Herbs + Practices for Inner Peace
All graphics designed by Xenia Viray, Human Design Reader + Intuitive Counselor, and incredible human, who hosted me for the below workshop
This is a transcript from a workshop I gave in March 2020 which is applicable once again:
I want to start by saying that while we don’t want to be constantly in a state of fight or flight or unable to sleep at night, it’s ok to be anxious because it is also important to feel the feelings and let them move through you so that they can resolve.
Anxiety is not inherently good or bad - it’s really just an abundance of energy that our body hasn’t created pathways for yet or doesn’t have the capacity to use at this particular time. And the reason anxiety is so uncomfortable is that this abundance of energy is being held in the head or upper body where our structures are much more sensitive - think of our ear drums, our eyes, the sinuses, the narrow throat, trachea. These delicate systems hold energy with much less ease than our lower body where there is much more space.
This shift in perspective on anxiety has allowed me to let myself feel it without the negativity and scariness attached to it but instead with more curiosity. If you approach it with gentle curiosity, you can recognize that sometimes the anxiety your feeling is what you need to propel you to transform or manifest your vision. I’ve also been noticing that the anxiety I’m feeling these days is not always coming from me but from the collective. And this can help empower us over the anxiety and show us how connected we all are.
PHYSICAL PRACTICE
simple techniques
for calm
DOWNSHIFT:
So, the first practice I want to talk about is one that I learned from on my pilgrimage to India where I was experiencing a huge Kundalini awakening and having trouble dealing with the massive amount of energy coursing through my body. It’s called downshifting and it’s similar to a Taoist practice that I’ve been doing for a couple of years where you push your energy down from the top of your head and out of the bottoms of your feet to ground yourself.
So I’ll explain this briefly : close your eyes, take a deep breath through your nose into your head and then as you exhale slowly through your nose you move the energy from your head, down through your throat, your chest, your solar plexus, through your belly and into your pelvis. It’s helpful to have your legs stretched out at this point if they are crossed and push the energy from your pelvis through your legs down to your feet and imagine the chakras on the bottom of your feet exhaling all of that energy into the earth to be transmuted into a lighter vibration.
A helpful visualization is Imagine you have a large hole in the top of your head and holes in the bottom of each foot. Now imagine standing under a huge waterfall with water crashing all around and through the body. The water flows through the hole in your head into your body. As it flows out through the holes in your feet, it empties everything out of your body. You can also head over to RoundGlass for a guided downshifting mediation by one of my teachers.
RELAXATION BREATH:
Breathwork is an amazing tool for anxiety. if you think about it, when we are anxious we are usually breathing faster and more shallow. but the feedback works both ways - if you slow down and deepen your breath, this will signal to your body that it can relax. A really simple technique is called the Relaxation Breath.
Breathe in through your nose to the count of four.
2. Hold the breath to the count of seven.
3. Exhale through your mouth to the count of eight.
VAGUS NERVE STIMULATION:
The reason breath work is so effective at calming us down is because it stimulates our vagus nerve which is key in activating our parasympathetic “rest and digest” nervous system. Some activities that stimulate your vagus nerve are: humming, singing or chanting – this is best if your heart is fully in it and at the top of your lungs, gargling your water before you drink it periodically throughout the day, watching a comedy and laugh your ass off, giving yourself a massage with oils especially on your feet, sides of your neck and ears, and cold exposure like cold showers or even just dunking your face in cold water. if you are feeling any viral symptoms, do not do this and wait until this passes to build up your cold tolerance, and instead try heat therapy like sauna.
HERBS
Herbs are super helpful allies in this situation. as a holistic herbalist I use herbs in a very individualized way according to a person’s constitution which makes them so much more effective.
But you can definitely benefit from trying them out on your own and really tuning in to feel out what is working for you and what is not. So, I’ll share about a few that are coming up for me right now in depth and then list a few more you can explore.
Passionflower:
For racing minds I love passionflower. Passionflower is a really powerful medicine – it’s been used as treatment in ADHD to settle hyperactivity and nervousness. Many nervines or sedative herbs can make you sleepy but passionflower actually helps with concentration while awake by calming mental chatter and soothing overwhelm. It can also help you sleep if you’re lying awake in bed and can’t turn off the internal conversations, which seems really common right now.
Holy basil:
I think of holy basil also called tulsi as having a very similar effect - calming the mind and allowing focus. Holy basil works by taking you from your overactive head space and bringing you back into your body and into the present moment, which can be very grounding for anyone with a vata constitution like me. I’ve actually been saved from overwhelming anxiety just by calling in the spirit of holy basil. She’s pretty magical.
One difference between holy basil and passionflower is that holy basil is warming and passionflower is cooling so if you have a cold constitution, the holy basil may be more suitable. In addition to being an effective treatment for anxiety, she also strengthens and modulates the immune system, and this is something we are all looking for right now. Holy basil does lower cortisol which is great for most people but if you’re in a stage of adrenal burnout with already low cortisol, use caution. On a spiritual note, tulsi is considered a divine incarnation of the goddess so you can use tulsi to invite the goddess into your home and invoke her support for yourself and your family.
Motherwort:
Another plant that we can really lean on right now is motherwort. Her Latin name is leonurus cardiaca or lion hearted, which I associate strongly with the strength card in the tarot. Motherwort is amazing for moving stuck tension out of the throat and heart which is where so may of us carry our stress. And when your heart is calm of course you can have more courage to cope with difficult circumstances and to feel compassion for others. Taking motherwort is like being wrapped up in a mother’s hug, and feeling truly held and protected, whether you think of it as your birth mother or mother earth. The dosage is something you will need to play around with and be mindful that sometimes lower doses are actually more effective than higher doses. You could stay by taking 5-10 drops directly on your tongue and wait 15/20minutes. if you still feel anxious, continue dosing 5-10 drops every 15 minutes until you feel calm.
Rose:
So we’re moving down along the chakras from the head to the throat and heart and now we’re in the heart and root chakras with rose. Rose medicine relieves constrictive feelings of the chest and abdomen. By opening this space, it allows you to feel your emotions while maintaining healthy boundaries, and facilitates any grief to move through you so that you can move forward to taking the actions necessary to birth your visions and create this new world we’re calling in.
Herbs to help lift spirits or shen tonics: lemon balm, milky oats, st. john’s wort, mimosa flower
Mild relaxants: Ashwagandha, chamomile, lavender, catnip, mugwort, damiana. Stronger herbs or nervine hypnotics: Skullcap, kava kava, valerian, California poppy, hops
I would also recommend vibrational essences like Bach rescue remedy, and my teacher Matthew Wood is recommending holly flower essence during this time for deep heart healing.
FOODS
unprocessed carb-rich foods and bone broth
FOOD
Carb-rich foods: trigger the production of tryptophan and serotonin, brain chemicals that boost your mood. Carbs have become the villain in the wellness scene but low carb diets can also trigger the stress response because the body isn’t as efficient at getting energy from protein and fat as it is from carbohydrates. The body increases cortisol because it doesn’t have enough glucose to support metabolic functions, resulting in anxiety. Processed carbs are a stressor as well because they spike blood sugar and then it crashes, triggering the cortisol stress response. So we want to consume complex minimally processed carbs to help manage anxiety. Some good ones are:
Root veggies like beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other starches like plantains and cassava
Legumes like black beans, chickpeas and lentils
And whole grains like soaked rice, quinoa and oats
Bone broth: I also want to shout out bone broth, not a carb, but it is a potent gut healer and given the strong connection between the gut and brain, this helps heal anxiety as well. Bone broth is also high in the amino acid glycine which decreases anxiety by inhibiting norepinephrine, as well as the calming amino acid glutamine. It’s rich in minerals like magnesium and calcium which are also incredibly calming.
CALMING
supplements
SUPPLEMENTS:
This brings me to helpful supplements. Like I just mentioned, magnesium with calcium is calming, and I would add zinc. Sea salt contains over 50 trace minerals that are essential for proper brain and nervous system function. A pinch under the tongue is absorbed through the mucous membranes and can work fast to provide relaxation.
Some others that I work with are phosphatidylserine to regulate cortisol, GABA, and adrenal support supplements like b vitamins: especially b1, b2, b5 and b6, vitamin c, adrenal cortex glandular. Also, something i work on a lot with my clients are supplements that address chronic low-grade infections that increase the strain on our adrenals. We may be getting by keeping these low grade infections at bay and then one more stressor comes along and fills our stress bucket causing us to crash. So if you have any chronic infections like systemic candida, sibo, chronic lyme, focusing on healing that may significantly reduce your anxiety.
Most of these herbs + supplements are offered to you at 15% off via my Virtual Dispensary on Wellevate. If you’d like to hear about the highest quality brands, feel free to contact me!
PRAYER:
As we move through humanity’s dark night of the soul, we can take this as a time to go deeper into all of my practices . One of the practices we can really deepen right now is prayer: this might be out there for some readers, but prayer can really shift things internally and if there has ever been a time to pray, it is now. I have a regular prayer practice and when things are going well in my life, I have a hard time praying and it feels almost disingenuous, but praying from a place of desperation and real longing is super powerful. You can try it out and just pay attention to what opens up afterwards - you may not have all of your problems solved, but you may start to see the root cause of those problems so that you can start working on them. it doesn't have to be you asking that your anxiety be healed - envisioning the recalibrated life you see yourself living in the aftermath of this upheaval and praying for that can be a good way to get out of our own way.
Diana Leahy is an integrative health coach and clinical herbalist based in Upstate NY and Bucks County, PA.
She has studied Herbalism at The School of Evolutionary Herbalism, the Matthew Wood Institute of Herbalism, Asia Suler, Susun Weed, Indigenous Plant Medicine and Energy Healing with Adriana Ayales and Erika Buenaflor, Inner Yoga + Meditation with David Wagner + Adrianna Rizzolo, and is a Shamanic Reiki Master (Usui Riojo) from the lineage of Nicole Adriana Casanova.