This episode explores herbal support for fatigue and depletion, as part of a series exploring herbal support for depletion. From sleep support to accessing nourishment from food, Nicole shares herbal tips and resources for recovering from states of depletion.

A quick note about fatigue

Fatigue has many possible causes and can sometimes be a sign of an underlying health condition. If you're experiencing new, unexplained, persistent or worsening fatigue, particularly if it's a significant change from your usual baseline or accompanied by other concerning symptoms, please speak to your doctor or healthcare provider.

Herbal support shouldn't replace appropriate medical investigation, and it's important to rule out underlying causes of fatigue before assuming it is related to stress, burnout or depletion.

Links & resources from this episode

• Herbalism, PTSD & Traumatic Stress Course - https://solidarityapothecary.org/herbalismandptsdcourse/
• Course Waiting List - https://mailtrain.solidarityapothecary.org/subscription/tLQUrCkRW

Find them all at solidarityapothecary.org/podcast/

Support the show

Music from Sole & DJ Pain – Battle of Humans | Plant illustrations by @amani_writes | In solidarity, please subscribe, rate & review this podcast wherever you listen.

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host, Nicole Rose from the

Solidarity Apothecary.

This is your place for all things plants and

liberation.

Let's get started.

Hello. Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.

I'm doing one of those, like, weird things where I'm recording an intro to an episode

I've already recorded.

So I actually managed to batch record some

podcasts this morning, so this will be scheduled for a later date.

So coming to you from the future, if that makes.

No, from the past.

Whatever, you know what I'm trying to say.

Anyway, this episode is all about herbal support for depletion and fatigue.

So I talk about the many drivers of fatigue and then I talk about the kind of,

yeah, herbs I work with and the herbal approaches.

I kind of take in responding to them.

So it's a bit of a lot.

It's not a long episode.

I think it's like nearly 40 minutes.

But I hope it is useful.

And yeah, let me know what you think and just

shame as ******* plug.

Please join the waiting list for the Herbalist

and PTSD and traumatic stress course.

If any of this stuff sparks your interest,

that is the resource that, like, kind of fills in all the details, if that makes sense.

Like, I go into all of the plants I talk about in much greater depth in comprehensive plant

profiles,

and I talk about things like, you know, nutritive herbs and.

As well as all the fun medicine making stuff and harvesting stuff that makes herbalism much

more possible.

So anyway, I hope it is useful and yeah, thank you for listening.

Hello.

All right, so, yeah, let's talk about herbal support for fatigue and depletion.

Hopefully.

Hopefully you listened to the last episode

where I talked about some of the signs that you might be in a depleted state.

I mean, I think if you're feeling depleted, you generally know about it.

But yeah, have a listen to that before you listen to this one because it's probably a bit

more helpful in terms of context,

however. And, yeah, I guess I just want to start with that.

Like,

fatigue is like a symptom.

It's not like a thing.

Like, it is an expression of distress in the body in different ways.

And so having kind of like a generic here's a herb for fatigue.

Like, it doesn't kind of cut it, if that makes sense, because there are so many drivers of

why someone is fatigued, which is why.

And I'll talk about this in a future episode

around stimulants.

It's not a case of, like,

I'm struggling with fatigue, therefore, I need more like stimulants to have energy.

Like, it's all about,

why is this person fatigued? And this is why I feel fairly confident as a

clinical herbalist that I'm not going to get replaced by a robot, by AI because humans are

very, very complicated and unique.

But I guess, yeah, someone that was into AI would probably laugh at that statement and be

like, yeah, yeah, you don't know how good it is.

But I just mean in the sense that, like,

every individual is different and everyone has a different driver of fatigue and getting to

the root cause of what that is for them.

And cause being a plural, like the different

drivers is what's like, most important.

So, yeah,

just to kind of,

yeah, go into some of these drivers of fatigue and then I'll talk about, like some of the

herbal strategies and approaches.

And I guess this is why I,

as a herbalist, like,

put together such comprehensive protocols for clients and probably eat into my own kind of

like, profits, if that makes sense.

Because I want the approach to be really

comprehensive.

Because it's not a case of just like throwing

a sleep herb at someone if the reason they are not sleeping well is because they have a

sneaky ******* gluten intolerance,

which is like keeping them inflamed and therefore keeping them up at night.

Do you know what I mean? So it's kind of like we have to cover all the

bases.

And that's why,

yeah, I try and do that as a herbalist.

So I will send quite kind of comprehensive

boxes to people of like, this is a nerve tonic blend, this is a digestive tea, this is some

milk thistle for your liver.

Like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like it's not just like one little bottle of

herbs that's gonna support someone.

But anyway, I'm fast, I'm moving forward too much.

I won't go into the herbal strategies yet.

I'm just going to talk about some of the

drivers of fatigue.

And like I said in the last episode, I went

through the symptoms.

So, yeah, I guess,

number one, I'm a bit biassed when it comes to the nervous system.

But, like, prolonged stress is like a major driver of depletion in the nervous system, but

also like a major generator of fatigue.

And there's like so many explanations for that.

But yeah, like when we are in a kind of activated stress response where our

sympathetic nervous system is activated that mobilises so many resources in the body.

Because if you think you're running away from a bear.

And I know poor bears, man, like, I'm sure they don't attack people very often, but like

they always get like pigeonholed in like trauma language.

But like say you're running away from a bear.

Your body has to mobilise so much to, to do

that, right? So much adrenal,

much blood sugar.

Like, you know, like you have to just kind of

like move fast.

You know, your lungs have to work, like all of this stuff.

So it's like when you're in that fight or flight, like sympathetic activated state and

that becomes your dominant state,

you are in a kind of like position of like high resource use.

Does that make sense? And when you're using those resources a lot,

you're much more likely to end up in a place of depletion.

And maybe if you have more of a privileged background where maybe you've had a lot of

chronic stress but actually you've had good nutrition or you've been able to access like

other supplements or healthcare or organic foods,

like all of those things are like protective measures against states of depletion.

Whereas I feel bad for the kids, like who grow up in high stress environments, but also in

environments of like terrible nutrition.

Like when I was a child, my hair literally

fell out like after some like sexual abuse stuff when I was 6.

But it's like the stress response was so intense coupled with like very poor nutrition

because my mum was like a single ******* mum on benefits.

So like for me it was like,

now I know about states of depletion and nutritional deficiencies.

I can see why I was probably a foot shorter than my sister.

I can see why my hair fel out probably because of the lack of protein and B vitamins and

vegetables.

Do you know what I mean?

And like again, this activation of the stress response.

So when people are ******* running on overdrive in terms of chronic stress but not

also getting like nourishment to keep themselves going, like we do get into kind of

like dangerous territory in terms of like burnout and exhaustion and collapse and

depletion and unfortunately other like chronic states of disease.

Even though lots of diseases have like a million and one causes, right?

Like genetics, like all of this other stuff going on beyond just the stress response.

But yeah, the stress response is a major driver of fatigue.

And sometimes that can be like a long term chronic like survival response.

Other times people can have like a significant,

like few years of really, really intense demand.

Like maybe they're working and studying, maybe they're caring for someone who's dying.

Maybe they are you.

They've gone through a massive bereavement

Often we have these big kind of periods of our life that take a lot of life force from us.

There's life force.

Does that sound hippish?

Do you know what I mean? But that kind of qi, as they would call it in

traditional Chinese medicine, but will have a period of intense stress and that is nearly

always followed by a period of exhaustion.

And maybe that's a short term thing if you're kind of more resourced and resilient.

So for example,

when I had all of my like rib cage costochondritis, chronic illness stuff, I had

like eight bereavements in a row.

Like by the time.

No, I had six.

I had one a month for six months and then two

later on that year.

But by the time my ex girlfriend Anna got killed,

I was like, done.

Like I was so.

Do you know what I mean? Like, I just was so exhausted and depleted.

Whereas when my friend Taylor died in 2022, I was, I'd done my clinical training,

I was like all my herbalism stuff, I was **** hot on my nutrition.

And so after he died, like I was ****** like for a couple of months.

Like I was depressed and full of grief and you know, after not sleeping very well and all the

stress hormones, but I ultimately recovered my energy,

whereas that kind of like sudden return error of all these bereavements, like, I was much

more depleted for a much longer period of time.

So anyway, but yeah, chronic ******* stress, number one thing I would say.

Okay, so the next point is like nutritional depletion.

And I guess there's two areas here.

There's like a kind of inadequacy of calories,

so like not kind of eating enough to sustain our kind of energy.

And then there's a kind of like access to actual nutrients that our body needs.

So that's when kind of like quality comes in over quantity.

And so yeah, there's obviously like a million and one things in the capitalist food system

that affect our access to quality food, right? You know, like lack of access to land.

Like *******, you know, not every place has like a wonderful community supported

agriculture project.

Like lots of people live in areas of like

intense,

they call them food deserts or areas of food poverty where it's not actually easy to access

like fresh food, let alone ******* organic food or food grown without pesticides and

fertilisers and everything else.

So there is like that access to that nutrition, which is very, very important.

But then there's also what are you actually able to digest?

So some people are really fantastic at having you know, good quality food.

Often they've got to that point because they have to be.

Otherwise they're in, like, really bad territory with cycles of flares and chronic

illness and things.

So maybe they eat really well.

But it might be that the digestive terrain is like,

unhappy in the sense of, like, they're not able to access energy and nourishment from

food because they have, like, intestinal permeability or dysbiosis.

You know, like they have a kind of disrupted ecology in their gut.

Or maybe they have a lot of, like, inflammation, like acid reflux or a hernia or

like all of these things.

So it's not just what we eat, it's like what we digest.

And that's why when we move on to herbal support,

we'll talk about that stuff.

Sleep. So I talked a lot about sleep in the last episode.

But having,

like, disrupted low quality sleep will, you know, affect all the kind of, like, baselines

of like, nutrients in your body.

Which is why, if anyone is postpartum, I'm,

like, really passionate about having,

like, nerve tonics and nutritive tonics and things like this because you are like, very,

very vulnerable to that kind of loss of core nutrients because you're not getting that time

to kind of restore and replenish your naturally as someone who's two and a half

years postpartum.

Woo.

Okay.

So,

yeah, and also with sleep, again, I talked about it in the last episode, but as a driver

of fatigue, it might be that,

you know, if someone comes to me and then they're only getting a few hours sleep a

night, like, of course they feel exhausted all day.

Like, of course they feel like a zombie.

So we need to be supporting people to get as much sleep as they can or, like, as much

quality sleep as they can.

The other major driver of fatigue, and this is like, particularly applicable for someone who

is in a kind of like, chronic fatigue me kind of picture it's like inflammation or like,

chronic illness.

So, yeah, we're looking at things like,

you know, like, maybe someone has like a kind of like, long term, like, viral,

like, reactivation pattern.

Maybe they have like, dysfunction in their

mitochondria, which are the kind of like energy powerhouses in our cells.

Like, maybe they have some sort of like, infection in their gut.

Like, there's so many things that can cause, like, chronic inflammation.

And that chronic inflammation is always drawing on our body's reserves.

So it's pretty much always leading to a state of depletion unless we can kind of like,

address the leaky tap if that makes sense.

So when I was going through my periods of

chronic illness, it was like I was trying so hard to,

you know, have these herbs and nourish myself, blah, blah, blah.

But if I didn't take out the sources of like fuel for the fire,

I wasn't gonna kind of catch a ******* break in my body, if that makes sense.

And I know I sound like a ******** on the Internet, but for me it really was like

gluten.

So as soon as I stopped having gluten and yeast, but like those two things,

like this kind of food intolerance pattern,

as soon as I took them out,

I was like rapidly better six weeks, I was like a new ******* person.

When I'd had gut healthy, when I had digestive enzymes and things helping me digest my food

and this kind of gut restorative stuff that I use for my clients now.

Yeah, just stopping those food intolerances just calmed the ******* inflammation down,

which meant my body finally had a chance to recover.

So,

yeah, I think like digestion stuff and chronic inflammation is a major, major, major cause of

fatigue.

And I did a course with a herbalist called

Paul Bergner which is all about fatigue.

And he calls, he talks about like a food intolerance triad of like musculoskeletal

pain, like anxiety or like emotional mood stuff and then digestive issues.

And when there's this like three manifestations of something that is generally

pinpointing towards a food intolerance.

And by cutting out that intolerance, it can just have life changing effects on the body.

And I have hilarious emails from clients that are like hated when you said to stop having

gluten.

But I feel so much better.

And it's like, yes, because your immune system

isn't constantly responding to what they perceive as a threat.

So all that energy that has,

you know, been firefighting in your body can now be used towards kind of.

Yeah, restoration and recovery.

Yeah, post infectious states.

So things like, oh, sorry, I knocked my

microphone over things like long Covid.

I'm not going to talk about viral stuff

because that's another whole podcast.

But yeah, like this kind of post viral fatigue again.

It's like the body is protecting itself while it, you know, kind of is still like low key

firefighting, this virus.

But also Covid, really people who really are like depleted in terms of like adrenal stuff.

So people going through like really serious like chronic stress stuff will then catch a

COVID infection and then, yeah, they're in long Covid territory and it's *******

horrendous.

So it's like, how do we support ourselves? So we're,

yeah, less vulnerable to these infections, like knocking us out.

Does that make sense?

Okay,

maybe it's something like menstruation can be a massive driver of fatigue.

If you have really heavy periods and your iron reserves are getting really low or you have

some other kind of like tissue stuff going on, like endometriosis that's going to cause like

really intense fatigue because again, your body is going into,

you know, trying to like recover from this inflammation.

But also, yeah, this kind of like inherent weakness of someone who bleeds is just like

you are just losing all that precious iron.

So, yeah, how do we, you know, work with herbs around that stuff?

And I'm sorry I haven't got to the herbal stuff yet, but I am just, just working through

my list of drivers.

So finally, yeah, like also like metabolic causes, like, maybe your insulin is

struggling.

Like people might have like type 2 diabetes.

Like there might just be more kind of like low key kind of blood sugar stuff going on.

And all of these like metabolic things can be massive, like influences of if someone is

experiencing fatigue.

And I think it's probably one of the reasons

why I'm quite a high energy person is I had this amazing French doctor called Noel who

works in our clinic with Caleb in Calais,

who's been a GP for like absolutely decades.

And she studied endobiogenic medicine and she

got me like some really comprehensive blood tests in France.

And she was just like, Nicole, your metabolism is like ******* epic.

Like, no wonder you have so much energy.

She was just like, yeah, you're really like lucky that that is,

you know, like so kind of optimal.

And I think that's why I don't get like very

cold, intolerant and stuff is just this kind of like intrinsic fast metabolism, which is,

you know, why I like to eat a lot and stuff.

But anyway,

and then, yeah, if, if it's not obvious then.

And I said at the beginning of the other

episode, but just like other drivers of fatigue are just trying to ******* survive,

you know, like having really intense levels of work or the chronic ******* stress of poverty

or,

you know, caring responsibilities where you don't catch a break.

Like sometimes I think, oh my God, I am exhausted.

What's wrong with me? Like, blah, blah, blah, is it this?

Is it this? And then I have a baby break and like

miraculously my energy comes back and it's like, yeah, like,

you know, these responsibilities and these demands on us do cause fatigue.

And yeah, obviously all the like Trauma stress response on unsafe housing, state violence.

Like,

yeah,

some things that are drivers of fatigue and exhaustion are not easy to challenge.

And that's why we need the kind of collective responses to traumatic stress.

Okay, so where does this leave us in terms of herbal support?

As you can see, there are many, many, many drivers of fatigue.

And yeah, I'm gonna kind of like map these onto some kind of herbal strategies.

And I hate to say it, but I do think it needs to be like comprehensive in terms of what that

person is going through.

And as much as I love like the kind of plant ally practise of working with one plan and

sometimes like one plan is all we need for like a specific health issue or to kind of

like accompany us on our journeys.

But like,

yeah, when there is like something as intense as like chronic fatigue, like I do, I think we

generally need like to cover lots of bases.

So I'm going to talk through, talk through

these.

So yeah, the first one is like nervous system support and there's like two.

I mean there's so many things here but like I guess I take two approaches.

So I normally give someone a kind of like daytime nervous system support blend that can

help them reduce that daily fight or flight response.

Because that sympathetic nervous system response takes so much energy from the body

that if we can tone that response down even by like 5, 10%,

that is 10% that is available for something else in terms of energy.

So yeah, working with like nervous system relaxants.

And I don't, I've done a whole podcast episode this around like *******, you know, I don't

mean relax, like put your feet up on the sofa, even though that would be dreamy.

I mean like,

yeah, let's kind of tone down that activation.

So working with herbs like chamomile or lemon

balm or even hawthorn,

like all of these like fantastic herbs which won't like knock you out in terms of sedation

but will, yeah, reduce that kind of stress response and also like enabling someone to

actually access a more parasympathetic state like this rest and digest state at like

critical times.

So someone might have a very high demand, demand kind of lifestyle.

And what we might be trying to do is like optimise one part of their day to have a bit

more rest.

So for example, their evening.

So I do like a lush like evening nerve

nourisher tea which is like chamomile and oat straw and bit of skullcap and some lavender.

And that can just like mean that the two hours you have before you go to Sleep are actually

in a state of kind of rest and repair rather than in a state of like,

I'm still ******* wired and I'm doom scrolling because I'm just like chasing *******

dopamine, do you know what I mean? So yeah, it's like enabling that kind of.

Yeah, that,

like higher quality rest time as much as possible to reduce the demands on the nervous

system which uses so much energy in our body.

And then the other kind of prong is nerve tonics.

So I have got whole episodes about these.

But these are herbs that help with the

structure and the communication and the functioning of the nervous system in general.

So they have like so many different mechanisms.

So it's not even just like that.

This is a single category of herbs with a

single action.

Like some nerve tonics help literally repair

like the myelin sheath which is like the layer of like fat around our nerve fibres.

Other nerve tonics will support like neurotransmitter production in the gut, you

know, like St. John's Wort or whatever.

So it's like they all have slightly different functions, which is why choosing specific

nerve tonics is like unique for the person,

which is why herbalism gets so ******* complicated.

But yeah, working with nerve tonics to just give that like long term nourishment to a

system that's been depleted.

So these might be herbs like milky oats or oat

straw.

Like I would see hawthorn as a nerve tonic for sure.

Like Hawthorne berry especially.

Maybe if it's safe in terms of blood pressure.

I might work with herbs like licorice or

schisandra berry.

Oh, so I ******* love Schisandra.

I've just been making Schisandra in my slow cookers with my warm glycerite method.

Absolutely ******* dreamy.

Amazing herb.

But yeah, so they all have different kind of mechanisms on the body, but they're all

ultimately supporting this goal of like nervous system restoration.

And that is, yeah, very critical for someone experiencing fatigue.

Okay, so then let's talk about nutrition and nutritive herbs.

So. So I'm gonna do a whole other episode around like supplements versus herbs.

I think some people are way too anti supplements and I think like supplements can

be really epic for someone with a deficiency in a way that a herb can't.

But I think herbs offer a much like broader spectrum of nutrients and a much broader

spectrum of kind of plant like chemicals that are really ******* like needed by the body.

So. So it doesn't have to be one or the other.

Right.

Like it can be both.

But yeah,

nutritive herbs are herbs that have this kind of nourishing properties, so they might help

with addressing certain deficiencies.

And again,

these herbs all have their own other actions.

So something like nettle.

I feel like nettles are really touted as being this, like, super safe, nourishing herb.

You should have daily infusions of nettles.

Buck in Owlman.

Some people, if they had daily infusions of

nettles, would have such a high red blood cell count in their blood that it would be

dangerous.

Like, you know, or for some people, they're so

diuretic that it would totally dry them out.

Like, I have loved a nettle glycerite in my kind of, like, postpartum blends to kind of

replenish myself after pregnancy.

But,

yeah, like, don't hate me, Herbal World, but I hate the taste of nettle tea.

It's gross.

It's like drinking compost.

Te.

I'm just not up for it.

Nettle glycerite, bit of sweetness with, like,

a rich, strong taste of nettles.

******* dreamy and delicious.

So for me, I'd much rather have a little bit

of nettle glycerite in a blend that I can swig than make, like, a daily infusion of nettles,

which is gonna, like, ******* make me need to pee my pants, like, every five minutes.

But everyone is different, right? Like, some people can eat nettles galore.

They can have, like, nettle curries and nettle this and nettle pesto.

So we're all very different, which is why I love herbalism.

So. Yeah. But there are certain herbs that are very kind of, like, nutritive and nourishing.

And I mentioned, like,

milky oats in terms of nerve tonics, but like, oat straw, for example,

or horsetail.

Like,

horsetail is, like, full of, like, silica, which is needed by, like, the cottage, and,

you know, a lot of connective tissue stuff.

So it's like, yeah, working with these

nutritive herbs can be really powerful.

And like I said, it doesn't have to be one or the other, like, ultimate.

We need great nutrition from food the best that we can.

And supplements are, like, fantastic at covering our kind of baselines, I think.

But nutritive herbs kind of really.

Yeah.

Really come into their own in many ways in terms of recovering from fatigue that's, like,

really driven by a nutritional deficiency.

Okay. And then moving on to kind of, like, digestion.

So I've mentioned this already, but it's not just what we eat.

It's kind of, like, what we absorb and what, like, nutrients we kind of assimilate and how

well our body and our tissues and our cells and everything else use those nutrients.

And literally everyone I know who sees me with, like, some level of, like, chronic

fatigue, long Covid pattern has some kind of, like, digestive stuff going on.

I think that's largely a product of our culture and also chronic stress.

Like, chronic stress really affects the kind of integrity of, like, the gut lining, for

example.

But also, I think, yes, certain viral patterns.

Like, there's loads of research around long Covid and like, alterations to, like, the gut

bacteria and stuff.

So, yeah, it's like really big territory.

But when I'm supporting someone recovering from chronic fatigue, I nearly always.

I'm supporting them around digestion.

And in terms of herbal protocols, that looks

like, for me, nearly.

Not nearly everyone, but lots of people will

be recommended to have a kind of gut restoration tea blend.

And this is.

And again, the quantities are, like, tweaked.

Like, certain herbs are taken out if they're

not safe for someone or they're contraindicated.

Like, I don't want someone to listen to this and be like, oh, I'll make this tea.

Because, like, everyone is a bit different and has a slightly tweaked formulation, if that

makes sense.

But my.

Yeah, the gut restoration tea I work with a lot contains, like, chamomile, which is an

amazing vulnerary, helps to, like, heal inflamed tissues in our guts, is also a

combinative when people are experiencing,

like, gas and bloating and things like that, that don't get me started on these herbs and

the microbiome and what they're doing in terms of, like, prebiotics and stuff.

It's just like a whole other thing.

Anyway, chamomile burdock, which is just, oh, my God, it'll be a really long podcast episode

if I go into all of these hubs.

But burdock is a probiotic, a prebiotic, so it

helps feed certain kind of like, selective gut bacteria in our gut.

I've been doing some amazing training around this stuff and I'm like, super geeked out

about it.

Did you know I have a microscope tattooed on

my leg? Like, anyway,

so, yeah, burdock is fantastic.

And then there's also plantain, which, again,

it's amazing wound healing plant marshmallow, which is like super soothing.

And emulsion, broad spectrum, antimicrobial,

fantastic herb where there's like chronic inflammation in the guts.

There's a little bit of yarrow in there for some people.

So yarrow again is like really fantastic at healing kind of like inflamed tissues.

I feel like there's something else in there, but my brain's gone.

But anyway, so people get some variation of this gut hill tea and they have to drink it

like in bulk, in the morning or with food.

And it is very, very effective at supporting kind of the whole of the gut health system.

So maybe if they're someone that struggles with diarrhoea, they might kind of find a bit

of like astringency and have like much more kind of firm stools.

Like, a lot of these herbs are bitters.

So they help kind of communicate to the

digestive enzymes in the body to, like, start working and help us digest our food.

Maybe if someone has like intestinal permeability or what is kind of colloquially

known as leaky gut syndrome,

that will be, you know, supported and addressed and then that means like less kind

of waste metabolites and things like causing chronic inflammation in the, in the body and

in the bloodstream and stuff.

So it's really important.

And then like I said, like all these amazing

gut microbiome actions that we are just like, not even like 0.0001%,

like at the tip of in terms of research.

So, yeah, so anyway.

But by enabling the body to digest food properly,

we are therefore supporting the body to have more energy because food is like one of our

primary sources of energy as well as a gut tea.

I'll often support people with like a digestive blend.

So for some clients, I support them to get kind of like gut health testing, just like 300

******* quid.

But it can just be life changing to know a bit

more specifically about what is happening in their guts, like whether it's a intense

dysbiosis thing or whether it's.

Yeah. Whether it's like, you know, a kind of pathogenic bacteria or whatever.

But yeah, sometimes people are just generally struggling with digesting specific foods, like

digesting fat is a big one, digesting protein.

And so, yeah, giving them herbs at meal times to help them with digestion can be really

powerful.

Like, they're often called bitters, but

they're not always bitters.

I find strong bitters can really trigger

nausea in a lot of people.

So I'm quite kind of careful.

And other people have more things, kind of

like reflux and stuff.

So actually having more soothing demulcent

herbs like licorice or marshmallow is actually more effective at enabling them to kind of

digest their food.

Okay, so I've talked about sleep already but like yeah,

someone wants to have more energy,

they need to have better quality sleep.

So I'll be working with the kind of daytime

stuff as I mentioned and I'm gonna record a whole podcast episode about this stuff.

But if needed we will bring in more kind of stronger sedative herbs that can support with

sleep like skullcap or passionflow flower or wild lettuce.

And I'm not going to go into all of these now, you know, also chamomile and lavender.

Cannot underestimate them.

But yeah, addressing any barriers to

restorative sleep is really, really, really important for overcoming fatigue of all kinds.

Inflammation. So again I feel like inflammation is such a broad topic and there's

so many drivers of inflammation like I mentioned, whether that's like, like you know,

a kind of chronic disease state with some sort of like genetic component.

You know, maybe there's like tissue damage from like smoking or pollution or things like

this.

Maybe there's like chronic inflammation because people are like you know, exposed to

something like inflammatory in their diet or in their lifestyle or in their workplace,

whatever.

There's so many drivers of inflammation and

appropriate kind of anti.

Hate the concept of anti inflammation but you know what I mean like supporting that person

with their unique flavour of inflammation is really important.

So maybe that is like actual herbs that can help address like inflammation modulation as

like is the fancy term.

But herbs like turmeric for example.

Oh my God, herbalism is so complicated.

But turmeric might not be appropriate for many

people.

It might be too heating and drying for

example.

So you know, yeah, there's lots and lots of

nuance as always.

But yeah, we might be working with like specific anti inflammatories that have an

affinity with that person's inflammatory state but also an affinity with their kind of like

constitution and what's going on in their body.

There might be inflammation in terms of like clearance mechanisms for example of like

surplus kind of sex hormones like oestrogen for example.

When, you know, when people have like really ******* horrific challenges like

endometriosis, that's commonly like kind of condition of like oestrogen excess.

So what we're trying to do is support the body to like clear that excess oestrogen.

And our clearance mechanisms are things like our liver.

So often it is supporting someone's liver with herbs like dandelion or artichoke or milk

thistle which will then have this kind of knock on effect of helping to clear

inflammation.

And a large source of inflammation in the body is the amount of stress hormones we're

experiencing, which is why enabling all our kind of like.

I hate the word detox.

It's just been ******* taken over by like the right wing.

But you know what I mean? Like our kind of detoxification pathways and

mechanisms in our body which are numerous, if we can support them to kind of like optimally

clear our wastes in our body, whether that's like kind of waste from like the immune

fighting responses or that's like surplus stress hormones or surplus sex hormones,

like if we can help clear those, then we are in kind of better stead in terms of

inflammation.

And the less inflammation we have, the less fatigue we experience.

And can you see why herbalism is so complicated?

Okay, and then,

yeah, I've talked about nerve tonics, but like, there is this kind of category of herbs

which are like adaptogens and I don't tend to use that framework because I prefer the

framework of nerve tonnes of.

But I just want to name that there are stimulating herbs that can almost like,

if someone's kind of like energy response in their body, like their mitochondria, like

aren't working very well because of something like long Covid.

Working with a specific herb with an affinity for the mitochondria might be really, really

powerful.

So I don't tend to work much with like

ashwagandha or the Siberian ginsengs and like stuff like that.

This mostly because most people that see me have a kind of like complex trauma history.

And I find when you give someone who's got like intense ******* PTSD a herb like

rhodiola, you're in like real ******* dangerous territory in terms of like

activation of the stress response.

Like, I'm talking like fits of rage, like sleeplessness, like all of this other stuff

that comes from shitloads of stimulation.

But for some people that are in a very depleted, fatigued state,

if you've addressed all these other factors, which you can see are ******* a lot of things,

these herbs that kind of like kickstart the mitochondria, that's like the least scientific

way of describing it.

But, like,

they can be really powerful if they're really appropriate.

Like if they're chosen very appropriately and skillfully because they have like such a

pronounced kind of profound effect on, yeah, the mitochondria and the energy in our body.

So. So,

yeah, use them with a lot of caution.

I'm gonna do a whole podcast about them.

But yeah, they are kind of part of the picture.

But yeah, as you can see from me, blathering on for half an hour.

The kind of goal of addressing fatigue and senses and states of depletion are,

how do we nourish the body, how do we address those deficiencies, how do we get all of the

processes like, like working kind of optimally in terms of we're digesting our food well, we

are enabling some rest and restoration in our body by supporting the parasympathetic nervous

system.

And how can we just, like, drop down the percentages in terms of, like,

you know, the body's like, acute fight or flight response?

Like, if we can reduce that down, we might, like, have 25% more energy.

If we can address,

you know, a major driver of inflammation, like hormonal clearance, then that might take out

another 15% and then suddenly we've got like, like 40% more energy.

Do you know what I mean?

So that's how I try and approach things.

Yeah, you'll probably listen to this, feeling really fatigued, being like, oh, God, I'm so

overwhelmed now.

But the thing about my hub list and PTSD

course is, like, there are frameworks, right.

So all of this stuff is, like, communicated in a specific way where I support you to choose

which plants to work with.

And also forgot to say this the other day, but, like, the.

This, this current course launch, I'm going to be doing a workshop for anyone who joins now

or who's previously joined the course,

all about kind of like trauma support in, like, clinical practise.

So, like, how do you make these decisions around which herbs to choose or what's an

appropriate state, you know, herbs to choose if someone's having a lot of panic attacks

versus a lot of fatigue and shutdown, blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah.

But, yeah, if you're interested in how to put

this stuff into practise, I think you'll find that really valuable.

And that's for anyone who joins, like, anyone who joins for free or at the Solidarity page

place,

anyone who joins at the other rates, like, everyone is welcome to that webinar.

And also there's no pressure to participate.

You can come and lurk in the background or you

can just watch the replay or not watch it at all.

That's also fine.

But. Yeah, but the approach is supporting all of these systems and not trying to force,

like, greater energy expenditure.

Does that make sense?

Okay, I'm going to stop there.

I hope that makes sense.

I will be back soon.

Where I am talking about.

Yeah, kind of the dangers of some of the

stimulating herbs.

Yeah. As well as some other things in later episodes.

But thank you for listening.

Let me know if it's been useful and take care.

Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.

You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the

[email protected] podcast.