing is the body is raising temperatures to make it a less friendly environment for the viruses or the bacteria causing the illness.

It's also upping your antibody production by 20 times like that is so freaking cool. But there does does come a time when you might be like, okay, over the fever, let's just cut this-ish and make it done. And in times. Excuse me. In times like those, that is when you want to look to something like Yarrow, which you could do in a nice, simple tea or, you know, make your kiddo some yummy popsicles with some blueberries and strawberries and all that good stuff and spinach and yarrow tea. That would be really, really great. And then one other cool thing I want to talk about with Yarrow is like, this is a brilliant plant and I am not joking. Like it is so smart.

Not only can it stop people from bleeding. If you are a woman who's dealing with stuck menses and like you have not bled in a few months, you're not pregnant, you're not in menopause, and you're just like, what's going on? Because like that's part of our cycle. It's a very natural part of our cycle. You may wanna turn to yarrow. 

It will actually help promote that flow of blood and stuck menses to get unstuck. So.  Pretty cool to just understand like your plant allies that are really easy to grow or really easy to harvest in the wild that have so many different medicinal properties to them, right? Like it's super duper cool. You can make them into teas.

Some of them will be better as tinctures for various purposes.  Some are great with. A glycerite, which is a little bit of a sweeter herbal preparation that kiddos tend to like a lot more. You can use some of them topically. Poultices can go a long way. 

The Role of Herbal Medicine in Family Health

Like there is just so much that you can do with plant medicine that will empower you. 

So many incredible ways to not have to run to the hospital, to not have to run to the doctor, to be like, oh, I got this. My plant friends and I are here and we're gonna take care of our family. It's, it's really a beautiful, beautiful feeling to do. Like, I've been doing this for quite a few years and now I get to watch all these other moms learn how to do it and just be like, oh my gosh, those plants actually worked.

And their minds are blown and it is. Such a beautiful thing to see. 

Upcoming Events and Conclusion

And if you wanna be one of those moms, you can could consider joining us inside of Apothecary Mama. So that's my herbal mentorship that I have, obviously for moms. And it is where we dive really deep on all of these topics. There are mini lessons about all the ailments from pregnancy to emptying the nest.

There's live Q&A's two times a month. There is a deep dive workshop with me once a month. There's a deep dive workshop with a guest teacher once a month. Actually, today we had an amazing guest teacher. Her name is Dr. Julia Britz, and she's a naturopathic physician who specializes in. Psychiatric care and helping people get off their psych meds and she's amazing.

Go follow her on Instagram. I wanna say it's at Dr. Julia Britz. She's super fun, she's super brilliant and she's doing incredible work. She is also going to be a speaker at my upcoming summit, the Holistically Healthy Family Summit. I've been working hard behind the scenes with me and my team to put this together and we're.

So excited. We are bringing together twenty-seven amazing natural healthcare specialists, whether it's massage therapy, breath work, naturopathic physicians, dentists, pharmacists all kinds of amazing powerhouse people coming to teach you many different ways that you can use natural healing modalities in your family.

So that is coming up on February twenty-seventh through March 1st. I will put a little link in the show notes for you to either depending on when you're listening to this, either get on the wait list or go ahead and sign up and join us inside of the event. The event is totally free. We also have an amazing upgrade to the natural family Toolkit, which comes with like.

Quite a few thousands of dollars of bonus courses, eBooks, memberships, and just really everything you need for your Natural Family Toolkit, right.  Anyways that's what's coming up. That's what's going down. That is what's happening around Herbalist Path Town. I hope this episode was helpful for you, whether you are brand new to the world of herbal medicine or if you've been doing this stuff for a bit of time, like hopefully you learned something new about one of the herbs I talked about, and if you did. 

I would love to hear from you. You can shoot me a DM over on Instagram at the Herbalist path. Same thing with TikTok. You can, you can check it out on TheHerbalistPath.com and leave me a message or you know, all those things I'm around, check out the Herbalist path. I would love, love, love to hear from you.

And if this is helpful for you, maybe you think it's helpful for a friend of yours, I would love it if you shared it with them. So thanks again for tuning in and listening to me talk about herbs. 'cause I like doing that.  You go out and have an amazing day. I hope you go embrace some time in nature, whether it's rainy, snowy, icy, sunny, what can you, what have you?

Go outside and enjoy. Thanks again for tuning in. Bye.