Good morning everyone! I have a special announcement to make before we start today’s essay.

For some time, I have been wanting Willow Rose to become something more than simply my thoughts on Women’s health. I envision one day maybe even sending out seasonal issues of a physical magazine, rich with beautiful art, photos, and writing on different aspects of health by different writers.

As many of you who’ve been following me for some time know, my daughter has been creating the art for Willow Rose for several years. You’ll be seeing more of her art soon as she is currently working on several pieces for me. And today, my dear friend is joining me as a regular contributor on Willow Rose.

Please give Meghan a warm welcome. She is a Doula, Childbirth Educator, Forest School Practitioner, Reiki Master, Author, and a Herbalist Apprentice as well as a counselling student. Her website is Ancient Wisdom and I am so excited that she’s agreed to join me and share her wisdom and thoughts with all of us here.

Meghan brings a new voice, fresh perspective and unique experience to Willow Rose. We’ll be working on new articles and essays together, and she will also be contributing some pieces as well. To start, I’ve asked her to do a mini-series on relationships.

Recently, I’ve talked about teen health, both for girls and boys; developmental, physical, emotional, and mental. As I’ve mentioned before, healthy relationships are a foundational part of a strong and healthy life.

Nurturing Our Self

by Meghan Duffield

While I began to conceptualize this article, I was simultaneously preparing to officiate a marriage ceremony. The theme of the ceremony is ‘awe and wonder’ in relation to union and relationship. It seemed to me, at the time, the article and this ceremony could share the same theme. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that to begin this series of articles, it didn’t feel right exploring ‘relationships’, unless I began by exploring ‘relationship’ with oneself.

This is where I feel inspired to begin. The relationship with ‘Self’ IS the most valuable of all, and certainly the most important. Our being/becoming sets a path before us of limitless possibility, provided we are committed to having a whole-hearted, mind/body/spirit connection with ourselves.

We explore our capacity, and how to expand it. We learn to acknowledge our window of tolerance. How to become expansive and curious; mindful of our space holding, and occupation of spaces. The occupation of our bodies, and our body image.

Are we cultivating a state of harmonious being within our vessel, or just occupying it? As we grow, so does our lived experience. What can we carry forward, what can we adapt or adopt?

The question remains. How does the relationship we have with ourselves impact our relationship with others?

Who are you?
Where do you come from?
What are your beliefs and values?
What does your relationship look like with ‘Self’?
How have the relationships throughout your life shaped who you are ‘right now’?

It is my belief that in order to cultivate, nurture, attend, attune, we need to know ourselves. We need to love and value the whole ‘Self’ as sacred, without judgment or conditions, or shame. I encourage you to be open-hearted and forgiving, as we navigate this one life.

We all too often look to the security of relationships without anchoring within. In order to maintain a deep and meaningful relationship with another, we must first build a foundation of safety, security and stability within ourselves. Are we in a place on our personal journey to offer these crucial pieces to another, if we can’t yet provide for ‘Self’?

It’s not about being ‘perfect’, we are imperfect. We are human beings figuring it out along the way. It’s about being capable and self aware. If we struggle with self regulation, how do we seek out resources and tools to maintain the balance of our ever - pendulating spectrum? It brings to mind the habitual tendency to project our feelings and needs onto another in order to feel ‘held’. We look to others to lick our wounds, and this is unto itself a wound.

What is our level of resistance as we seek to find deep and meaningful relationships? Are we able to offer ourselves 1% more grace, tenderness, and permission? Normalize having difficult conversations. Normalize positive self talk and embrace our tender hearts with compassion.

In order to build a co-regulating practice, we must first build a foundation of self regulation.

Be mindful of positive affect - the noticing of small manageable moments. A walk, a cup of tea, while enjoying your own company. The wonder and awe of a walk, independent exploration, expansion, mindfulness, Allowing for the ‘pause’, the spaces between that can only be felt. Places of reflection and growth. Invite curiosity into your life, whether joy or pleasure or pain or sorrow.

Invite vulnerability, in all of its uncertainty. Vulnerability enables emotional openness.

The love of ‘Self’ will create the framework for the deep and meaningful relationships we seek to find. The very necessary connection with the world around us, with the natural world, with each other. The bravery and courage to surrender to love and trust, in safe, shared spaces.

We can reshape, reframe, rewrite our story. We are the sacredness we seek, we are the main character, we are capable of blissful joy, passion, love and connection. We have to work for it though, and it’s worth it.

Last month I wrote about supporting the health of teenage girls. Although puberty looks different for boys and girls, much of the foundation is similar. Both are building brains, bones, immune systems, emotional resilience, identities, and lifelong health habits.

My son is now in his mid-teens, and while he towers over me, he still needs my support as a mother and mentor. Over the past couple of years I’ve noticed how easily video games and a sedentary lifestyle can creep into the teen years. Teens nowadays don’t seem to have a lot of physical hangout places (especially in rural Canada in the winter) and so their hangout places are often online, gaming with friends. I’m not against gaming - I’ll talk in more detail about that later. But how can we help our teens - and in this article, particularly our teen boys - develop the capacities and vitality they need to be healthy, capable, resilient adults?

This question sent me on a search for more information about men’s health, and particularly teen boy health. I found much of the information online (especially on social media) is focused around what’s been called “Bro Science”: intense supplementation stacks, and a focus on testosterone levels and specific diets and exercise plans. What’s harder to find is how to support a teen boy so he can become the best possible version of his adult self.

I don’t believe the goal of adolescent health is to optimize hormones or maximize performance. It is far more important to create the conditions in which healthy physical, mental, and emotional development can occur naturally. What’s important for our teen boys as they navigate this period of development? Let’s take a look:

Sleep

Sleep is the most foundational part of health. I know I’ve stated this in many articles before, but it is difficult to underestimate the necessity of enough sleep. For teens it becomes even more difficult to get adequate sleep since the demands of an adult-like schedule for school times don’t line up with a teens natural circadian rhythm.

Insufficient sleep can increase the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, injuries, poor mental health, attention problems, behaviour problems. Having enough sleep is associated with improved attention, concentration, learning, emotional well-being, and academic performance1.

Sleep is not passive rest. It is an active biological process during which the adolescent brain consolidates learning, regulates emotion, supports growth, repairs tissues, strengthens immunity, and prepares the body to meet the demands of the next day.

“Adolescent sleep loss poses a serious risk to the physical and emotional health, academic success, and safety of our nation’s youth.”2

Nutrition

Adolescence is recognized as one of the most nutritionally demanding periods of life, second only to infancy. A teenager’s body is not simply maintaining itself, it is actively building an adult. Nutrition is the raw material for that process.

With the prevalence of social media in our world today, many teenagers, both boys and girls, are exposed to messages about losing weight, getting lean, six-packs, avoiding carbohydrates, intermittent fasting, and cutting calories. None of these are a healthy way to look at nutrition for a teen. A teenager is not a small adult, they are building an adult body. As parents, we need to ask the question: Does my teenage son have enough resources to finish growing well3?

Calories are not the enemy for teen boys (calories are not the enemy for anyone, but that’s a post for another day). Calories are simply energy. What matters is how much nutrition the calories contain.

“Adolescence is not a time to ask how little a growing body can thrive on; it is one of the last great opportunities to provide the nutrients needed to build a healthy adult4.”

A growing teenager’s body needs enough high-quality raw materials to complete one of the fastest periods of development in the human lifespan. Teen boys need good quality dietary sources (not necessarily supplemental sources) of protein, healthy fats, fibre, and micro-nutrients (calcium, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, iodine, iron, and omega-3 fats).

Movement

This is one of the areas of health that I struggle with the most with my teen boy. Perhaps some of your teens are like this as well - he prefers to be in front of a computer. Gone are the easy days of “Go outside and play,” and “go for a walk” doesn’t seem to be an acceptable alternative - yet (perhaps when girls come into the picture that will change).

Movement needs to have meaning for this age group. For about five years, martial arts filled this role for my son, but recently the structure of going to a gym with a personal trainer to check in with occasionally has become more his thing.

The structure and discipline of sports, whether individual or team can really help a teen boy. He would have mentorship in the coach or Sensei, camaraderie with his team, and the positive experience of developing mastery in his sport.

Something to keep in mind is that many childhood developmental psychologists, such as Kim John Payne, have pointed out that our modern focus on extracurricular activities for young children, rather than letting them play freely and unstructured, leads to children being over-scheduled and play-deprived, and less likely to continue organized sports into later childhood years when the dedication would actually be beneficial for them5.

According to the AAP’s clinical report of organized sports and specialization6, there are both physical and psychological consequences to doing too much competitive sports and specialization, too soon; overuse injury, burnout, anxiety, depression and eventual withdrawal from sport. Specialization in one specific sport is especially flagged as risking injury in young children. Instead, the focus should be on fun and friends until the teen years, when specializing in a specific practice or sport can help a teenager develop competence, mastery and self-confidence.

Let’s Talk About Video Games

This is one thing that I think many parents of teen boys (myself included) struggle with. We’ve heard so many times that screens are bad and we need to put limits on them, and if we don’t, we are somehow failing our children. Let me first say that I do agree with this when it comes to children under about age 14 or so. I’m an 80s kid and I do think children need to be able to play and not be confined to a screen. They need the stimulation of physical play for proper development. However when it comes to the teen years, things begin to change.

It would be nice - in an ideal environment - for a boy to transition to his teen years from playing with siblings and friends, to perhaps learning a trade side-by-side with his dad or trusted mentor. But we no longer live in this kind of world. Our teens are considered children until they’re 18-21, and many workplaces are unsafe for young teens. So what does a teen boy do to develop competence, mastery, and confidence? We have academics, structured sports, music, and… there’s video games.

Video games, with their gradually increasing challenges, measurable progress, and rewards for mastery, fulfill genuine psychological needs that teen boys may not be getting in real life. What’s the answer to the problem of a sedentary teen who prefers digital life and digital challenges to real life? In my opinion, it’s not to take away the screen or the games - assuming you’re a parent who wants to continue to have a relationship with your teen boy - but perhaps it’s to start providing real life challenges, opportunities, and mentors.

I don’t have a perfect answer to this issue of raising teen boys in today’s society, and I would love to hear from mothers of teen boys amongst my readers, but for us, we’ve introduced small things, tried out different ways of movement and challenge. Right now, the gym seems to be fitting that role for us.

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Time Outdoors

Yes, “touching grass” is important. Researchers found that greater exposure to greenspace was associated with lower stress, improved mental health, emotional wellbeing, increased physical activity, better attention, greater resilience, improved self-esteem, and greater life satisfaction7.

Time outdoors is more than recreation. It provides sunlight that anchors our circadian rhythm, opportunities for natural movement, exposure to living ecosystems, and moments of challenge, curiosity, and restoration. It strengthens many of the capacities that growing teenagers need to become healthy adults.

While the studies and analyses currently state that more research is needed into this field before making concrete conclusions, as any parent knows, getting your child or teen outdoors can significantly improve their ability to fall asleep at night, as well as their overall energy, health and well-being. The difficulty with teens of course, is finding a way to make “touching grass” interesting. (I’m still working on this myself!)

All of these help to support healthy development. But when we’re talking about development in adolescents, we’re not only talking about physical changes, teenagers also go through intense psychological changes and development. What does this look like?

Psychology & Adolescent Development

By Sarri Rose

Psychology is the science of how the brain works and develops, mental processes and behaviors, and it is important to be aware of these mental changes as well as the physical ones. Throughout the years, psychologists have worked hard to understand how the brain works, especially in the years of peak development; adolescence. Theories such as Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, and Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development show that there is a lot happening in the brain for teens.

Although Erik Erikson’s theory has many stages from birth until death, the stages “school age”, which ages range from 5 - 12, and “adolescence”, which covers the ages 13 - 18 are applicable to teens8. In the school age stage, there is the crisis, or mental challenge, of industry vs inferiority, where finding something to be good at is crucial, otherwise the child will surely feel inferior and unhappy. In adolescence, there is a similar challenge, identity vs role confusion. In other words, they need to be able to figure out who they are to be able to proceed into adulthood in a healthy way.

Keep in mind that if these two challenges are not completed, and the child does not find something to be good at, or does not figure out their identity, it will continue to be a struggle and place of insecurity throughout adulthood until it is resolved, the window does not close after the ages mentioned.

Most of Jean Piaget’s theory on cognitive development applies to younger ages, as a child should progress through the sensorimotor and preoperational stages in infancy and childhood, until they reach the concrete operational stage. However in adolescence, the formal operational stage should really start to flourish, and it is important to provide mental stimulation to help that. The formal operational stage is all about being able to think abstractly and in hypotheticals, and challenges to spark this kind of thinking are important for growth9.

Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory is focused specifically on moral development, and is a bit more complex, with six stages and three levels10. During teen years, children will develop through the second two levels; conventional morality and postconventional morality, learning how their own morals relate to societal ones and then eventually being able to relate to a more universal set of ethical standards and rules. It’s important that the teen has good examples to look up to, and also space to figure things our and develop on their own.

Adolescent development is a complex picture, but fortunately the environment our teens need for healthy development is not. The raw materials: sleep, nutrition, movement, and time outdoors, all contribute to physical, mental and emotional development. And just like our girls, our boys also need supportive relationships with parents, mentors and peers.

And then they become teenagers — or more accurately, they start puberty — and everything got a lot more complicated. In this article, and my next one, I want to talk about supporting teen health. This is something I’m personally going through right now, with both a teen girl and a teen boy, so this is research I’ve been doing for myself as well as for my articles here on Willow Rose.

Today, let’s dive into how to support our Teen Girl’s health. I’ve divided this article into five main categories: the developing body, physical foundations of health, menstrual literacy, relational safety and belonging, and agency and competence.

Studying health, herbs and well-being, it becomes very clear that everything is connected, and this is just as true in teenagers as it is in adults.

The Developing Body

Traditionally, we consider puberty to start in girls with breast development, and end with the onset of Menarche. She’s getting her period, therefore she’s finished puberty and that stage of development and everything that goes with it. But this isn’t entirely accurate.

A teen girl is not a child who suddenly got breasts and started a period. Some researchers describe adolescence as continuing into the early twenties1. Puberty is the onset of a prolonged time of biological development, adjustment, and even reconstruction involving the reproductive system, skeleton, brain, metabolism, sleep–wake regulation and social development. These systems do not all mature at the same speed.

As a parent of teens, the focus is no longer to simply keep them active, eating and not sick, instead I need to provide an environment and the support (emotional and physical) needed for my daughter to be able to complete this stage of rapid growth, build adult bone and muscle, establish a mature reproductive system, develop emotional and cognitive regulation, adapt to a changing biological sleep cycle (in spite of the inflexible demands of our culture around work and school), and form an adult identity, without conforming to unhealthy cultural ideals around appearance or achievement.

That’s a tall order.

During childhood, the nutritional needs of a child gradually rise as a child grows, but when a girl reaches puberty, those needs become suddenly concentrated. Growth accelerates. Blood volume expands. The skeleton mineralizes rapidly. Muscle and fat distribution change. The ovaries and brain begin establishing coordinated reproductive signalling. Menstruation introduces recurring iron loss. These changes increase requirements for energy, protein, iron, calcium, zinc, folate and other nutrients2.

One of the most difficult complications during adolescence is that this is also the time period when our daughters receive the most negative messages about their bodies, and become the most vulnerable to external and especially peer criticisms.

Dr Stacy Sims, a leading women’s health physiology researcher, emphasizes that puberty is not a time to encourage girls to shrink themselves. Her message is that girls need training and nutrition that work with their changing physiology rather than treating puberty-related body changes as a problem to correct3. A growing girl often requires larger meals, more frequent eating, dependable protein and carbohydrate, iron-rich foods, calcium-rich foods, food before and after sport, and freedom from adult dieting culture.

I think that one of the most important things that we parents need to keep in mind during this time is that puberty changes a girl’s body before she has psychologically adapted to it. It takes time—years—for her to psychologically catch up to how quickly her physical body changed. While we know these sometimes awkward changes are normal, she doesn’t have the benefit of experience and hindsight and may experience herself as being fat, awkward or somehow unacceptable.

Our western culture’s messaging doesn’t help this period of intense development and adjustment. Messaging for teen girls is very contradictory. She is expected to be mature, but not look too mature; be attractive, but not invite attention; be athletic, but remain small; eat healthfully, but not eat too much; be confident, but not take up too much space.

As mothers, our interpretation, comments and conversations are incredibly important during this time, even our comments towards ourselves. Statements about dieting, “good” and “bad” foods, or needing to work off or punish ourselves for specific foods are absorbed differently by our teen girls than they were by our often oblivious young children.

As much as possible we need to keep a close guard on how we say things, and how we think about health. It can’t be about weight, dieting, and exercise anymore if we want our girls to be healthy. It’s far more constructive to ask questions like: Is she strong? Is she happy? Does she have consistent energy levels? Is she sleeping well? Is her menstrual cycle manageable? Can she concentrate? Is she eating regularly?

Physical Foundations of Health

Eating regularly, and the quality of nutrition our girls get from their food is one of the most important parts of staying strong and full of energy during adolescence. It can be difficult to try to keep track of all the micro-nutrients our girls need, but we can keep it simple.

Once Menarche arrives, a teen girl should be eating enough iron to help replenish the monthly blood-loss, calcium, vit D, magnesium and protein to support the rapid bone growth that occurs in adolescence4. Regular meals also help support mood, energy levels, and blood sugar balance.

As a herbalist, I like to start with a dietary foundation, and then bring in some herbal support. Our bodies will prioritize survival over reproduction, and if we aren’t getting adequate nutrition for our menstrual cycle, it may become irregular or more painful and disruptive than otherwise. Nutritive herbs such as nettle, oatstraw, raspberry leaf, and alfalfa increase mineral intake, while herbs like peppermint or ginger support healthy digestion and improve the body’s ability to absorb the nutrients from the herbs and foods she is eating. Nutritive herbs should always be seen as support to good quality eating, not a replacement for food.

The second part of a teens physical health is her circadian rhythm. This includes sleep, movement and daylight.

During adolescence, the brain is undergoing development and restructuring, especially in the prefrontal cortex5. This makes sleep irreplaceably important for memory consolidation, learning, emotional regulation, executive function, impulse control, and decision making. Sleep deprivation impairs all of these.

Our world is set up for adult convenience and schedules, not for the changing sleep cycles of a teen. The sleep cycle biologically changes during the teen years, with melatonin being produced later in the evening than when they were children6, yet it’s still important for them to get enough sleep to support brain development, immune function, emotional regulation, metabolic health, and more.

Our daughter’s changing biological cycles can conflict with the system and culture they live in: School schedules, jobs, extracurricular activities, bright evening lights, addictive social media, homework, and family expectations.

Movement and daylight are also important metabolic health and circadian rhythm supports. Teen girls don’t need intense physical exercise. The most important thing is regular movement instead of being sedentary. Regular movement combined with positive social interactions, and sunlight can have a compounding positive affect on our teen’s health (ie: going for a walk with a good friend). It improves mental health, bone development, sleep and mood regulation, metabolic health, and menstrual health. Sunlight during the day, instead of blue light at night, also improves our circadian rhythm.

In our modern world, our teens are often forced to be up early at school, regardless of where she is in her cycle - or how much pain it’s causing her. School itself can be full of different types of stressors – physical, mental, and emotional, and often she has extracurricular activities, family obligations, and homework to cram into the evening before retreating to the privacy of her room, perhaps to her phone to for some social contact and relaxation. Unfortunately the social media on her phone can often be another form of stress for her.

No wonder our teen girls are often tired, stressed, unmotivated, depressed and anxious, with menstrual irregularities!

While this isn’t a “scientifically supported” viewpoint, I often wonder how much of a role the demands of everyday modern life placed on the rapidly developing teen, contribute to menstrual pain and heavy bleeding. It’s like the body is saying “this is the only way to get you to stop and take time for yourself.”

Menstrual Literacy

When it comes to the menstrual cycle, it’s important to remember that this isn’t a switch turned on with her first period, instead it is a cycle that develops over time. Not all periods during adolescence include predictable ovulation, and some irregularity in the cycles is expected. This does not mean that all irregularity or pain should be dismissed as “normal”, the menstrual cycle is a vital sign and evaluating the patterns of the menstrual cycle can be very important in teen girls.

One of the things that bothers me the most about teen girl health, is how quickly menstrual cycle irregularities are dismissed and repressed with the birth control pill. It seems to be expected by older generations that teen girls will be irresponsibly sexually active anyways, so we may as well use the pill for both pregnancy prevention and cycle repression.

I am not in any way advocating for teen pregnancies, but what I am advocating for is discussion, exploration and better education around menstrual cycle literacy for girls. This is one of my “soap-box issues” so to speak. Girls need to understand how their bodies should work in optimal health, and how their daily lives can affect their cycles and general well-being both positively and negatively, and what their options are when it comes to supporting a healthy menstrual cycle.

The menstrual cycle is a vital sign of our health and well-being as women, and this is even more important in young women. Repressing this can lead to all kinds of unintended consequences, which I’ve written about Here, and Here, so I won’t get into them now. Reproductive health is one of the first things to suffer if our girls aren’t getting enough nutrition, are experiencing too much stress, or are over-exercising (also a form of stress). The developing cycle is especially sensitive to the body’s overall resource environment.

Relational Safety and Belonging

“Connectedness” is the term that researchers use to refer to this part of teen well-being. And it refers to a sense of being cared for, supported, belonging, and closeness with others that comes from protective and sustained relationships within families, schools, and communities7. Those of us who have children who became teens during the COVID lockdowns and shutdowns, saw first hand what the lack of connectedness did to the development and well-being of our children.

During adolescence, friendships become deeply important. That is healthy and expected. But teenagers still benefit enormously from having parents who remain emotionally available, curious, and safe enough that difficult conversations can come home. It’s a common misconception that peers replace parents during the teen years, but she still needs her parents to be a safe and secure base to come back to as she experiments with individuality and autonomy.

Communication matters immensely here. Not lectures. Teens need to feel heard and understood, not judged and lectured to, and this has measurable effects on teen mental health8. This doesn’t mean we parents have to be perfect, it means we need to focus on our relationship, keeping our doors open and making sure that our children understand they really can talk to us about anything, and we will have a warm, calm, mature, and thoughtful conversation with them - or simply a hug and a shoulder to cry on.

These relational foundations build the environment in which that body develops. Nutrition supplies iron. Sleep builds the brain. Movement builds bone. But relationships teach a girl something equally important:

Secure relationships are not the opposite of independence, but rather one of the conditions that allows healthy independence to develop. A girl who knows she has a secure base is often more willing to explore, take appropriate risks, and develop confidence because she knows there’s someone to return to if things don’t go as planned. According to Dr Joseph Allen, one of the leading researchers in adolescent attachment, that bridge between belonging and autonomy is one of the most consistent findings in attachment and developmental research9.

Agency and Competence

As parents, and especially mothers with daughters, we often spend the majority of their childhood teaching them to be careful, stay safe, stay close to me, ask permission. As they near adulthood, our focus has to shift to almost the opposite and it can be disorientating. Suddenly we are trying to teach them: think for yourself, trust your instincts, know your limits, speak up, leave if you need to, call me if you need me.

Those are agency skills, and agency is protective. We can’t always be there for our children, eventually they will need to know how to make the right decisions, how to critically think through a problem and how to correctly interpret a situation they find themselves in. Rules and lectures won’t give our children this form of protective agency, but careful teaching, understanding and conversations will.

There’s a lovely concept from developmental psychology called self-efficacy, developed by Albert Bandura. Self-efficacy is not confidence, but rather the belief that “I can do this.”

Bandura demonstrated that self-efficacy develops primarily through mastery experiences, actually doing difficult things successfully, not through praise alone. It also grows through observing capable models, encouragement from trusted people, and learning to interpret emotional and physiological responses constructively.

As parents, we can’t give our children competence, but we can create environments for them to develop competence. Teenagers become capable by solving problems, making decisions good and bad, recovering from mistakes they make, and gradually carrying more responsibility for themselves and their lives.

My view of adolescent health isn’t just about keeping a child healthy, that’s only a small part of the picture. What we’re really focused on here is why the health of teen girls is so important. We are helping create the best environment possible for the developing physical, emotional, and mental maturity of a young woman.

Everything I’ve discussed here: nutrition, sleep, movement, menstrual literacy, supportive relationships, is ultimately in service of helping a young woman develop the physical vitality, emotional resilience, and confidence to live well on her own.

Either way, in October of 2022, I decided it was time to jump in and pursue a dream I had for the last six years, a dream to take my learning and exploration of herbs as a source of food and wild-crafted medicine to the next level, and actually become a herbalist.

I chose to study as an apprentice with master herbalist Chad Cornell, at the Hollow Reed School for Healing Arts and Herbals and it’s difficult to describe just how much the last three and a half years have changed me.

I used to look at plants as something we simply used for food, and maybe for medicine. Elderflower is good for fever, Mullein for cough, Yarrow to stop bleeding, Plantain to heal skin, Ginseng for energy. I’ve learned to look much deeper than a herb for a symptom, instead seeing the herb as a full personality, with its own profile of energetics, actions and constituents that can help with a specific ailment, and compliment certain aspects of a problem in the right person, but can also exacerbate or irritate the problems of another person.

Studying herbalism hasn’t just changed how I look at plants, it’s also changed how I look at people. Gender, age, ethnicity, race - these are all boxes that are much too general for herbalism to be practised in. Each and every person is unique and no remedy will work for everyone. Practising herbalism is deeply personal work. Understanding how herbs interact with the human body and different types of sicknesses in different types of people requires giving up preconceptions, assumptions and stereotypes and truly understanding each person that I work with.

My time studying herbalism has also changed how I see myself. I remember early in my studies as I waxed poetic to my teacher about all the amazing remedies and protocols I was enjoying creating for my husband, my children and my friends, and he stopped me to ask, “And how much are you doing for Adrienne?”

I fumbled for an answer and finally had to concede that actually I wasn’t really doing anything because I was “fine”. It was easy for me to support those around me, but difficult for me to even take enough time to look inward deeply enough to see what I needed support with, and what I could work on for myself. To be perfectly honest, while I’ve gotten better, I still struggle with this. I can make sure my daughter takes her remedies, I can make a new tincture for my husband when he runs out, but me? My tincture will be the last refilled and my remedies the first forgotten.

This quote “It is my sincere intention to love and care for myself as a worthy human being, and to do so as I care for the needs of those around me,” comes from the Herbalist’s Oath that I recited today, while receiving my certificate. It reminds me of one of the reasons I started on this journey of wanting to practice herbalism and help support women with herbs, especially mothers and women who consistently over-give and neglect looking after themselves.

When my mother died when she was only 50 she was praised as a stellar example of how to be a loving and giving wife and mother, but, like many women her age - and especially women in roles like “pastor’s wife” she didn’t set boundaries and look after herself. I don’t recall her ever saying No to anything she was asked to do, nor do I remember her doing something that was simply for her own self-care. This example of a selfless, uncomplaining and compliant wife and mother was imprinted on me at a very young age.

The learning I’ve done during my time at Hollow Reed School, has not only been book learning to understand the plants and their constituents. It’s also been introspective learning, understanding my own beliefs, patterns, and challenges that I needed to address in myself before reaching out to help others in the wider world. Boundaries, and the ability to set those, understanding that my worth is intrinsic and not tied to how much I can do for others, or how much others praise what I do, have been a large part of that.

When I started writing here on the Willow Rose Substack, I focused on more general writing about our place in the world, and how we can maintain our peace and creativity in spite of the busy and often negative and destructive world around us. I also wrote about how we can’t change the larger world without first changing ourselves, and influencing the lives of those we’re intimately connected with - our family and friends. From there, we can start widening our circle and reaching more and more people. Changing the world doesn’t happen on a grand scale, it happens one person at a time. Becoming a herbalist is part of how I intend to affect change in the world.

“You cannot do lasting restorative work in the world without restoring the women who hold it together.” This has become somewhat of a mantra to me lately. How can we expect the world to change, the earth to be a better place, while we ignore and take for granted ourselves or the women in our lives? And with this goal of helping women replenish their health and well-being, becoming strong and full of energy and vitality. Today, I completed my studies, recited my oath and received my certificate.

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~Adrienne

P.S. (If you’re interested, my calendar is now open.)

Before we get started with today’s essay, a continuation from an essay earlier this month about why hormonal birth control shouldn’t be the first response to cycle problems, I want to remind everyone about why most of the information I share below, and the linked studies in the footnotes, are not conclusive and established fact:

“Women’s health research is newer and more sparse than it should be. For a long time, the female body was treated as too complicated to study, partly because our hormones are cyclical.

We move through menstruation, the follicular phase, ovulation, the luteal phase, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause, and, for many women, years spent on hormonal contraception.

That means two women may respond differently to the same stressor, medication, supplement, food, workout, sleepless night, or life event depending on where they are in their cycle, or whether they are cycling at all.”

So please take what I’ve written below into consideration. Start asking questions, and paying attention to how you feel if you’re using hormonal birth control, but don’t take these as absolute, established scientific fact. More research needs to be done into the effects of hormonal contraceptives on women’s health and body systems.

Some shorthand vocabulary for you for the research quoted below:

OC = Oral Contraceptive
COC = Combined Oral Contraceptive
HC = Hormonal Contraceptive
CHC = Combined Hormonal Contraceptive
IUD = Intrauterine Device (for the purposes of this essay, these will be hormonal IUDs not copper.

Brain, Mood, and Emotional Health

This is one of the main areas with mixed evidence in the research.

With our natural cycles, women respond differently to different hormone fluctuations. Some of us feel weepy, others irritated (or downright murderous), and others completely hopeless and depressed or anxious, all depending on the time of the month. This isn’t something we can consciously control. It is driven by the hormonal changes we go through each and every cycle.

When women are on the pill or using other forms of hormonal birth control, they also have individual responses, leading to mixed results in studies. As one review states it:

“A variety of factors may increase the likelihood of negative psychiatric side effects, including younger age, previous experience of side effects from OCs, and preexisting psychiatric disorders. Progestin-only pills may confer a higher psychiatric risk than combination pills.”1 (emphasis mine)

Different formulations and dosages of hormonal contraceptives affect women differently as well.

For example, an IUD that uses levonorgestral increases the risk of depression in women by 40% but in young women ages 15 - 19, it increases the risk of depression by 220%. An ethinyl estradiol pill with 30-40mg dose Norgestimate, has a 0% increased risk for women, but 80% increased risk for young women, ages 15-19.2

Stress response and cortisol

We discussed the stress response, cortisol regulation and the effects of the HPA axis at length in recent articles here, here, and here. Being on hormonal contraceptives has an effect on stress response as well. Our sympathetic nervous system still responds to stress, making us feel stressed out, but researchers have found that women on the pill have blunted cortisol responses, or even no cortisol response.

Women using hormonal birth control seem to lack an HPA-axis response to stress. Researchers have also found that they tend to have a different daily cortisol rhythm, with less morning cortisol and a flattened cortisol daily curve.

This is not to say that women on hormonal birth control are less stressed out. In fact, the research seems to point more towards the HPA axis being overloaded and shutting itself down, much like someone experiencing serious chronic stress3.

The conclusion of a study in 2025 puts it very succinctly:

“IUD and OC use distinctly affect stress response, possibly because of their diverging metabolic pathways and hormone levels. IUD users showed higher emotional reactivity to stress in both lab and daily life, while OCs influenced physiological correlates. These findings highlight that exogenous hormone administration, previously thought to have limited systemic effects, affects women’s psychological well-being, underscoring the need for further research into stress-related disorders among women using hormonal contraceptives.”4

Systemic metabolism and inflammatory markers

Some research suggests that combined hormonal contraception can shift inflammatory and metabolic markers. This does not automatically mean chronic disease, but it does remind us that reproductive hormones are also immune, metabolic, and vascular messengers. It also highlights the effects of chronic stress: downstream from the chronically activated HPA axis, is chronic inflammation.

“Women using HCs exhibit numerous signs of chronic inflammation, including elevated C-reactive protein levels and greater risk of developing mood and autoimmune disorders.”5

An interesting 2025 study6 found that physical activity and a low-inflammatory diet lowered C-reactive protein among naturally cycling women but did not lower it among oral contraceptive taking women. Again, this is emerging research and is worth considering, but not drawing absolute conclusions from.

Gut microbiome and gut-brain axis

One of the side effects of any long-term medication is its effect on your gut microbiome, and the birth control pill is no exception. Research has shown that the pill can inflame the digestive tract and potentially cause enough immune dysregulation that it increases the risk for autoimmune disease of the gut.7

And since everything is interconnected in the body, new research is also pointing towards this impacting rates of depression and anxiety in pill-taking women:

“In conclusion, the introduction of the exogenous sex hormones contained in COCs into the body may have the potential to contribute to the disruption of an individual’s normal endogenous environment and, in turn, the normal bacterial composition within the gut. Alterations to the makeup of the gut microbiome can lead to various health issues, including the development of mood disorders and anxiety.”8

Bone health

Bone health is one area where both the age of the woman and method of birth control used each make a big difference. We’re accustomed to thinking of bone density loss as something that affects women around menopause age. However when it comes to combined hormonal contraceptives and Depo-provera, there is clear evidence of bone mineral density effects, especially in adolescents.

“Current evidence indicates that the use of CHCs in postmenarchal adolescent girls reduces bone accrual compared with non-users. The negative impact on bone accrual is likely related to the estrogen dose in the CHC preparation, the regimen used, and the duration of use.”9

“While there is a clear association between bone mineral density loss and depot medroxyprogesterone acetate injectable use, treatment during contraceptive use and bone health restoration following discontinuation are not adequately researched.”10

Libido, arousal, sexual pain, and relationship to desire

Libido is not frivolous. It is part of health, attachment, embodiment, and quality of life. The research does not show one universal effect, but it does support what many women have said for years: some women notice changes in desire, arousal, lubrication, or sexual comfort on hormonal contraception.

As Dr Sarah Hill puts it in her book This is Your Brain on Birth Control:

“I want to remind you that the birth control pill is made of artificial sex hormones and that sex hormones flip billions of switches on and off in cells throughout your body, influencing the version of yourself that you are. This means that —of course—the pill will mess with all our love and sex related brain circuitry. It would be impossible for it not to.”

But this kind of research — in spite of the lived experience of many, many women — is still in its infancy and most studies done on libido, desire, and attraction are inconclusive.

In a 2024 study coauthored by Sarah E. Hill, women who had recently stopped hormonal contraception reported, on average, increases in sexual desire and partner attraction over the following three months. This does not mean every woman loses libido on birth control, but it does suggest that sexual desire and attraction may change for some women when hormonal contraception is started or stopped.11

Every woman’s cycle needs to be understood, respected, and supported.

The menstrual cycle is not merely a monthly inconvenience. It is a window into endocrine, metabolic, nervous system, inflammatory, and reproductive health. Hormonal birth control may be the right choice for some women. It may bring relief, prevent pregnancy, and make life manageable. My intention is not to belittle that.

However, this doesn’t meant there aren’t real costs to routinely suppressing the cycle without asking why there are problems. Not only physical costs, but also the cost of disconnection, the cost of teaching girls and women that their cycle is simply a nuisance, and the cost of giving them a prescription when what they first needed was curiosity, testing, explanation, and care.

We need to take women seriously, ask better questions before offering simple answers, and make sure that when a woman chooses hormonal birth control, she is choosing it with knowledge and understanding, not simply being dismissed.

Our cycle is not an enemy to conquer, it is a rhythm to understand and support.

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“Nature is a finicky thing. And one reason it’s so finicky is that everything in it is interdependent. This means that you can’t go changing one thing without it changing everything else.”
— , This Is Your Brain on Birth Control

A personal note before I begin

I want to say at the beginning that I am not writing this as someone with decades of personal experience on hormonal birth control.

I have spent most of my life as a naturally cycling woman. I did try hormonal birth control briefly, for about three months, and I did not like how I felt on it. I didn’t feel like myself, I felt more isolated, detached from my own body, and unable to really feel and enjoy the world around me, including my small children. This may not make sense to many, since hormonal birth control can affect each of us differently, but I stopped using mine and quickly returned to feeling normal (for me).

That means this is not a memoir about my long history on the pill. It is more of an attempt to understand something many women have experienced far more intimately than I have. I am writing as a woman, a herbalist, and someone who has had to study this carefully because so many women are living inside a hormonal state I have not personally lived in for long.

So let’s dive in.

Hormonal birth control does not simply “prevent pregnancy.” It changes the way your sex hormones interact with your brain and body. And since our bodies are not isolated systems, but completely interdependent systems, it makes sense to ask whether hormonal birth control may have effects beyond contraception alone.

Reproductive hormones do not exist in isolation. Estrogen and progesterone regulate our menstrual cycle, but that’s not all they do. They interact with the brain, bones, immune system, metabolism, libido, skin, cervix, vaginal ecology, stress response, and possibly even the microbiome.

So when we alter that hormonal conversation, it is reasonable to ask what else might change.

This is true whether a woman chooses hormonal birth control for contraception, or whether she is prescribed it by her doctor to suppress cycle-related symptoms.

What a natural ovulatory cycle actually does

A natural ovulatory cycle is not just a period. It is not simply bleeding once a month. It is a whole rhythm of communication between the brain, ovaries, uterus, cervix, immune system, metabolism, and nervous system.

In a healthy ovulatory cycle, the brain sends signals to the ovaries. Follicles begin to develop. Estrogen rises. Eventually, if the hormonal conversation unfolds well, estrogen rises high enough to trigger the LH surge — the signal that helps release an egg.

That is ovulation.

After ovulation, the follicle that released the egg transforms into the corpus luteum, a temporary gland that produces progesterone. This is what creates the luteal phase, the second half of the cycle.

Progesterone is not just there in case a woman becomes pregnant. It is part of the post-ovulation hormonal shift. It influences the uterine lining, body temperature, cervical fluid, mood, sleep, nervous system tone, and the way the body experiences the second half of the cycle.

If pregnancy does not happen, estrogen and progesterone fall, the uterine lining sheds, and menstruation begins.

So a natural cycle is not one hormonal state, it is a sequence of changing hormonal states.

Menstruation is different from the follicular phase. The follicular phase is different from ovulation. Ovulation is different from the luteal phase. And the luteal phase is different from the beginning of the next period.

This does not mean the female body is inconsistent. It is rhythmic and cyclical.

How hormonal birth control works

Once we see the cycle as a living rhythm rather than just the monthly inconvenience of a period, hormonal birth control becomes easier to understand. It is not simply stopping pregnancy. It is changing the rhythm and the entire ecosystem of our bodies.

Different forms of hormonal birth control work in different ways. A combined pill is not the same as a progestin-only pill. A hormonal IUD is not the same as Depo-Provera. The implant is not the same as the patch or the ring.

But in general, hormonal birth control prevents pregnancy through some combination of:

• suppressing ovulation

• thickening cervical mucus so sperm cannot move through easily

• thinning or altering the uterine lining

• changing the hormonal signaling between the brain and ovaries

This is why I think the word “regulate” can be confusing.

Many women who go to a doctor because they are experiencing irregular cycles or painful symptoms are told that birth control will “regulate” their cycle. But hormonal birth control does not regulate a cycle in the sense of restoring the body’s own natural rhythm. In many cases, it suppresses or replaces parts of that rhythm along with suppressing the symptoms.

A withdrawal bleed on the pill is not the same thing as a true menstrual period that follows ovulation. It can look like a cycle from the outside. It may even arrive predictably every month. But hormonally, it is a different event. A period doesn’t mean a full cycle occurred and is not always a sign that ovulation is happening.

Progesterone and progestin are not the same thing

Progesterone is the hormone your body makes after ovulation, mainly from the corpus luteum. It belongs to the second half of a natural ovulatory cycle. It rises after ovulation and helps create the luteal phase.

Progestins are different.

Progestins are synthetic hormone-like compounds used in hormonal birth control. They can act on progesterone receptors and do some progesterone-like jobs in the body, but they are not simply “progesterone in a pill.”

Different progestins also have different pharmacological profiles, and different effects on the body. This is why different pills and other methods have a variety of effects; some have more androgenic (testosterone-like) effects. Some are anti-androgenic. Some may interact with other hormone receptors in different ways. This is part of why one pill may affect acne, mood, libido, water retention, or other symptoms differently than another.

Many contraceptive progestins are structurally related to testosterone, especially the 19-nortestosterone-derived progestins such as norethindrone and levonorgestrel, while others are derived from progesterone or, in the case of drospirenone, from spironolactone.12

As a result, some progestins can bind not only to progesterone receptors, but also to androgen receptors and other steroid hormone receptors3. This is one reason different birth control formulations can feel very different in the body.

When synthetic hormones are interrupting the communication in the HPO (Hypothalamus - pituitary- ovarian) axis, and ovulation is suppressed, the body is not making its own luteal progesterone in the same way, even if a synthetic progestin is present. This means that all our interconnected systems are lacking the natural levels and cycle of estrogen, progesterone, and androgenic hormones, and instead are dependent on a consistent level of synthetic hormones.

So when we talk about hormonal birth control, we need to be precise. It is not giving the body a normal luteal phase, and it’s not “regulating” an existing cycle. In fact, it is creating a completely different hormonal state.

Why the science is not settled

Before we go further, we need to talk about the research itself.

Women’s health research is newer and more sparse than it should be. For a long time, the female body was treated as too complicated to study, partly because our hormones are cyclical.

We move through menstruation, the follicular phase, ovulation, the luteal phase, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, menopause, and, for many women, years spent on hormonal contraception.

That means two women may respond differently to the same stressor, medication, supplement, food, workout, sleepless night, or life event depending on where they are in their cycle, or whether they are cycling at all.

Research has not always accounted for those differences carefully. In many cases, women were excluded from research altogether because cycling hormones made the data messier, but that “messiness” is not a flaw. It’s the physiology of half the population of Earth!

The research is also complicated because hormonal birth control is not one thing. Studies sometimes group hormonal contraceptive users together, even though the pill, patch, ring, implant, hormonal IUD, mini-pill, and Depo-Provera often have different effects. Even among pills, different formulations and different progestins may not behave the same way. Not to mention, different formulations effect different women in different ways as well, since our own hormones are slightly unique from the next persons.

So this area of scientific research is still emerging. Some of it is mixed. Some of it raises better questions than it answers.

What follows in this essay, and in the next one, is not meant to be a declaration of final answers. It is more of an invitation to pay attention.

It’s important to remember that even uncertainty matters when the thing we are studying is given to millions of women, often for years, and often without a conversation about the full consequences of using it.

My concern is not that hormonal birth control exists, or that adult women use it for contraceptive purposes - that is a personal decision, one that should be made with full disclosure and consent.

My issue with hormonal birth control is that it is often offered as though it is a solution, at the exact moment when a deeper investigation should begin.

To me, this is even more egregious when it is not an adult woman making a fully informed decision, but a young teen in pain. Instead of “let’s find out what’s wrong,” the answer is often symptom suppression that can leave an adolescent feeling dependent on it for life, terrified of what might happen if she should ever stop using it.

A woman may go to her doctor and say:

“My periods are unbearable.”

“My cycle is all over the place.”

“I am bleeding so heavily I am exhausted.”

“Something has changed in my body and I do not feel like myself.”

And far too often, the answer is: “We can put you on the pill.”

Or the IUD. Or the shot. Or another hormonal contraceptive.

Sometimes that may be the right answer. Sometimes it may at least be a merciful answer. There are women for whom hormonal birth control is a lifesaver. It can reduce pain, control bleeding, prevent pregnancy, and make life more manageable.

The point of this essay is NOT that this should be taken away from anyone.

But it should not be the only answer because painful periods, heavy bleeding, missing periods, irregular cycles, worsening PMS, acne, and mood changes are not just inconveniences. They are information.

Hormonal birth control may suppress these symptoms, which is sometimes necessary in order to live our lives, but suppression is not the same thing as resolution.

If we never ask why the symptom was there in the first place, we may miss the deeper story: stress, undernourishment, inflammation, thyroid changes, PCOS/PMOS, endometriosis, fibroids, anemia, perimenopause, postpartum depletion, or a body simply carrying more than it can sustain.

There is no black-and-white answer to this kind of problem.

For some women, hormonal birth control helps them feel far more normal. Some women feel better on the pill or with an IUD than they ever did without it. That matters.

But even when hormonal birth control helps, women still deserve some exploration and investigation into why their symptoms were so disruptive in the first place.

The question is not simply:

“Should women use birth control?”

The better question may be:

“Why are so many women being offered birth control before anyone has truly asked what their symptoms mean?”

Informed consent has to mean more than pregnancy prevention

Every woman deserves investigation before suppression and real consent before her cycle is chemically silenced. We should all know what the science, and other women, say are possible effects of using hormonal birth control.

Some women feel amazing on the pill and cannot imagine going off it. Others experience severe mood changes, loss of libido, anxiety, depression, or a sense that they no longer feel like themselves. Many women are somewhere in between.

And because our reproductive hormones do not exist in isolation, neither do the synthetic hormones used in birth control. Synthetic hormones can interact with cells throughout the body that have receptors for sex hormones, which is part of why their effects extend beyond the uterus and ovaries.

And women deserve to know that, AND to understand their cycle, their symptoms, what they can do to support a healthy cycle (without immediately resorting to hormonal birth control), and what the far-reaching effects of hormonal birth control really are in our bodies.

So before we ask what hormonal birth control may affect; mood, libido, metabolism, inflammation, bones, the microbiome, the stress response, the brain, I think we have to begin here:

Hormonal birth control changes the hormonal conversation itself.

It may prevent pregnancy, reduce pain, and suppress symptoms. It may be helpful, necessary, or even life-changing for some women.

But it also changes the rhythm of our cycle, and in many ways, who we are as a woman.

And since nature is interdependent, then it is worth asking where that change reaches.

That is where I want to go in my next essay.

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“We have gotten to the place in our culture where our hormones are treated with such blithe disregard that women are prescribed the pill — which fundamentally changes their hormonal profile — as the first line of defense in even the most minor of bodily annoyances, like skin breakouts and irregular periods.” — Dr Sarah E. Hill, PhD, This is Your Brain on Birth Control

There are two ways I want to look at this.

The first is physiological: how we support the body’s stress response itself. This includes practices that help regulate cortisol, nourish the adrenal glands, support the nervous system, and help the liver with its important work of processing and clearing excess hormones.

The second is experiential: how we shape our daily lives, environments, and relationships so that we feel less alone, less overwhelmed, and more supported. In many stress studies, researchers measure perceived stress not just cortisol levels. And that matters, because the way we experience stress, the way we feel, can still have real effects on health and well-being.

Daily rhythms for supporting cortisol

Cortisol is not a bad hormone. We need it. Cortisol helps us wake up in the morning, mobilize energy, respond to demands, and move through the day.

The problem begins when cortisol stays elevated for too long, or rises at the wrong times. Instead of giving us energy in the morning and gradually tapering off through the day, the stress response can become dysregulated. This can show up as a late-afternoon crash, difficulty winding down at night, waking in the night, or that familiar “wired and tired” exhaustion.

One of the simplest ways to support cortisol is through daily rhythm.

Our bodies are rhythmic. They respond to light, food, movement, rest, and routine. When those signals are predictable, the nervous system receives the message that life is safe enough to relax.

A little bit of rhythm throughout the day can make a meaningful difference.

Eat something in the morning

For many women, skipping breakfast can contribute to cortisol staying elevated longer than it needs to. This does not mean you need a large meal the moment you wake up, especially if your appetite is low. But having something small with protein within the first hour or so can help signal to the body you live in a plentiful environment.

This could be eggs, Greek yogurt, leftover meat, soup, a smoothie with protein, or even a small handful of nuts while you prepare something more substantial.

The goal is not perfection, it’s simply to signal your body that there’s plenty of nutrition and its ok to relax.

Delay coffee

Coffee is not necessarily the enemy, but timing matters.

Cortisol is naturally higher in the morning. If we drink coffee immediately upon waking, especially before food, we may be layering caffeine on top of an already active stress response. Delaying coffee until after food, or at least until you have been awake for about an hour, can help support a steadier cortisol rhythm.

For women who feel anxious, shaky, irritable, or crash hard in the afternoon, this one change can be surprisingly helpful.

Get morning light

Morning light is one of the strongest signals to the body’s circadian rhythm. Getting outside early in the day, even for a few minutes, helps tell the brain: this is morning. That signal supports the natural rise and fall of cortisol during the day and melatonin at night.

It does not need to be complicated. Step outside with your tea. Walk to the mailbox. Open the door and let the light hit your face while you breathe for a minute.

Create a real transition into the evening

If morning is when cortisol should rise, evening is when the body needs permission to come down.

This is where many of us struggle. We move from work to supper to chores to screens to bed without ever giving the nervous system a clear signal that the day is ending.

A simple evening transition can help: dimming the lights, turning off work notifications, making tea, taking a warm shower, stretching, reading, meditation, journaling, or doing a few minutes of slow breathing.

The body often needs repetition before it believes us. A nightly rhythm says: the demands of the day are done now. You can relax.

Protect sleep as repair time

Sleep is not just rest. It is when the body repairs tissue, processes memory and emotion, regulates inflammation, and restores hormonal rhythm. Chronic stress often disrupts sleep, and poor sleep then makes the stress response more reactive the next day.

This is why sleep support is not separate from cortisol support. It is one of the foundations.

These practices may seem simple, but they matter because they speak the language of the nervous system. Food, light, rhythm, warmth, darkness, and rest all tell the body where it is in time and whether it is safe enough to rest.

Supporting the liver

The liver has more than a thousand known functions in the body. One of those functions is to process excess hormones, so they can be flushed out of our system altogether. Supporting the liver doesn’t mean doing a “liver cleanse”. A full cleanse may be necessary in some situations but can be really hard on the body.

Instead we can use herbs to gently support and help the liver with it’s different functions. The main bitter herbs used to support liver function are usually herbs that support bile flow and digestion rather than “detox” in a vague sense. This includes herbs like: chamomile, dandelion root, burdock root, gentian root, globe artichoke, and oregon grape. Or a formulated tincture such as St Francis Canadian Bitters.

Herbs that are considered more hepatoprotective (protecting from and repairing liver damage) and supportive for the liver and digestion include herbs like peppermint, rose petals, milk thistle seed, schisandra berry, and reishi.

Nourishing the Adrenals

The adrenal glands are designed to help us rise to a challenge, not live in a constant state of emergency. When stress is ongoing, the body keeps calling on cortisol and adrenaline to keep us alert and functioning. Over time, this can disrupt the natural rhythm of the stress response, leaving us exhausted by mid afternoon, tired but wired in the evenings, slower to recover from illness, groggy in the morning, more easily overwhelmed and struggling with brain fog.

We can directly support the adrenals using adaptogenic herbs that help to nourish the adrenal glands. This is most effective when paired with reducing our stress load. The point of adaptogens when used properly is to help our adrenals recover from a period of prolonged stress, not to force our bodies to just keep going and pushing through.

Adaptogenic herbs have enjoyed their time in the wellness spotlight, and some of the names may be familiar. This includes herbs such as ashwagandha, holy basil, ginseng, eleuthro, rhodiola, schisandra and more.

Calming the nervous system

The nervous system has two main states that matter when we talk about stress: sympathetic and parasympathetic.

The sympathetic nervous system is our “fight-or-flight” state. It helps us respond to pressure, danger, deadlines, conflict, or anything the body perceives as a demand. Heart rate rises, blood sugar becomes more available, muscles prepare for action, and digestion and repair are pushed to the background. This is useful when we need to act quickly, but it is not meant to be our permanent home.

The parasympathetic nervous system is our “rest-and-digest” state. This is the state where the body can digest food well, absorb nutrients, regulate inflammation, restore energy, repair tissue, support reproductive hormones, and move toward deeper sleep.

The goal is not to eliminate the sympathetic response, we do need this response. Instead we want flexibility: the ability to rise to meet stress, and then come back down again. When life keeps us in sympathetic mode too often, the body can begin to feel depleted, reactive, and undernourished. Moving into parasympathetic mode gives the body the signal that it is safe enough to digest, repair, restore, and heal.

There are many things we can do to help regulate our nervous system, and bring ourselves back into the feeling of safety; the rest & digest state. Warm baths, journalling, nature walks, sunshine, reading, and perhaps a herbal tea that includes herbs that nourish and calm our nervous system.

Herbs like chamomile, oatstraw, peppermint, skullcap, passionflower, lemon balm, kava, lavender, rosemary and more.

One of the most important things I learned during my herbalist apprenticeship was the risk of choosing a herb only because it seems to match a symptom.

It can be tempting to look at a list of herbs and start matching them to body systems: rhodiola for the adrenals, kava for the nervous system, dandelion root for the liver. On paper, that seems logical. But the body does not work in separate compartments. The adrenal system is not separate from the nervous system. The nervous system is not separate from digestion. The liver is not separate from hormones. Everything is connected.

This is why herbal medicine cannot be reduced to “this herb for that symptom.” Kava may be calming, but it also carries important liver cautions and may not be appropriate for someone whose liver already needs support. Rhodiola may help some people with stress and fatigue, but for someone who is already anxious, restless, or wired, it may feel too stimulating. The right herb in the wrong person, at the wrong time, can add stress instead of support.

This is also why general support matters. We cannot talk about cortisol without talking about sleep, food, blood sugar, digestion, emotional stress, nervous system regulation, liver function, and the actual life you’re living. Herbs can be powerful allies, but they work best when they are chosen in context.

The question is not simply, “What herb helps cortisol?”
The better question is: “What does this person need in order to feel safe, nourished, restored, and resilient again?”

What herbs you take, in what form, and alongside which supportive practices depends on you, not just the herb, and not just the symptom, but you as a whole person living in a particular body, season, and environment.

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In my last article I talked about what stress really is, how the cycle of cortisol works in the body, and how chronically elevated cortisol has long term effects on our health. Today let’s dive into how stress wreaks havoc on women’s monthly cycle.

First, what does a healthy cycle look like? One that isn’t already dysregulated by stress or suppressed by hormonal birth control.

Our cycles are a delicate dance of hormones. When perfectly in balance it looks something like this:

Dr Jolene Brighten in “Beyond the Pill” describes this process really well.

“Estrogen is the main player in the first half of your cycle. It spikes around days 12 through 14 to trigger the release of luteinizing hormone (LH), which marks the beginning of the ovulatory phase and stimulates your ovaries to release an egg, aka ovulation. It’s during this time that the egg travels down the fallopian tube and either implants in the endometrium if fertilized by sperm or slowly dissolves and passes out of the body, along with the uterine lining, during your period…. Its the predominant hormone during the first half of the cycle, which is known as the follicular phase (approximately days 1 through 14 of your cycle).

The ruptured follicle [which released an egg], now called the corpus luteum, releases progesterone and estrogen to prepare your body for pregnancy. Progesterone is the hormone that helps you feel chilled out and calm and in love with your life [more on this later]… Progesterone is the most prominent hormone from days 15 through 28 of your cycle and peaks around day 21, which is known as the luteal phase.

If egg doesn’t meet sperm, then your hoemones drop and your menstrual cycle starts all over again. But if you do become pregnant, those hormones stay elevated.”

This is a healthy, non-medicated cycle. But what happens when cortisol enters the picture?

In the follicular phase, researches studying the effects of perceived stress on women’s cycles found that those who reported higher stress had lower estrogen, lower LH, and higher follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), suggesting that stress interfered with the body’s signalling to produce a healthy egg1.

Another study followed 1214 women who had experienced prior pregnancy losses through six cycles and assessed their perceived stress levels. Their conclusion was that:

“Preconception perceived stress appears to adversely affect sex steroid synthesis and time to pregnancy. Mechanisms likely include the effects of stress on ovulatory function, but additional mechanisms, potentially during implantation, may also exist.”2

In other words, stress may affect the ability for the body to produce a healthy egg. In fact, the same study suggested that stress can cause us to skip ovulation altogether.

In the luteal phase, the negative effects of stress are often felt more strongly.

If you read the words “Progesterone is the hormone that helps you feel chilled out and calm and in love with your life…” and you snort-laughed or shook your head in disbelief, you already have an idea of what elevated cortisol does during this phase.

This level of chronic stress, and it’s effect on progesterone levels has become so normalized, that we don’t even think twice when we hit our luteal phase and instead of feeling chilled out, calm and in love with our lives, we want to scream, cry, run away, or murder someone — or all of the above!

Researchers have found that acute stress, (tested by putting your hand or arm into ice water for a specific amount of time) actually raises both cortisol and progesterone3, but chronically elevated cortisol has been found to lower progesterone levels in the luteal phase.4

How does stress have such a disruptive effect on our cycle?

Stress and reproductive hormones are managed by two closely connected body systems. One system (The HPA axis: hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal) helps us respond to stress, and the other (The HPO axis: hypothalamus-pituitary-ovarian) helps regulate the menstrual cycle.

When stress is short-term, this is usually not a problem. But when stress stays high for a long time, the body may begin to prioritize survival over reproduction. Cortisol, one of the main stress hormones, can interfere with the brain’s normal signals to the ovaries.

Ovulation depends on a careful rhythm of messages between the brain and the ovaries. The brain sends out pulsing signals that eventually lead to a rise in luteinizing hormone, or LH. This LH surge is what helps trigger ovulation.

When cortisol remains elevated, those brain signals may become slower or less consistent. If the rhythm is disrupted enough, the LH surge may be weaker, delayed, or absent which can make ovulation less likely or affect the quality of ovulation, the health of the egg, and the quality of the follicle.

Progesterone does not appear after ovulation by accident. It is made by the corpus luteum, the temporary gland that forms from the follicle after the egg is released. That corpus luteum depends on healthy follicle development, a strong ovulatory signal, and rhythmic LH pulses from the brain.

When cortisol stays elevated for long periods, it can interfere with this brain-to-ovary communication. The reproductive signals may become less rhythmic or less robust. Ovulation may be delayed, weaker, or skipped, and the corpus luteum may not receive the same support it needs to produce steady progesterone.

So chronic stress may lower luteal progesterone not because the body is “stealing” progesterone to make cortisol, but because stress changes the signalling environment that allows ovulation and progesterone production to happen well.

I want to return to this idea: when stress stays high for a long time, the body may begin to prioritize survival over reproduction.

To me, this is the key to understanding why chronic stress affects our cycle the way it does.

Dr Stacy Sims, an exercise and physiology researcher talks about how active women can lose their periods (and therefore their cycle balance) in this clip:

Sometimes I think we get so busy treating our body like a machine, pushing, and “bio-hacking”, and forcing this or that result, that we forget we are biological human women.

Our hormones are a delicate balance, and we can push ourselves into survival mode with chronic stress. It doesn’t matter if the stress response (fight or flight) is activated by a stressful job or family situation, or by being too active and not eating enough to support our activity, or by external events beyond our control — like war and natural disasters. The fact remains: if we stay too long in fight or flight, we risk many negative health effects, one of which is the dysregulation of our hormones and our cycle.

If we women do not feel safe (remember, many of the researchers measured perceived stress, not cortisol levels — how we feel matters), if we are constantly under pressure and stressed out, then our hormones can be knocked out of balance, our fertility is then affected, our periods become worse, and that premenstrual time becomes a nightmare.

In my next article, I promise to bring some sunshine and hope back into the picture, because there are things we can do that will positively affect our hormones, that can bring us back from fight or flight, and help us handle the stress we cannot avoid with better resilience. We can gradually bring our nervous system, adrenals, and hormones back into balance, and improve our menstrual cycle and our lives.

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It seems like this is all just part of being an adult in our modern society. It’s considered normal and accepted to be exhausted, barely surviving, and in a permanent state of brain fog. We’re “just stressed” — as though this is a baseline experience that’s a normal part of being human.

It’s not. Stress is normal, but chronic stress – the kind that never goes away and keeps you in a constant state of disharmony and dysregulation – is an unhealthy spiral to get stuck in. In this article, as well as a couple of follow up articles, I want to explore what stress is, what it does to you - especially as a woman, and how you can improve your stress resilience and overall health.

Stress is a physiological systems wide response to a trigger.

When a trigger - a stressor - happens, the HPA axis is activated. The hypothalamus releases CRH (corticotropin-releasing hormone) which activates the pituitary gland to release ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) into circulation, which in turn activates the adrenal glands to produce Cortisol.1

In other words, our nervous system recognizes something as a threat and sends a message to our endocrine system to produce cortisol (our primary stress hormone) so that we are physically on the alert, able to assess the situation, and primed to either fight or run. This is also known as the sympathetic mode of our nervous system.

Stress is a very normal and necessary part of being human. It is part of our survival mechanisms, built into our body’s systems to keep us alive and relatively safe. We need some stress to adapt and develop properly. Athletes deliberately stress their bodies to promote specific adaptations like bulking up muscles or greater heart and lung capacity for running.

One important factor about healthy stress responses is that they end. We experience the trigger, our body responds, and then the cortisol that our adrenals produce reaches the nervous system and our hypothalamus stops producing CRH because there is enough cortisol in the system to deal with the threat.

The threat disappears or is taken care of and we move into recovery mode, the body clears the excess cortisol out of the systems, either through the liver or by crying, and we relax into parasympathetic mode. Then our body’s systems can focus on repair and nourishment, returning us to homeostasis – balance, stability, and health.

What happens when the stressor doesn’t go away, or we’re living in a situation or environment that is constantly stimulating the stress response with no time to recover? This can happen for a variety of reasons and is incredibly common in our modern world. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), Stress in America surveys, 70% of adults report experiencing daily stress, and 80% of teens report stress as a major issue.

There are a variety of stress triggers in our everyday life, and as a culture in North America, we don’t prioritize stress recovery. Consider the following scenario:

A woman in her mid-thirties has three children. One is struggling at school, and likely has a learning disability. The second is acting out a lot in preschool, and is often sick. She typically gets at least a couple phone calls a week about him. Her baby is only 3 months old, and is in daycare. The family was struggling to make ends meet and pay the rent, and she had to return to work sooner than she would have liked. Neither she nor her husband have time to cook much, and meals are usually prepackaged, take out, or as simple as possible. By the time they’ve finished work, got supper finished and cleaned up from, prepped for the next day with bedtimes taken care of, it’s midnight, and she and her husband collapse into bed, knowing they need to get up in 6 hours and do it all again.

The triggers her HPA axis are experiencing are near constant. The mental overload from caregiving, work, and the family’s financial struggle, the physical stressors of poor nutrition and lack of sleep. The fact that she hasn’t physically, nutritionally, and hormonally recovered from childbirth yet. Where is the time and space to stop and recover from all of this? Where is the safe, calm space for her nervous system to relax into parasympathetic mode?

People like this woman and her spouse, and the many, many individuals in similar situations are in that 70% statistic of chronically stressed adults. These kinds of situations have compounding effects on our health leading to a downward spiral of dysregulation, loss of energy and vitality, depression and anxiety, over or under reaction of the immune system, and eventually physical disease.

If 70% of adults experiencing stress sounds like a lot, consider the fact that 80% of teens experience chronic stress. I asked my seventeen year old daughter if she could give me a snapshot of what kind of stress teens are dealing with today. She consulted with her closest friends and sent me their perspective on stress in teen lives. I’ll let her tell it in her own words:

“I think once you reach your teen years, it starts to feel like a race. A race to have our lives figured out in only a few years by eighteen, because we can see all around us how big the expectations are that society puts on adults. But all our time is taken up by school all day nearly every day, and to do homework and get it in on time, the pressure of grades is something teens do cry over, not to mention the confusion of puberty and hormones, managing friends (if we even have any), seeing hundreds of strangers every day in school, or possibly even being bullied, and on top of it all, rarely do teens have a perfect home life.

We have so many classes, so many deadlines, and if we don’t do good we’ll never succeed, or so we’re told. And yet, we learn in math class that no job we could realistically get after we graduate would even pay for enough food to live healthy, let alone a roof to sleep under.

Still, the clock is ticking, to have everything planned for when I graduate, because then all the responsibility is on me, and if I don’t have it figured out, it suddenly becomes my fault, “You should have a job by now, what are you, lazy?”

And in between being at school and studying for hours just to pass the classes, just so we can get a slip of paper saying “you made it”, we’re watching the adults in our world start wars, hurt other people, drown in debt, slave away in jobs that don’t even pay enough to live a life worth living. Is that really what I want to grow up into?

And still the clock is ticking, and suddenly it’s my last childhood birthday, Christmas, summer, the last times ever I don’t have to have everything figured out. I’m supposed to enjoy it in between the pressure, because teen years are the best years, the golden years, right? So we’re told.

And we’re also told by the older generation that despite doing all this, we should try harder.

Try harder for what??

To earn more money for the big companies so they can fund the wars we want no part in? To waste our lives doing menial tasks just so we don’t starve or freeze to death? What about living? What about doing cool things, travelling, meeting new people, experiencing the world we live in, starting a family if we want to? How are any of us teens able to even think of accomplishing anything we want to do in this world we live in, when we’re barely players in a game created by people long since dead? The system we’re told to respect has only hurt those around us, except for those who preach it.

These are just some things myself and most of the teens I know have to deal with, consider and think about, that contribute towards stress.”

—

And we parents wonder what’s wrong with our kids, and why they’re depressed, anxious, or questioning the point of everything!?

Remember, the triggers - even the stress-inducing thoughts - are not the stress. Stress is the physiological response within you. Each of us has our own individual tolerance level and response to the same trigger and we each respond to different triggers in different ways.

Being in a constant state of stress has negative effects on our health, mentally, emotionally and physically, but we all have individual responses to chronic stress. In my next post in this series we’ll go into more details about the effects of chronic stress on our health, and why accepting a constant state of stress as a normal part of being an adult - or a teen - is not a good idea.

Do herbs actually work? It’s a common question, and the simple answer is yes. Herbs are medicinal and therapeutic. They have measurable effects on the body and have been used for centuries across cultures to support health.

But herbs do not work well in isolation.

They support the body’s natural processes rather than overriding them. They work best when woven into a life that includes nourishment, rest, movement, and thoughtful stress management. When those foundations are absent, herbs can only do so much.

To understand why, it helps to look at how herbs function in the body.

Milk thistle seed and its constituent silymarin are well known for their hepatoprotective properties. They help protect liver cells and support recovery when the liver has been stressed by alcohol, processed foods, or metabolic strain.

But if the daily stressors remain unchanged (heavy alcohol use, ultra-processed food, chronic overconsumption) milk thistle can only provide limited support.

The same pattern appears elsewhere.

Hawthorn and reishi support cardiovascular health and healthy blood pressure. But when stress remains high and nutrition is poor, their effect is constrained.

Lion’s mane and rosemary are often used to support cognitive clarity. Yet without sleep, sunlight, and movement, their benefits are blunted.

Adaptogens such as rhodiola or ashwagandha support the body’s stress response. But they cannot compensate for a chronically erratic sleep schedule, excessive stimulation, or constant nervous system activation.

Herbs assist the body in functioning well. They do not cancel out patterns that continually undermine it.

Part of the confusion may come from how medicine is typically approached in modern Western culture. We are accustomed to quick, targeted interventions. In many traditional systems of medicine, however, healing has always been understood as something woven into daily rhythms and foundational care.

Pharmaceuticals are often designed to produce a strong and targeted effect quickly. They may suppress inflammation, reduce blood pressure, alter neurotransmitter levels, or block a specific pathway. In some situations, this is necessary.

Herbs tend to function differently.

Rather than forcing a rapid shift, most herbs work by supporting physiological processes over time – improving digestion, modulating inflammation, nourishing the nervous system, strengthening circulation, or helping the body adapt to stress.

Because of this, their effects happen gradually and accumulate over time.

If we expect herbs to act like pharmaceuticals, we may assume they “aren’t working.” In reality, they are working with the body, not overriding it.

If herbs work best when supported by foundational rhythms, what does that support actually include?

Nothing complicated or dramatic. These are the everyday rhythms that allow the body to function well: sleep, light and movement, nutrition, stress regulation, and community.

When those foundations are in place, herbs can support the body more effectively.

Sleep

Adequate sleep is not optional for health.

During sleep, the body regulates stress hormones, repairs tissue, consolidates memory, and recalibrates immune function. When sleep is shortened or fragmented, cortisol rises, blood sugar becomes less stable, and inflammatory processes increase.

Herbs that support digestion, stress resilience, or cognitive clarity will always be working uphill in a sleep-deprived system.

Consistent bedtimes, reduced evening light exposure, and simple wind-down routines help signal safety to the nervous system. Even modest improvements in sleep rhythm can significantly increase how well herbal support works.

Light and Movement

Light and movement are two of the primary signals that regulate the body’s internal clock.

Morning light exposure helps set cortisol and melatonin rhythms, influences serotonin production, and supports metabolic regulation. Movement improves circulation, supports lymphatic flow, enhances insulin sensitivity, and improves mood through multiple pathways.

In modern life, many people spend most of their day indoors, seated, and exposed to artificial light late into the evening. The body’s regulatory systems become confused. Energy dips. Sleep suffers. Mood becomes more fragile.

Simple exposure to natural light and regular movement like daily walking reestablishes those signals. When circadian rhythm and circulation are functioning well, herbs that support mood, stress resilience, or hormonal balance can work more effectively.

Nutrition

What we eat influences blood sugar stability, hormone production, inflammation, and nervous system regulation. When meals are skipped, overly restrictive, or heavily processed, stress hormones rise, energy becomes unstable, and the body’s ability to regulate itself diminishes.

At the same time, nutrition is one of those contentious areas of modern life. There is an overwhelming amount of conflicting advice — eliminate this, increase that, avoid this entirely. It is understandable that many women feel uncertain or exhausted by it.

Rather than chasing trends, a few simple principles tend to make the greatest difference: eat enough food, prioritize whole and nutrient-dense meals, include adequate protein, and avoid patterns that repeatedly spike and crash blood sugar.

When the body is consistently nourished, herbs that support digestion, inflammation, hormonal balance, or mood have a stronger foundation to work from.

Stress Regulation

The body is designed to move between activation and rest.

In moments of challenge, the stress response — often called the fight-or-flight response — is activated. Heart rate increases. Blood sugar mobilizes. Attention sharpens. This is not a problem; it is an adaptive and intelligent response.

The difficulty arises when the body never fully switches out of that stress response.

Chronic stress keeps cortisol elevated, disrupts sleep, alters digestion, and increases inflammatory signalling. Over time, the nervous system can begin to interpret even minor challenges as threats.

Herbs that support stress resilience and nervous system balance can be deeply helpful. But if there is no space for the body to downshift, their work becomes much harder.

Small, consistent practices that signal safety, such as breathing slowly, stepping outside, warm baths, gentle stretching, quiet moments without stimulation, allow the nervous system to reset. When the body regularly experiences rest, herbal support becomes far more effective.

Community

We are not meant to live our lives alone.

Supportive relationships change how we experience stress, how we carry responsibility, and how we recover from difficulty. Feeling seen, heard, and understood creates a sense of safety that no supplement can replace.

At the same time, community can feel complicated, especially in modern motherhood. Many women are raising children far from extended family, balancing work and home, or navigating seasons of isolation they never expected.

Herbs can support the nervous system. They can ease tension and improve resilience. But they cannot substitute for belonging.

Sometimes taking care of our health means tending to relationships: reaching out, accepting help, making space for real conversation, or allowing yourself to be supported.

Health is not only biological. It is relational.

So do herbs actually work?

Yes. They are medicinal and therapeutic but they are not magic. They work best when woven into a life built on nourishment, rhythm, and care.

Herbs cannot undo exhaustion overnight or override patterns that strain the body. But when the foundations are being tended (even imperfectly) herbs become powerful allies.

The body responds best to consistency, gentleness, and time.

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In the early days, I wrote about creative living, family life, and homeschooling. Later, as I began my herbal apprenticeship in 2023, this space slowly shifted with me. Thank you to those of you who have followed along through those seasons of growth and study. I can hardly believe that this chapter of apprenticeship is almost complete.

I’ll be graduating in June, and these final months, filled with finishing my practicum, writing my thesis, and preparing my practice, have brought a deeper clarity about where my work has been heading all along.

In my own life, I’ve felt the slow depletion that can come with motherhood. Trying to meet everyone’s needs, keeping a household, supporting growing children — it doesn’t leave much room for restoration. So often, my own needs land at the bottom of the list, reserved for “if there’s time” at the end of the day.

And during my practicum over the past months, I’ve seen that I’m far from alone.

So many women like me — mothers, professionals, creatives, caregivers — are giving life their full attention while slowly feeling their reserves thin. We wake already tired, our cycles shift, and stress feels heavier. Our energy nosedives too early in the day and we tell ourselves it’s just a busy season and that soon things will return to normal.

Eventually, we normalize it. We assume this is simply what adulthood feels like: constantly tired, constantly stretched, constantly behind.

As I worked through my apprenticeship and immersed myself in herbal medicine, something changed for me. I was struck by how many plants exist to support women, not to override the body, but to nourish it. Herbs to replenish after heavy cycles, to bring emotional balance postpartum, and to restore the nervous system and rebuild resilience over time.

It reshaped how I understand women’s health. Not something to override, ignore, or take for granted, but something to be tended, protected and rebuilt when necessary.

This isn’t about quick fixes or biohacks. It’s about slowly rebuilding with steady nourishment. Rhythm goes so much further than intensity.

This Substack is becoming a place to explore that work more intentionally. A place to talk about stress, depletion, and rebuilding vitality. A place to understand hormonal shifts. A place to take the long view of health, using herbs and gentle daily practices that strengthen rather than stimulate.

You can expect an email from me every other Sunday morning: reflective essays, thoughtful education, and practical conversations about herbs, rhythm, and nourishment. These won’t be technical clinical deep dives, but grounded, everyday guidance.

The more I study and work with women, the clearer this path becomes. Supporting women in rebuilding their vitality matters, and I’m committed to doing it well.

If this direction resonates with you, I’m so glad you’re here.
If not, I’m grateful you’ve walked with me for a season.

Later this month, I’ll share more about what I’ll be exploring in depth moving forward. For now, thank you for being here.

~Adrienne

It was a compelling perspective, but I still found myself holding onto the word create, and the idea of being creative. For some time, I was wondering why it felt so important to me not to let it go.

I’ve watched this happen before, words that once felt rooted and substantial slowly thinning out under repetition.

I first heard the word sustainable as a new acreage owner, with young preschoolers. At the time it conjured images of real life rhythms, permaculture gardens in the backyard, shelves of preserved food, people choosing slower, intentional living. I still remember the small sense of loss I felt when my permaculture mentor told me I may want to find a new word to use to describe my little goat milk soap business, since sustainable was becoming just another marketing slogan.

The same thing happened with holistic. As a herbalist, my practice is holistic: I approach each client as a whole person, and my remedies are designed with that in mind: what we eat and drink, our sleep patterns, stress management techniques, and supportive herbs. As the word became more popular, I found myself explaining it more often and sometimes I even skip it altogether because it no longer carries the weight it once did for me.

Community used to refer to people you could rely on to be there for you in a pinch, people that you would show up for —physically—if they needed help. It was a small circle carved out of the larger world, filled with people you directly interacted with and held space for.

In recent years, (especially since COVID) I’ve noticed the word appearing more often in branding and online spaces, sometimes describing shared interests or shared opinions. There can be real connections there. But it isn’t quite the same as the kind of community built through shared history and presence – the kind that shows up on your doorstep with a meal when you’re overwhelmed.

And so when I hear the word create being overused and dismissed, I feel that same pause. I find myself wanting to protect it, to hold it close and use it with meaning.

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Wanting to protect creativity isn’t a new feeling for me. It’s what I based this Substack on when I started it in March of 2022 and called it Fierce & Free. I felt that being Free was to be creative: expressing ourselves, trying new things, experimenting, creating. And Fierce was the ability and desire to protect what we needed to be creative: our time, our energy, our health.

Over time the focus of my Substack has shifted as I’ve grown, learned new things, and wanted to share something different (all part of being creative!) and now, as I’m almost ready to fully pivot from Fierce & Free to Willow Rose, it seems like a good time to revisit this idea of being creative.

I don’t want creativity in my life to shrink into something transactional or focused on productivity. Being creative is more than just filling my content calendar, it’s part of being human. I am a creator, you are a creator, and in 2026 we will create many new, beautiful and meaningful things:

• Written works

• Art

• Music

• Life

• Home

• Health

• Relationships

2026 is the year I finish my Herbalist apprenticeship. I’ll be creating my practice, both in a physical location and online — including this Substack. I will be creating a new life path for myself in the process. I’ll create writing to help guide others on a more healthy path, I’ll create tinctures, teas and other remedies for clients, and help them create a healthier future for themselves. In the process I will probably create new friendships, and deeper meaning and connection in my current relationships.

At home, I’ll continue to create a deeper relationship with my husband and children. I’ll help my children grow their creative gifts, and explore new skills and opportunities. My teens will create new art in the many different mediums they use, they’ll forge new friendships and try new activities as they work towards creating a life for themselves as young adults. My husband will undoubtedly be overflowing with creative ideas just as he was in 2025.

Creativity is a beautiful, meaningful part of being human. But it can slowly shrink if we treat it only as output; something to measure, schedule, or monetize.

If you’ve ever felt your creativity start to feel heavy or obligatory, you’re not alone. Burnout is real. Sometimes the most creative thing we can do is step back, rest, and remember why we began in the first place – before the algorithms, before the schedules, before the pressure to produce.

Creativity doesn’t have to be loud, constant, or profitable to matter.

What beautiful and very human thing are you creating in 2026?

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I learned a new term from one of my closest friends 15 years ago when our children were preschoolers: “Career Mom”. This isn’t a mom who also has a career, it’s a woman who’s entire life, identity, and sense of self are wrapped up in being a mom—the best mom possible. It stuck with me because I strongly identified with it. It was a stronger descriptor than stay-at-home-mom, and it fit me.

I was someone whose dream was to be a mom since I was five years old, and that wasn’t a dream that ever left me. I was the teen that babysat, and the aunt who doted on my best friends babies. I was the twenty-four year old whose dreams came true with my “happily ever after” wedding, and I was thrilled to have my first baby at age twenty-six.

“Career mom” isn’t a descriptor that fits for everyone. Every woman and every mother is different. I’ve been reading a lot of Mom blogs on Substack recently, and realized “The Mommy Wars” that dominated Facebook in the early 2010s when my kids were young are still going strong. There’s more in depth thought pieces here on Substack, but the passion and defensiveness is as strong as it was a decade ago.

I see my younger self in a lot of the women who passionately defend their dedication to their children and their families, at the expense of an external career and financial independence. These women are probably also Career Moms.

Career Moms “invest” in mothering, and I don’t mean clothing, bling, or trust funds for our kids, I mean resources, time, life energy, our heart and soul, and most crucially, our entire identity! Our lives are completely entangled with the lives of our children. To us, this is what mothering means, and this is what gives our life meaning and purpose.

I read dozens of parenting books, and my life revolved around my children. The layout of my home and it’s contents was built around my children and their current developmental stage. I didn’t play my favorite country music on the bluetooth speakers or in the car, I played artists like Raffi, cognitive-function-improving classical music, or peaceful, relaxing Dan Gibson’s Solitudes.

My friend and I took our children to Montessori and Waldorf preschools, and when I couldn’t afford the full time private school, and the local school didn’t have a good reputation, I homeschooled—and half the reason I homeschooled is because I couldn’t bear to be separated for so much of the day.

Being a career mom, like any career, is exhausting at times; the splatter painting that hit the ceiling, the art projects from one end of the house to the other. The hours of research into which homeschool curriculum that taught math/english/science was the best, the interrupted sleep from the early years, caring for the sick children, the list goes on. In spite of the exhaustion, this was my chosen career and I loved it.

Like most parents, I tried to make sure that they had the “right” balance of free, unstructured playtime, and enriching lessons and playdates, and, like most parents, their successes were my success, their joys were my joys. Their hurts, disappointments and stumbles broke my heart and I wanted to keep them safe and protected for as long as I could.

I didn’t want to be a “good enough parent”, I wanted to be perfect. Some of my friends laughed and said “well, as long as my kids do well enough to afford therapy, I’ll consider it a success,” and I worried about what I might do that my kids would want therapy for one day—after all, I know what it’s like to need therapy!

In spite of the “mommy wars,” career moms are not that different from all mothers. In my opinion the main difference is the entangled identity. Mothering is not something we do, it is who we are.

There’s one big problem with choosing this career. . . it has an expiry date.

When the children are little, time seems to stretch out forever in front of us, the far off horizon of “adulthood” lost to the mists of time. But suddenly the mist vanishes, and sooner than we think.

It always felt like we had years; at least until the kids turn 18, and with the ongoing cost of living in Canada, probably longer. And that’s true as far as empty nesting goes, but the empty nest is not the time start untangling ourselves and finding a new career path.

In my experience, it’s not necessarily the mom that start this process of untangling, but the teen. I had good intentions to make my children take on more and more responsibility and to give them more freedom as they got older. But every year that passed, it became easier and easier to say something like “but they’ll only be little for so long…” and leave things as they were. But my children aren’t going to wait until they’re 18. This process has been starting small over the past year, but it’s becoming more and more firmly stated.

From the 14 year old:

“Mom, I don’t need your help”

“Mom, I can figure this out”

“Mom, I’m fine”

From the 17 year old:

“Mom, it’s ok if you and Dad want to do something or go somewhere. You can go do that.”

“Mom you’re not tethered to us and we’re not tethered to you. We can have our own lives someday soon, and so can you—it’s ok.”

Ok sure, but what happens when your entire life has been built around being Mom—making sure they’re happy, helping them be successful, and shielding them from harm, to the best of your abilities? What if, like me, being Mom is your entire identity?

To those who say “you’ll always be mom,” yes, in some ways that’s true, but if you’re a career mom and you stay a career mom, you become that pathological, clingy mom (and perhaps mom-in-law) who won’t let go.

So here I am, in the middle of the letting go, and the main thing I’m realizing right now is how far I still have to go.

Where am I at now?

Well, on the positive side, I am starting to build an identity as a Herbalist and a business woman, something (for the first time in my life) completely unrelated to my relationship roles, and this year, I even let go of homeschooling—letting the teens fly a little outside of the nest, without my constant supervision.

But I’m still very much entangled. This week, I’m stressing about my children’s homework and the amount of work on projects that “we” need to do before the end of the semester. I’m still packing the lunches, and bringing them their snacks and kissing them good night.

Am I just a “really good mom”, a successful “Career mom”? Or am I still too entangled? I suspect we’ve reached the point where the latter is more true than the former.

Adulthood for both my children is no longer a far off horizon, shrouded in mists, it’s right in front of me, and if I actually want to be a successful career mom, I need to gently untangle my identity from being completely “Mom”, so that my children have the space they need to be adults.

This essay is not written from a place of regret, nor is it written as a “warning” for other career moms who may resonate with what I say. This is my personal recognition that this era of my life is ending—a little sooner than I had anticipated—and it’s time to prepare for what comes after my career as a mother.

This publication is currently “under construction” as I finish my Herbalist apprenticeship and practicum, write my thesis, and complete my rebrand. I will be back to writing regularly in late spring, on topics related to health and well-being:

• Thorough analysis of Herbs and their properties

• Guides for using herbs and other healing arts in your everyday life

• Essays on Life, Home, and Family

• Book Reviews

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As the days get shorter it becomes easier to stay indoors, to study, read, journal, meditate, dream, plan, draw, paint…. and then—there’s Christmas—*sigh*. Perhaps one reason why so many of us feel agitation around the Christmas season is the juxtaposition of the busy consumer holiday and the dark quiet of mid-winter.

Last year, I allowed myself to get caught in the flow of Christmas craziness; shopping, stressing about those perfect gifts, spending more that I should have, working right up to Christmas, trying to do too many Christmassy things at once.

This year, in keeping with my current focus of self-care, my aim is to create my own “perfect” holiday. What will this look like to me?

• One or two gatherings. With our immediate families (my parents and my husbands parents) being so far away, our Christmas “obligatory” family gatherings are nonexistent. Instead we can enjoy a couple of casual get-togethers with extended family in the area, or with friends (and no, we’re not travelling this year).

• Simple, fun, and less expensive gifting for those closest to me. This is my biggest stressor some years: trying to come up with that perfect gift for husband and children. This year, Hubby and I discussed just having fun with Christmas and getting gifts that are fun and perhaps even silly, instead of expensive (whether in time or money)

• What to send the long distance family? This year the stress of what to ship to long distance family is greater than usual with the Canada post strike. (seriously, they always strike during the Christmas season). I have to choose between shipping that is triple the cost, or digital gifts. If I’m going to stick with less stress, I’m thinking digital gifts this year. Video games, gift cards, e-books—or Amazon or Indigo wrap-and-ship services… but I haven’t even started shopping yet.

• Time off work! This is the one thing that I neglected to do last year—actually book my time off. As a freelancer, I often make myself a little too available to clients, leaving less and less time for myself and my family. This is something I’m working on changing this year, and I’ve already booked my holiday time on my calendar.

• Having fun shopping for one or two days, enjoying the city Christmas. Embracing the busy-ness and magic of a day or two in the city, enjoying the atmosphere of the Christmas decor and music in the shopping malls is part of Christmas fun… if we can make it Christmas fun, and not a stressful, rushed holiday madness.

• Letting go. This is becoming my lesson to learn this year. The idea and reality of “letting go” as my oldest child reaches driving age is more difficult than I thought, even though I know the independence will be good for her. I’m sure I’ll write more on this soon, but as it relates to Christmas, this means letting go of the traditions I’ve insisted on following since my children were small, and instead, allowing the holidays to evolve as my children get older.

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If I can keep the Christmas craziness at bay, can I also accept and experience the darkness and the quiet? Can I go inwards; with contemplation, meditation and just time to be instead of do? Or will I fight it, filling my short winter days with to-do lists, music, cleaning, studying—there is always so much to accomplish!

Last month I had a slow week of work. As I wrapped up a couple of projects on the Monday, I went through the long list of extra items I was going to accomplish during the rest of the week: important admin tasks for myself, side projects, my oft-neglected website and the updates it needs. Then my body said “no, you’re going to rest.” and I came down with a cold. One of those shivery, can’t-think-straight, bone-tired, headache, runny nose colds. Instead of spending the week learning a new client management software and updating my website, I spent the next few days curled up on the couch in the sun sleeping or reading a novel. It took ten days to be back to normal, and those extra tasks still aren’t done.

In a way though, I’m grateful for that cold. Sure, I could have got more done without it, but it reminded me that I often don’t stop, make time for myself, and rest the way I should. I’m a fighter of the dark times, a busy list-maker, someone who fills my days with to-dos. Contemplation and meditation are things I do “when I have time”—or if it’s part of a class I’m taking.

So here’s to some deeper self-care this winter season. I hope to better tune into the the darkness, to make the time for contemplation, journalling, meditation, and just relaxing.

How is your Winter season so far? Are you caught in the Christmas craziness? Or are you also determined to make time for yourself?

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Last month I had one of my usual classes with my Herbalist teacher. During this class we were discussing therapies that I wanted to study more for my electives. As I enthusiastically described my ideas for working with others, and what I had read so far, he interrupted with a question:

“How much of this work that you want to do for others have you done for Adrienne?”

I stammered and stuttered a little and finally sheepishly admitted that I hadn’t done any of this for myself. “But, I’ve been trying this out for my husband, and this other one for my son, and I’m thinking to try this version for my daughter….”

He stopped me with a shake of his head. “You need to heal yourself first. Put the books away for a while, and try this for yourself. See how you feel, see how this helps you, then you can move on to helping others.”

To be honest, I was a little taken aback. Isn’t being a herbalist and therapist all about helping others heal and realize their health and well-being?

And besides, I’m….. fine.

I like to think that I’m a balanced and healthy individual. I am always “ok”, “just fine”, or “good”—no matter what’s going on in my life. I’m the one that keeps everyone else organized, comforts and helps others feel better, stays strong, calm, and in control no matter what. If everyone else in my life is happy—family, friends, clients, then I’m happy too.

This isn’t necessarily a “bad” character trait, but here’s the problem: I can be so focused on making sure that everyone else’s needs are met, that I don’t make time to look after myself.

Why is it so difficult for me to give myself the same level of love and attention that I give others? Even when I know I need to look after myself, I often don’t. Where does this pattern of behaviour come from?

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Sometimes our behaviour or thought patterns are so old that we don’t even realize they are there. For some people, negative patterns manifest as self-critical repeating thoughts, or perhaps uncontrollable outbursts of anger, gossiping about others, constant complaining, playing the victim…the list goes on. For me, its not making the time to look after myself, not taking care of my own health and well being with the same level of commitment that I give to everyone else around me. To be clear, I’m not saying this is my only flaw—(I wish!).

When my mother passed away at age 50, she was lauded at her funeral as a “devoted wife, a loving mother, and a shining example of a selfless pastor’s wife”. And she was. As a teen I remember her slowly and painfully getting her very pregnant self off her chair to go and get the glass of water Dad had just asked her for—without protest. I never heard her say “No.” to a request, nor do I remember her ever taking time to do something just for her own self care. She never went to any therapy, or talked about things that bothered her. She had very few friends—if any. Her entire life was her husband, her children, and her religion.

Our parents don’t have to tell us how to behave, how to react, and how to look after ourselves; their example and their reactions to what we do or don’t do becomes imprinted on us, either positively (we do what they did) or negatively (we avoid what they did at all cost). This example of a selfless, uncomplaining and compliant wife and mother was imprinted on me at a very young age.

Dr. Gabor Mate talks about this phenomena of the “nice person”, and their tendency to sacrifice self-care and authenticity in pursuit of approval (attachment). This is normal behaviour for a child; we watch those around us, and copy their behaviour as much as we can, in order to gain their approval and remain secure in our relationships. As adults though, when we continue to seek attachment and approval at the expense of our own sense of self and authenticity, we are creating an underlying condition of stress that influences our emotional, mental, and physical well-being.

*If you’d like to listen to some of Dr Gabor Mate’s own words about this, check out this YouTube video: How to Stop People Pleasing.

When you’re raised to be compliant, nice, and self-denying, it can take years to understand true self-care, and to implement it. I may “know” what I should be doing (or should not be doing) but that doesn’t mean it is my first instinct to follow through on that. And by self-care, I don’t mean getting my hair and nails done, or going shopping for new clothes (though those could be part of it), but I mean doing my own healing inner work, and creating healthy routines and good habits for myself—not just for those I love.

For someone like me, this can be overwhelming, and difficult to integrate into my life. Its far easier to be busy looking after everyone else who needs me in various ways than it is to do healing work for myself, or even just enjoy something I would like to do. Recently, I spent a day in the city with a friend, taking the time for some heart to heart connection—and I felt guilty for doing so—for not being home to make my teens their lunch, or to be there when my husband got home from work, or to answer the many emails from clients.

I know I’m making progress because I at least recognize these situations now—and question why I feel the way I do, which brings me back to my title: One Step at a Time. This is how we integrate ourselves into whole and healthy individuals. We choose something—one step—and implement that one routine or item or thought pattern into our lives.

This is something that I’ve been slowly, consciously working towards in fits and starts, something that started several years ago, when I first became aware that I didn’t have a self-identity, but like my mother, my entire identity was wrapped up in the roles I lived for others. It takes time—a lot of time—to move from realization and occasional contemplation, to concrete decisions and follow through.

Recently I’ve implemented a couple of changes to prioritize my well-being. The first one was simple: delaying my work start time (as a freelancer this is possible) by one hour. Instead of being on the computer, answering emails at 8am sharp, I now give myself an extra hour to do some movement, have a good breakfast and write for a while. This extra hour in the morning has made a big difference in reducing my feeling of overwhelm. It means that I sometimes work until 5, instead of 4 and don’t have supper prepped, or the housework caught up on… (because I do still try to do it all)…but I’m learning to be ok with that.

My second major change is to start practicing Qi-Gong. This time, I won’t be just following free youtube videos, like I have with Yoga or Pilates in the past, but instead spending some of my hard-earned money on myself and taking some in-person classes, just like I spend money on my children and their martial arts and music lessons.

Doing healing work on our own emotional, mental and/or physical health is not necessarily an easy and fun method of self-care. It’s much more enjoyable to head to a spa, or have a candlelit bath at home, then it is to examine why I react, behave, or think the way I do, but if I can heal myself, I will be in a much better position to help those around me.

If each of us took our personal healing seriously, we would change our lives, the lives of those around us, and eventually, the world. In the words of Gabor Mate:

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“As one becomes well by gaining increased happiness and interest in life, the disease goes, having been cast off by the increase in health. Health and disease are caused by how we think, how we feel within ourselves. Health and disease are the consolidation of mental attitude.”

—Dr Edward Bach, The Twelve Healers and Other Remedies

What a provocative quote. Are we really that much in control of our health and well-being? Or are we only victims of life, of invasive disease, of degeneration and death? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle?

Our current medicinal model in the west is based on a mechanistic view of health and disease. We use modern diagnostic technology, invasive surgeries, and chemical drugs to address physical and mental disease. This is an approach that can work really well in acute situations, which is when we often refer to this as “Heroic Medicine”. A stroke, a heart-attack, advanced Cancer, a horrific car accident, a complete psychotic breakdown, severe anxiety or depression. In all of these situations we need Heroic Medicine, some way to bring the body and/or mind back towards equilibrium very quickly.

Western medicine is usually able to diagnose what is wrong, understand the progression of the disease, and fix or replace broken parts, as well as medicate to soothe any symptoms. What it doesn’t address is WHY the body isn’t working properly. And one area western medicine struggles is when dealing with chronic and mental diseases. With most chronic and mental diseases, western medicine is only able to manage symptoms.

I start this series of articles by talking about western—allopathic, heroic—medicine because as I head deeper into what may be unexplored territory for many, I want to be clear that I do NOT believe other modalities of healing are better than or more important than our western medicine. They are different than, and offer insights and benefits that western medicine can’t. There is nothing wrong with that, and I believe an integrative approach is necessary for health and well-being.

There are many layers of health. Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual and within each of those layers is more nuance. “Layers” is not the best imagery in my opinion. In fact, one reason this post has been stuck as a draft for several months is my struggle to find the right image, metaphor, or way to express how these different aspects of our health connect to each other. Today, while having an in-depth conversation with a friend over lunch, she gave me the piece I needed to put this together:

Each of these aspects of health are like strands of a rope, woven together to create a strong, healthy human being… and like a rope, occasionally one of these strands becomes frayed and needs extra attention to bring it back into wholeness and health. The strand that frays out from the whole may be our nervous system, hormones, or gut health. It may be emotional trauma or spiritual abuse.

Each strand is important, when woven together they create a resilient and healthy individual. There are many different stressors that can affect our emotional, mental, spiritual and physical well-being, causing these strands to fray. Thankfully there are also many different healing methods to help us bring these strands back into being an integral whole.

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The idea that our emotional/spiritual health strongly influences our physical health is not a new idea. It is an ancient philosophy, thoroughly explored and explained in both Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Ayurvedic Medicine. These two surviving ancient systems of medicine have overlapping theories of how our emotional, mental, and spiritual issues, including behavioural patterns, affect our physical well-being. In TCM, the Five Element Theory is used to explain the nuances of mind-body health, and in Ayurvedic medicine, there are the Gunas, the Doshas and the Chakras.

In Western Science, the importance of this mind-body connection is a relatively new field of exploration called Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). Canadian doctor, Dr Gabor Mate, is one of the most well-known researchers in this field. He specializes in how our emotional (psychological) health affects our neurology and immune systems, developing into addictions and/or chronic health issues. His books1 and lectures are a phenomenal exploration into underlying causes of disease.

When we put all of this together, we can begin to see that it is the picture of a whole person that is actually healthy. Not just managing physical or mental symptoms, but taking the time for a careful and thorough look at each person as a complete being: mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. This is where we can begin to heal instead of hope to be not as sick.

August seems to be all about “Back-to-School”: school supplies, mom’s time being freed up again, back to routine, school buses, and new classmates and teachers.

The down side of this back-to-school routine, something often overlooked until we’re in the middle of it—the flu season. Coinciding with that abrupt shift in schedules, the return of cooler temperatures, and the long days of being closed up in small classrooms with 30 other people and low air circulation…. here comes the cough, the sniffles, the headaches, the sore throats, and all the rest of the respiratory symptoms that we associate with seasonal influenza.

So what can you do during your back-to-school prep work for flu prevention? What steps can you take for maintaining good health, and what can you add to your herbal medicine cabinet for when the inevitable respiratory virus strikes your household?

Preventative Health for the Flu Season

Immune-modulating herbs. These are herbs/plants/mushrooms that strengthen your immune system. There are some herbs that “boost” your immune system (like the well-known Echinacea), but as we learned during Covid (and it was true in other epidemics as well, such as the Spanish influenza of 1918), an over-active immune system can also cause problems, such as a cytokine storm. We want our immune system to respond appropriately to any threats, not to under or over respond.

To achieve this, we need to feed our immune system to keep it strong and healthy, and also avoid things that tear down our immune system. There are lifestyle practices, dietary choices, and medicinal herbs that will help with this.

Stress is one of the biggest lifestyle culprits when it comes to breaking down our immunity (I wrote several articles about Stress Management in 2023). Lack of sleep is another. Lack of sunshine and fresh air also reduce immunity. If we can lower our stress levels—and the amount of stress hormones our body needs to deal with on a daily basis, establish a predictable sleep pattern, and spend a little time every day outside in the fresh air and sunshine, all of these will help our immune system remain strong.

Dietary choices that affect our immune system include eating less sugars and other unhealthy, refined foods, and making sure we have a high amount of whole food vitamin and mineral sources in our diet: rich meaty soups and stews, made with bone broth and root vegetables, berries rich in vitamins and polyphenols, and fruit high in vitamin C (because unlike many animals, humans do not make vitamin C within ourselves), such as citrus fruit and apples (rose hips are even better!).

The one synthetic supplement I add to our diet, because of how far north we live, is Vitamin D. The winter days are too cold and short to predictably be outdoors, and it is highly unlikely we get enough vitamin D from sunshine in the winter. You can get your vitamin D from dark green leafy vegetables, algae such as spirulina, and seaweed. These plants capture vitamin D from the sun in their chlorophyll—all plants do—but these have particularly high concentrations. The tricky part is getting children and teens to eat dark green leafy vegetables, algae, and seaweed, which is why I supplement with synthetic vitamin D.  

There are many amazing herbs that feed our immune system, and help us to remain strong and healthy for the winter months. Some of my favourites, which I include in my family’s daily routine during the winter months, are:

• Turkey Tail Mushroom (Trametes versicolor): this is a powerful immune modulating mushroom that I wrote more about in this post: Medicinal Mushrooms. When taking for preventative maintenance, only a half teaspoon every other day is needed.

• Astragalus root (Astragalus membranaceus): I love this herb for my children, and add it to their winter diet daily. It is one of the most popular tonic herbs in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and is used as an energy tonic, to stimulate immune function, and for it’s warming properties. It is known to be especially useful to protect against a viral infection such as the common cold.

• Reishi Mushroom (Ganoderma lingzhi):“Reishi is also good for the lungs and respiratory system, it increases oxygen uptake, strengthens the lungs, is an antihistamine, and helps recover from repeated bronchial infections. Reishi is a great tonic mushroom to be used regularly for someone who is dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, heart or blood issues, a depressed or exhausted immune system, or lung problems.” —From Medicinal Mushrooms

• Ashwagandha (Withania Somnifera): This is a tonic, strengthening herb that is used extensively in Ayurvedic medicine. I’ve dedicated an entire post to Ashwagandha, which you can read here if you wish: Ashwagandha, King of Herbs. It is both an adaptogen (helps the body deal with stress), as well as immune-modulating. There have been many studies in Western medicine that explore Ashwagandha’s health benefits, including its ability to help manage a Covid infection.

There are MANY immune boosting, immune modulating, and adaptogenic herbs to help you stay strong and healthy throughout the cold and flu season. The herbs above are just a small handful that I use regularly for myself and my family.

Caution: If you are immune compromised, and/or on medications, be sure to check with your health care professional before you take herbs that affect your immune system.

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Herbs for when You Get Sick

Sometimes, no matter how much prevention we practice, we still get sick. Some natural health practitioners speculate that the body needs to get sick occasionally, this is how it remembers what to do, how to do it, and when. And sometimes a particular viral or bacterial infection is simply a lot stronger than others. For a healthy human, in a non-sterile environment, we may come across hundreds of viruses daily, and (according to this article) even unknowingly carry viruses that don’t make us feel ill, unless our body becomes rundown and depleted.

So when you and someone in your household inevitably becomes ill with a respiratory infection, an influenza virus, or the common cold, what can you do, besides reaching for the ever-present Tylenol to manage symptoms? There are many herbs with antiviral properties. These herbs are often also antibacterial and anti-fungal herbs. Here are my personal favourites:

• Elderberry (Sambucus nigra): this is a well-known herb, used for centuries for respiratory infections of all kinds. Like most berries, it is high in vitamins, especially vitamins A and C, and elderberries are one of the best antivirals we have. Keep in mind that elderberries also stimulate the immune system, which is good for a typical cold/upper respiratory infection, but for some (such as Avian flu) it’s better to use something like oregano oil, which is an antiviral without stimulating the immune system to avoid the risks of a cytokine storm. For general cold and flu viruses, if Elderberry tincture is taken the moment the symptoms appear, it can significantly reduce the duration of the infection. (More on Elderberries coming in my September Willow & Rose herb monograph)

• Pau D’Arco/Lapacho (Tabebuia avellanedae or Tabebuia impetignosa): This is a South American tree which Herbalists use the bark of for its strongly antibiotic, antifungal and anti-inflammatory properties. This is not a herb that one would take daily for a long period of time, it is an antibiotic, and should be treated with the same respect. When the first signs of a cold or flu arrive, I use a tincture of Pau D’arco and Elderberry 3 times per day for 3-5 days, no more than 7 days.

• Thyme (Thymus vulgaris): This is my go-to herbal remedy for coughs. I wrote about Thyme extensively last winter, and you can find more information in this post: Thyme, the Garden Wizard. I use it mostly as a cough syrup.

“Cough syrup can be made from thyme to help soothe a sore throat and spasmodic coughing as well as being a good expectorant for congested lungs. Thyme is a great cough medicine and can even soothe coughing fits in acute bronchitis and whooping cough. While helping to soothe a cough, Thyme also generally supports the immune system.”

• Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and/or Elderflower (Sambucus nigra): These two are our best herbal remedies for fevers. There are both risks and benefits to fever, and I am a mother who keeps Tylenol and/or ibuprofen in my medicine cabinet, just in case someone in my home has a really high fever that isn’t breaking, but the temperature of a fever is a necessary part of the body’s immune response to clear out the bacteria or virus that is making someone sick. Often a low-grade fever will resolve on its own with rest and lots of fluids. The advantage to using herbal remedies instead of drug store remedies is that herbs like Yarrow and Elderflower don’t artificially suppress a fever, instead they help the body break the fever naturally.

  • A hot Yarrow tea helps to eliminate toxins and promotes perspiration, among its many benefits, as I detailed in this post:

  • Elderflower is also an amazing remedy for helping our bodies naturally find relief during the hot and restless phase of a fever, by dilating the capillaries close to the skin, letting heat out of the body.

• Here is a common tea formula used by Herbalists for fever relief:

  Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

  1 part Peppermint
  1 part Yarrow
  1 part Elderflower
  a pinch ginger (optional)
  a pinch cayenne (optional)

  For adults I would add the ginger and cayenne, for children I would leave that out and sweeten with honey. “Parts” are a way to measure the right ratio for a formula, without an exact amount. You could use tablespoons or 1/4 cups if mixing ahead to store and have on hand, or you could use 1 teaspoon for each part, for 2-3 cups of the tea. Mix the ingredients ahead of time, and then use 1 teaspoon of the mixture per cup of water, steep for 10-15 minutes, covered and drink as needed.

There are many more herbs, and natural products that are used for immune boosting, and that are antiviral, antibiotic, and anti-fungal. The herbs listed above are the ones that I use. It’s important to keep in mind that herbal remedies work with the body and our natural immune response, not against the body like pharmaceutical pain blockers and fever suppressants do. As a result, they are not the fast acting, instant response that we are accustomed to with over-the-counter drugs. Therefore, we also need to support our body during cold and flu season, and when we do get sick, besides using herbs to help, we need to respect our body and rest.

Cautions: Keep in mind that Pau D-arco should only be used for a short period of time. When Herbalists say to use Elderflowers or Elderberries, that’s what they mean, don’t use the leaves and twigs. Yarrow should not be used if you’re pregnant or if you’re allergic to the astercae family of plants.

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Have a lovely August! I hope you enjoy the sunshine. I will be having fun with my family at the lake and the pool whenever possible before fall and winter return. We’ll see you in September, with my usual timeline of articles, and my new section called “Perspectives” (Keep an eye out for my announcement post, coming out on August 15th.)

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Burnout can happen gradually; before we get to a complete shutdown phase, we can become fatigued, irritable and have difficulty enjoying and focusing on the work that once gave us so much joy and meaning.

We often ignore these signs of burn out and push through, trying to continue our work and activities rather than respecting our body telling us that enough is enough and it’s time to rest. Eventually we can experience physical symptoms as well, along with fatigue and irritability: nausea, headaches, issues with digestion, loss of sleep. Mental symptoms include negativity, cynicism, inability to focus, and depression.

After the COVID years, we’re familiar with the term burnout in context of medical professions, and these are the professions that experience burnout the most, along with teachers and unpaid caregivers (parents of small children or special needs children, and caregivers of ailing relatives). Burnout is also possible in other situations, such as students in post-secondary school, entrepreneurs, and more.

According to Forbes1, in 2025, job burnout—with the lack of motivation, irritability, exhaustion, and all the other symptoms that come with it—is at an all time high of 66% of employees in the United States.

How did we get to this point, where burnout is more and more of a common phenomena? I believe it starts with our cultural value of work. “The Protestant Work Ethic”; a belief that work is valuable for it’s own sake, not just for what it provides or the end result of the work. This concept underlies the current work ethic of the west, especially in the United States. I work with a lot of Americans on Substack, and not many of them know how to take a break.

This foundational—often unconscious—belief is part of the reason we just keep going, even when we’re on the verge of breakdown.

Another affect this work ethic has on us is defining our perception of value. Are we valuable just as an individual? Or only if we’re busy and productive? Is time spent being just as important as time spent doing? How often do we sit quietly, sipping our tea and watching the sunset? Or is that only for “old people” who have no more economic value? I could go on, and perhaps this is a topic for another blog.

Even as a stay at home mom during my children’s early years, I did too much. I was “just” a stay at home mom while my husband worked, but…. I also had a small acreage with a garden, an orchard we had just started, milking goats (and all the milk production that goes with that), egg-laying chickens, pigs, rabbits, quail, cats and a dog. And I homeschooled my two children, cooked all the meals, and kept my home clean (I mean, as clean as you can with two—creative—homeschooling children).

When I occasionally watch old home videos with my husband, and we’re cooing over how cute the kids were, my husband will often comment something like “You sound exhausted.” Well… yes. I was.

It wasn’t all negative, of course, but had we paced ourselves, adding one thing at a time, doing a thorough and careful job, perhaps after five years instead of feeling burnt out and overwhelmed by it all — and ultimately quitting the acreage life — we would have been well established, happy, and with enough energy to continue.

Of course, there are other factors contributing to burnout, as was the case for us, such as the rising cost of living, carrying too much debt (especially common here in Canada) and not being physically healthy enough to have the energy and stamina to maintain a busy and active life.

Now my kids are teens and I’m doing SO much better (internal eye roll). The past three plus years I’ve spent running a home business as “Substack Coach”, going to school as a Herbalist’s apprentice, homeschooling my two teens, and running the household. Sometimes my clients will say something like; “I don’t know how you do it all?” and I’ll smile; “Oh, I’m just really organized.” which is true (you should see my lists and calendars) but also, I’ve been just a few steps away from burnout again.

The key is to recognize the early stages of burnout, and do something about it, before you crash. Which sounds great, but what can you do to prevent full on burnout?

Burnout is one of those situations where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this case the same things work for curing that work for prevention. And when done as prevention, they’re even more effective.

1. Do less.

This is a big one. And it’s not easy. I’ve been there. Had I done less on my acreage, perhaps I wouldn’t have given up all together. Thankfully I learned that lesson and instead of giving up all together now, as I’m busy with life and business again, I’ve learned that it’s time to swallow my pride, give up on a few things and reach out for help. My teens are going to school this year—I will not be doing all the planning and teaching anymore. And my husband is taking on a large portion of the work of the home, and the background aspects of the business.

I fully recognize that this isn’t always possible. Economics often dictates how much we can or cannot give up doing. In some situations, people need to work two jobs just to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. It shouldn’t be this way, but the societal changes necessary to make it better (and the willingness of society to make those changes) is beyond the scope of this one blog post. So if you’re in such a situation, what else can you do?

2. Adaptogens

When we have a busy and stressful life, we’re often fuelling ourselves with coffee and energy drinks, but this is counter-productive in the long run. In fact, in Chinese Medicine, this is called “stealing from our future self”.

The physiological side of burnout comes from too much stress. Our adrenal glands are producing cortisol to help us deal with all these “threats” of every day life, and since the threats never go away, more and more cortisol is produced until our adrenal glands are exhausted and we’re unable to properly regulate our hormones anymore. This is what leads to the depression (lack of seratonin), disrupted sleep (too much cortisol in the evenings, not enough melatonin), feeling exhausted in the morning (no normal cortisol production to get us going in the morning), and more.

Instead of trying to keep everything going; whipping a tired horse, we need to feed that horse; nourish our adrenal glands and our body. Adaptogenic herbs are an amazing way to do this. This category of herbs are those that help our bodies recover from stress and over time improve our capacity to deal with stress. This includes herbs like:

• Ginseng

• Siberian Ginseng

• Ashwagandha

• Rhodiola

• Holy Basil (Tulsi)

• Schisandra

If you’re looking for help in this area, I recommend Strest, a herbal tincture by St Francis Herb Farm (not an affiliate link, it’s just a good product). But, always check with your health care provider first, especially if you’re on any medications or if you have a diagnosed condition.

What else is important?

3. Sleep and Sun

Quality sleep and daily (if possible) time in the sun cannot be understated. I live in Canada, in Manitoba, and winter temperatures sometimes dip down to -40C, which by the way is also -40F. It’s not possible to get out in the sun at that point. So I know this isn’t always a possibility.

The sun is important for more than just vitamin D (which for most people is a good idea to supplement with in the winter), it also helps our bodies regulate melatonin and seratonin2 production, and lack of sunshine can make us susceptible to disorders such as S.A.D (Seasonal Affective Disorder).

Evidence also shows that near infrared radiation (NIR), which occupies a major portion of the wavelengths of sunlight, promotes melatonin production and the beneficial effects of sun baths or photobiomodulation therapy may be, at least, partially mediated by the increased local melatonin production induced by NIR.3

Sleep is just as important, and a rhythm or routine that trains our bodies to go to sleep at the same time every evening is an important part of getting enough sleep. Consistency is key, and it takes time to retrain. There is also newer research being done around sleep chronotypes; that there really are “early birds” and “night owls”. The important thing is to get enough sleep, which in our society of school and work, isn’t usually possible if you’re staying up too late. All the sleep gurus who insist we shouldn’t be on our screens within 1-2 hours of when we want to sleep are right—at this point, the hormone disrupting effect of blue light is well-established4.

4. Support System

How do I say this? A support system keeps us sane. I’m talking about friends and family who are there for us (and we’re there for them) when needed. It doesn’t have to be a large group of people.

I grew up in a small community of fundamentalist Christians. There were about 50 people in our church, at it’s largest. One of the ideas that makes a church like this attractive, is that becomes your community, your people. But honestly, a lot of people fall through the cracks, and often status matters. Still it was all I knew, and I grew up within this church.

When my husband and I left the church, I completely lost that community. The following two years of my life were the most difficult. I had a three year old and an 18 month old, we left the church and my mother passed away. My support system dissolved, and the only person I could rely on was my husband. Honestly, if I didn’t have my husband I don’t think I would have survived the transition out of that church. I still rely on him as the most important part of my support system.

In the years since leaving the church community, I’ve made some amazing friends and found that a support system doesn’t need to be 50 people. In fact, my spouse and a handful of good friends is enough.

It takes time and careful nurturing to build strong and enduring relationships, whether that’s with friends, family, or your partner, but it’s a fundamental human need, and without it, we’re heading for burnout a lot faster than we would be otherwise.

Today, I carefully plan my times away with friends, whether it’s a weekend or a lunch. And my dates with hubby, whether planned or impromptu are a necessary part of running a home business—often he’s the one that notices it’s time to put aside the never-ending emails and take a break. Our 18th anniversary is tomorrow, and I can’t imagine not having his encouragement and support.

Burnout is something that looms on the horizon when we constantly push ourselves beyond our capacity, and neglect our own self-care. But when everything becomes too much, there are things we can do to bring ourselves back to equilibrium, back to being rested and energetic. I hope this blog has helped you remember some of the things that you can do to rejuvenate yourself.

Until next time,

~Adrienne ❦

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“There is no true healing unless there is a change of outlook, peace of mind, and inner happiness”—Dr Edward Bach

What Are Flower Essences?

Emotional patterns have a powerful influence on our health. Periods of stress, grief, fear, or overwhelm can change how the body functions over time.

Flower essences were developed in the early twentieth century as gentle remedies intended to support emotional balance and well-being. Unlike herbal medicines, which work primarily through the physical chemistry of the plant, flower essences address patterns in our emotional and mental life that influence health over time.

The system most widely known today was developed by Dr. Edward Bach, an English physician and bacteriologist working in London in the early 1900s. Through years of observation, Dr. Bach noticed something intriguing among his patients: people suffering from similar illnesses often shared similar emotional patterns.

Some were chronically anxious. Some were overwhelmed by responsibility. Some struggled with grief, fear, or exhaustion.

Over time he began to believe that emotional imbalance was not simply a consequence of illness, but often a contributing factor in it. This led him to search for plant-based remedies that might help restore emotional equilibrium.

Between 1930 and 1936, Dr. Bach developed a system of 38 flower essences, each associated with a particular emotional pattern or state of mind.

Why Emotional States Matter in Health

Many traditional medical systems recognize the powerful influence emotions can have on physical health. In Chinese medicine, for example, emotions are understood as a natural part of life that only become harmful under certain conditions.

As one text explains:

“In order for emotions to “injure” and thus constitute a cause of illness they must fulfill certain criteria:

They must be very strong.
They must be very raw.
They must persist over time.
They must be repeated.”

In other words, it is rarely a single emotional experience that creates imbalance. Rather, it is when emotional states become chronic patterns that they begin to affect the body.

Modern research increasingly echoes this perspective. Chronic stress, unresolved emotional strain, and long-term psychological pressure are now known to influence hormonal regulation, immune function, digestion, and nervous system health.

Flower essences were designed to address these kinds of emotional patterns — not by suppressing them, but by helping the mind return to a more balanced perspective.

The Seven Emotional Patterns

Dr. Bach organized the emotional states he observed into seven broader categories that describe common forms of imbalance in human experience.

These include emotional patterns related to:

• Fear
• Uncertainty
• Loneliness
• Despondency or despair
• Over-sensitivity to external influences
• Insufficient interest in the present
• Over-care for the welfare of others

Within these categories are the individual flower essences, each addressing a more specific emotional state.

For example, some remedies address nervous worry and anxious anticipation, while others relate to discouragement, grief, or the exhaustion that comes from continually placing the needs of others ahead of our own.

Because the language used in Bach’s original writings dates from the 1930s, some of the category titles can sound unusual today. Yet the emotional patterns they describe remain recognizable.

How Flower Essences Are Made

Flower essences are prepared in a very different way from most herbal medicines.

Fresh blossoms are placed in a bowl of spring water and exposed to sunlight for several hours. During this process, the energetic pattern of the flower is believed to be imprinted into the water. In some cases the blossoms are gently boiled instead of sun-infused, depending on the plant.

The resulting liquid is then preserved with a small amount of brandy to create what is called the mother tincture. This is further diluted into small stock bottles used to prepare personal blends. This process of dilution is why many people consider flower essences to be a homeopathic remedy.

Unlike herbal extracts or teas, flower essences contain very little physical plant material. Their action is considered subtle and energetic rather than biochemical.

Flower Essences Are Not Essential Oils

Because both remedies are made from flowers, and contain “essence” in their names, flower essences are sometimes confused with essential oils. In reality, they are entirely different preparations.

Essential oils are created by distilling aromatic plant compounds, producing highly concentrated oils that act directly on the body’s chemistry.

Flower essences, by contrast, are water infusions that capture the energetic pattern of the plant rather than its chemical constituents. They are typically taken in small drops diluted in water or another beverage.

Where essential oils work strongly through scent and chemistry, flower essences are intended to work more gently on emotional patterns and states of mind.

How Practitioners Work With Flower Essences

Flower essences are often used in personal blends tailored to a person’s current emotional state.

Rather than prescribing remedies based on symptoms alone, practitioners typically begin by listening carefully to the emotional landscape of someone’s life — the patterns of stress, worry, discouragement, or overwhelm that may be present.

Several remedies may be suggested that correspond with those emotional patterns, and together a small selection is chosen to create a personal blend.

As circumstances shift and new emotional layers come to light, the blend may change as well. The process often unfolds gradually, a bit like a rose opening petal by petal.

For this reason, flower essence work is often described as supportive rather than corrective, helping a person regain perspective and emotional balance while deeper healing unfolds.

Emotional Patterns and Physical Health

The relationship between emotional states and physical illness has become a growing area of research in modern medicine.

One physician who has explored this connection extensively is Dr. Gabor Maté, whose work examines the role emotional suppression and chronic stress can play in the development of disease.

In his book When the Body Says No, Dr. Maté describes emotional patterns he frequently observed among patients with serious illness, such as spending years prioritizing the needs of others while neglecting their own emotional boundaries.

This observation is strikingly similar to one of the emotional patterns described in Bach’s system — the tendency to care for others at the expense of one’s own well-being. In Bach’s framework this pattern is associated with the flower essence Centaury, which is traditionally used to support the development of healthier personal boundaries.

Both Bach and Maté, though working nearly 100 years apart and with different methodologies and tools, observed and wrote about the emotional state of their patients and the impact it has on their physical health and well-being, especially for chronic diseases.

While flower essences are not intended to cure serious disease on their own, they can offer meaningful emotional support that helps people engage more openly with the deeper work of healing.

The Emotional–Physical Spiral

Emotional and physical health are rarely separate.

Chronic stress can disrupt digestion, hormonal balance, and immune function. At the same time, physical exhaustion or illness can deepen feelings of discouragement, anxiety, or overwhelm.

This creates a familiar downward spiral.

Yet the opposite is also possible. When supportive changes are introduced — nourishing food, restorative sleep, herbal support, therapy, meditation, and/or emotional care — the spiral can begin to move upward.

Flower essences are one gentle tool that can help shift this process. By supporting emotional balance, they make it easier for people to respond to life’s challenges with greater clarity and resilience.

Flower Essences Within Holistic Care

In modern life, emotional strain rarely exists in isolation.

Stress, environmental toxins, disrupted sleep, processed foods, and disconnection from nature all influence our well-being. For this reason, emotional support works best when it is part of a broader approach to health.

In my own practice, flower essences are often used alongside herbal medicine, nourishing foods, restorative rhythms, and other supportive therapies.

Herbs strengthen the body’s physical systems.
Lifestyle changes restore balance to daily life.
Flower essences help bring the emotional landscape back into harmony.

Together these approaches create the conditions in which deeper healing becomes possible.

Flower essences are not dramatic remedies, nor are they intended to force quick changes. Their action is subtle, often unfolding gradually as emotional patterns soften and perspective shifts.

For many people, this gentle support is what allows them to move through difficult periods of life with greater steadiness — whether navigating stress, processing grief, establishing healthier boundaries, or simply rediscovering a sense of balance.

In my own practice, flower essences are often used alongside herbal remedies and supportive lifestyle changes to help restore emotional balance during seasons of stress or transition. If you would like to explore this approach further, you can read more about flower essence consultations here.

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This summer has been quite wet so far, here in Manitoba, Canada, but today is a beautiful sunny day—calling me to head out on a bike ride, my current favourite exercise activity. While the rain means the water table here is extremely high, it also means my herb garden is growing nicely. What does an Herbalist grow in her garden? This year I’m growing the following:

• Cilantro: for my husbands amazing Chinese and Mexican cooking (Have you ever had a fresh cilantro salsa… so delicious!)

• Basil: Thai basil for homemade pho and Thai dishes, and “regular” Basil for cooking, and for salads. Basil, homemade mozzarella, and tomatoes with “18-year-traditional aged Balsamic vinegar” is to die for.

• Dill: Have you ever made your own honey-dill dip for chicken strips? Yum!!

• Parsley: I LOVE using parsley instead of Basil to make pesto. It’s a lighter taste and parsley grows so much more abundantly here.

• Thyme: Every year I run out of Thyme in the winter since I use it for savoury stews as well as my thyme cough syrup and tincture for cold and flu season.

• Yarrow: This is my first year growing my own Yarrow instead of wild-harvesting, but wild (not sprayed) Yarrow is harder to find here in southern Manitoba than it was in north-west Alberta.

• Echinacea: This is my Echinacea plant’s second year, and I have flowers forming. I started these from seed last spring so I’m pretty excited that they resurfaced and are continuing their growth cycle. I’ll likely wait until next fall before I harvest the roots.

• Mint: For teas and salads, and because I love the smell of mint in the garden.

• Lemon-Balm: This is such a gentle plant. It is amazing for stomach-aches, especially those related to stress, like the child who can’t go to school because their stomach hurts. I use both Lemon-Balm and Mint in a tea for stomach aches.

My summer this year is developing into a busy time, and I’m still working on balancing the different aspects of my life. I’m currently writing a handful of articles for fall—finishing my series on Home and Family, and writing on balancing hormones, as I dive into extra research and deeper studies in my apprenticeship. In the meantime, below are a few skin care herbs that I like to keep on hand during the hot summer months.

Skin Care Herbs

Yarrow

If you have small children, known for scraped knees and cut fingers, yarrow (Achillea Millefolium) is well known for its wound healing properties and is a great plant to have on hand. I’ve written extensively about Yarrow in this post: Yarrow, a Wild Flower with Surprising Power, but to sum up it’s benefits for cuts and scrapes:

“Yarrow is famous for its ability to stop bleeding. Applied directly onto a cut, Yarrow can stop the bleeding immediately. Yarrow doesn’t just stop the bleeding, it also has anti inflammatory properties, reduces pain, and it will help fight off any infection.”

Yarrow also has astringent properties, and a yarrow tea can be used as a wash for oily skin. 

Cautions: Yarrow is not recommended for people with severe allergies to plants in the Asteracae family, nor is it recommended during pregnancy. 

Calendula

I’ve also written about Calendula (Calendula officinalis) in a separate post which you can find here: Calendula, a Pretty Garden Flower with Powerful Properties. This herb is well known for it's natural skincare properties and is used extensively in commercial skincare products for dry, irritated, and sensitive skin. I like to make an herbal oil with the petals, and use the oil to create a salve, along with other complimentary essential oils such as Lavender, and a little vitamin E oil. Some of Calendula's many benefits are as follows:

“First and foremost, Calendula is a topical skin healer. She is used to help the body heal from irritated skin, wounds and rashes, and even eczema and ringworm. Calendula has a variety of properties that combine together to make her such an amazing plant for the skin. There really is no better skin healing plant.

• Calendula is anti-inflammatory; soothing red, inflamed, irritated, rashy, and dry skin as well as mild burns.

• Calendula is also astringent, antimicrobial, and antiseptic, helping to both cleanse and heal wounds, scratches and scrapes.

• Being anti-fungal as well as antimicrobial, Calendula is effective against fungal conditions as well, making an effective douche for yeast infections, and a good topical remedy for ringworm, athlete’s foot and thrush.

• Calendula is also great for new mothers and babies, helping to cure chapped, cracked and painful nipples from nursing and also assisting in healing cradle cap and diaper rash.”

Cautions: If you have a severe skin condition, especially if you are on medication for a skin disorder, discuss with your health care practitioner before using Calendula as a remedy. 

Plantain

Plantain (Plantago major) is an herb with benefits similar to Yarrow; it can also be used for cuts and scrapes—as a bandaid herb. However, it has the added benefit of being particularly useful for bug bites and bee stings. A Plantain poultice applied to a new bee/hornet/wasp sting will draw out the poison and the stinger of the insect. A plantain salve is my go-to for itchy mosquito bites. It is incredibly soothing with none of the sting of store bought anti-itch remedies. If you live further south, plantain is famous for it’s ability to heal and draw out the poison from snakebites. Plantain salve is also soothing for any skin irritation.

Plantain is known for it’s benefits as a skin or wound healing plant, partly due to it’s constituent Allantoin, which is also found (in higher amounts) in comfrey (Symphytum officinale), also known as ‘knitbone’. Allantoin is a cell-proliferant that helps damaged tissue repair and regenerate. Plantain can be taken internally as a tea (unlike comfrey), and applied topically as a poultice (mashed leaves mixed with water) or salve (made from herbal oil) to use it’s healing properties.

Caution: Plantain seeds are more commonly known as psyllium, a remedy for constipation, but the seed and husk powders can lower blood-sugar levels, so diabetics should be aware of this before using.

Aloe Vera

Aloe is an amazing plant. Growing in harsh desert environments, this plant has developed the ability to stay cool and moist, storing it’s moisture internally in a cooling gel. This cooling, moistening, and heat-soothing ability extends to it’s use as an herbal remedy.

The gel of the Aloe vera plant has a dramatic ability to heal wounds, ulcers, and burns, putting a protective coat on the affected area and speeding up the rate of healing. Aloe vera gel is a common skin care product found in many drug stores and health food stores. It is also a valuable first aid plant to keep in your home.

When my children were young, it seemed I could barely keep my aloe plant alive, with almost constant use for sunburns, as well as the contact burns one of us would get occasionally—whether it was Mom putting cookies in the oven or one of my small helpers getting too close to the stove. Now that my children are older, my Aloe plant is getting bigger every year, though I still usually need to harvest the biggest leaves after our first summer visit to the pool or the lake.

Cautions: Aloe vera gel is completely safe when used externally, however internal use is not recommended when pregnant, if suffering from any intestinal or kidney disease, or during menstruation. It is also not recommended for internal use for children under 12. Personally, while Aloe has some applications internally, there are other, safer plants to use and I would only use Aloe vera topically.

I hope you found something new and interesting here about herbal skincare. I would love to hear from you; any comments on what you use for herbal skincare products, or any questions you may have about the uses of some of these plants. Feel free to leave a comment, direct message me, or reply to the email. Substack forwards replies to my personal email address, and I love to respond to herb related questions! 

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Next month I will send out another of these herbal roundups, themed on getting ready for the Back-to-School Flu Season, then (I promise) we will be back to the regular posts in September, along with something new that I am collaborating on… with my teens!

See you soon, and enjoy your summer!

-Adrienne J

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