Accessible Herbalism for Sleep

The Holistic Herbalism Podcast

We work with herbs for sleep improvement purposes very frequently, because sleep is so critical to good health. During sleep, your body works through a to-do list, including: detoxification, hormone ‘balancing’, wound healing, muscle growth, immune surveillance, fat burning, clearing inflammation, cleaning wastes from the brain, and even mood regulation!

Lots of things in the modern world interfere with sleep, and lots of people have insomnia or sleep disruptions of one kind or another. Since sleep is so important to stay healthy, it’s a big problem when you can’t get enough quality rest. But your body is resilient, and herbs can help!

We’re sharing strategies in two categories:

• What to do when you can’t fall asleep. A few new bedtime habits and some supportive herbs can we make the transition from waking to sleep easier & smoother.
• What to do when you can’t get more sleep than you’re already getting. This is about finding other ways to support what the body would normally be doing during sleep time. Herbs can help reduce the sleep time to-do list & make the body more efficient at getting through it. They can also help out as we build resilience to stress – including the stress of sleep debt.

Herbs discussed include: chamomile, wild lettuce, tulsi, peppermint, cinnamon, nettle, dandelion, hibiscus, green/black tea, cayenne.
This is part 6 in our Accessible Herbalism series! We’re sharing strategies for safely improving some of the most common health concerns, especially for marginalized communities. We want to empower people to take action in support of their own health and the health of their neighbors. The safe, accessible tools of holistic herbalism can fill in the gaps left by uneven access and affordability of conventional care. Working with easy-to-find, inexpensive herbs, with low risk of adverse effects and drug interactions, is something anyone can do.

We’re building a community health collective organizing tool out of this material as we go through the series. You can learn more about the project and find all the collected resources here:

Mutual Aid Resources

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Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.

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You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!