Ever wondered how herbs can influence your mood and stress levels? We explore the world of nervines, nootropics, and sedatives with the esteemed Julian Barker. A seasoned herbalist and philosopher, Julian shares his vast knowledge of how these herbs can help manage emotions, memory, and cognitive function.

Julian Barker taught in England and France before becoming a theatrical and literary agent in the 1960s. He botanised and studied herbal medicine in the USA and Central America for four years. Returning to England, he apprenticed at Suffolk Herbs, managed Hulbrook House Herbs, and studied with NIMH. A graduate of the Full-Time School of Herbal Medicine, he wrote The Medicinal Flora of Britain & NW Europe and founded a Student Training Clinic in Brighton. Since 1998, he has collaborated with Dr. Jean-Claude Lapraz and translated La Médicine Personalisée. He taught herbal medicine at the University of East London, contributing to a textbook. Barker continues to work full-time in Sussex, with recent books on his herbal medicine approach. Blending his clinical expertise with a philosophical approach to herbal medicine and numerous books to his name, Julian has become a respected figure in the herbal community, known for his deep understanding of the interconnectedness of plants and human health.

In this episode, Julian challenges the conventional categories of nervines and nootropics, offering a nuanced view of how herbs can support emotional and cognitive health. He explores the concept of somatopsychic effects, where treating physical symptoms can alleviate emotional distress, and vice versa. Julian also discusses the importance of understanding an individual's terrain—the unique neuroendocrine and emotional landscape shaped from prenatal stages through to adulthood.

Explore a world of plant-powered knowledge at herbalreality.com or connect with us on Instagram @herbal.reality

Herbcast is proudly produced by Decibelle Creative / @decibelle_creative

Herbs for the problems of mood and stress – nervines

Sebastian: Hello there. Welcome to the Herbcast, the podcast from herbal reality, delving into the plant powered world of herbalism. So, do you know your echinacea from your Eleutherococcus, or your polyphenol from your polysaccharides? Whether you're a budding herbalist, an inquisitive health professional, or a botanical beginner, Herbcast is here to inform and inspire you on your journey to integrating herbs in our everyday lives. So, settle down, turn us up, and let's start today's episode of the herbal reality herb cast.

Sebastian: Hello, everybody. It's great to be back with you again with this next episode of Herbcast. And today we're talking about herbs, for mood and stress particularly, we're going to explore nervines and nootropics, maybe some sedatives, and I'm sure many of you know what nervines are, but they're a broad category of herbs that are used for helping emotions, and potentially controversial category within herbalism, because it's such a broad category, and the nootropics, which are maybe a more modern, semi trendy category for using, herbs that help memory and cognition, executive function. So we're going to dive into that today, and very happy to be with Julian Barker, who is a, herbalist of many years repute, a great philosopher and clinical expert. And I think you've been in clinical practise since the early eighties, Julian, so welcome.

Sebastian: Okay, brilliant. Well, it's great to have you with us, and you've written lots of books, I've enjoyed reading your books over the years, and so it's really, really great to meet today, and we should just dive in. Julian, what do we think of herbal categories generally, and, you know, specifically nervines? What do you think about the term nervine?

Julian Barker: Well, the term nervine seems a reasonable sort of shorthand. It's, curious, though, because we don't treat neurons, so to call it a nerve, as if we treat a nerve, it's a bit strange. but I suppose we have to assume that what's meant is that nerves, in the sense of you're getting on my nerves, or I'm feeling nervous. Nervous indigestion might be closer to the mark, in the sense that plant medicines are, somatopsychic. And by setting the stomach, say, we settle the attendant emotional disquiet. What you might use for nervous indigestion, however, you perhaps would not choose for generalised anxiety, for which we might make up a more complex mixture. Did you mention neurotropics?

Sebastian: That's it.

Julian Barker: Well, I mean, tropics seems reasonable again, because we recognise that plants seem to display sorts of tropisms towards tissues in the body. and they seem rather general. And I think that's because they primarily, they primarily tone or refresh mucosal surfaces in some way. And that refreshment shows up differentially in the, mucosa of different organs, the digestion, the cardiovascular, ear, nose and throat and so on. So surprise, surprise, this herb is said to be good for sore throats and for bowel problems. So I think that that's the, that's the reason that they primarily treat mutant glucose. That's if you're, I mean, depends how you use them in terms of your scale of you're using them. That's when I talk about motions of scale in moment. But when it comes to neurotrophic, it's difficult to see. What this means is the brain is unlike other organs and tissues. What one calls naus, from the greek, is a virtual structure. and a virtual structure, of course, is amenable to all sorts of perturbations and suggestions. And it can respond to words, m don't do that. Or, you know, please, will you do this? So it's a bit difficult to understand that connection being how that connection is made. I mean, caffeine has CN's effects, there's no question about that. I think everyone seems, although actually people have lots of paradoxical effects. With coffee, for instance, enters what time of day you take it and what age you are. I mean, in my twenties we lived above, you know, I think, 14 different coffee bars and restaurants. And before midnight we would go down and have a cappuccino to say, you know, it's good night. I couldn't do that now. I mean, that's, you know, so. And people do have paradoxical effects and it depends upon what the rest of their life is doing. So m to call caffeine a, neurotrophic, I suppose, seems a bit pretentious, but, I mean, to call t nootropic, I mean, camellia sinensis, a number of contrasting effects. Perhaps nicotine has a better claim on the term neurotropic because the nicotinic receptors are so deep, in the parasympathetic nervous system, as you know, more than half of the receptors are nicotinic. so I would not call the plants that herbalists use in phytotherapy. I wouldn't call them neurotrophic unless they're drunk plants.

Sebastian: I mean, what about things like, I don't know, rosemary or bacopa or things like this that are touted as being nootropic, you know, these herbs that are used for enhancing cognition, well, they certainly.

Julian Barker: Enhance, they have an influence on the autonomic nervous system. So by definition they will, affect, a colour flow. And it seems that rosemary has particularly to the brain. That may be because in some way, ah, rosmarinic acid can cross the blood brain barrier. Who knows? I mean, probably someone does know. I'm not sure I can be bothered to find out. But really, once using rosemary in a somatopsychic way, so that, you know, you're using it for a vascular effect, and that vascular effect will show itself in cerebral perfusion, therefore, which is why Ophelia, Hamlet says to Ophelia, here's Rosemary, that's for remembrance. Punning on the word memory. So I've got a suspicion that people like these terms for scientistic reasons. That is scientism. It makes it sound respectable. I don't think Shakespeare needed that. I think he accepted that the context, you know, the person and the plant were more important than any labels.

Sebastian: That's true. But I suppose we have them, in a way, who group plants together to help our understanding of this, you know, huge sort of botanical pharmacy in a way, just to. To categorise, I mean, going back to nervines a bit, it seems just too broad to me, because you can get relaxing nervines and stimulating nervines and anti spas. I know there's all sorts of herbs that fit into that category. I think David Hoffman's book goes into sort of some breakdown of the categories of nervines. Really? Well, tell me a bit more about how you might use herbs too. and how you might see someone that comes to you with, you know, an issue around their, ah, mood. Broad question. How would you engage them with that?

Julian Barker: Can I talk first of all, more abstractly about mood? Yes, one might treat the patient, I suppose. where do I begin? First of all, the terrain is established in the between the 6th and the 14th, 13th week of our mother's pregnancy with us. So there's a huge imprint of neuroendocrine dish. And that isn't going to change fundamentally. And if it leads to disorders of mood, feelings, unhappiness or distress or disquiet, it seems to be important that you actually look at the individual terrain, not generalise. This is good for anxiety, you know. I don't think. I mean personalised medicine. I think Herb is a bit slow to come to her personalised medicine because, in orthodox medicine people realise actually we are unique. And I want to stress that I don't think personalised medicine's got anything to do with individualism. I think the individual forms him or herself by relations with others and that's the group, it's the relations that are important. So you're not fixed with iterate, but you have to understand that that's the starting point. And so the first thing is to find out the whole constellation of relationships that the person has had from the time of the maternal grandmother, because she made the egg, that made the person and all the siblings and all the relationships and so on. And I think that when someone is witnessing themselves being witness in this whole way, it actually. They can relax because they don't. They don't feel like an object of inquiry, they feel like a. A personage in a drama. And it's quite a. It may be a certain distinction, but it's the most important distinction. So that If the. If their feeling of mood isn't disquieted, one has to say well, is it agitated or is it simply generalised anxiety or is it depression or, which is very common, a cycling between them. So we all actually have a state cycle and most state cycles are improved if they can entrain the state cycle of the sun and the moon. In other words, the day and the month and the season and the year. So you've got to also base their constellation in there in their birth month. And that's. There is a slight effect of birth month on health. It's not huge, but January's. My mother was born in January, and she backs the trend in all cases. What one is, how the person operates in the world, how we all operate in the world is by energy. So you have to have some sort of energetic sense of how the person is operating. Now, I don't know if you know my poise theory, because I'll be very brief. It says available energy. You have to have available energy, otherwise you're dead. So we've got available energy. That's, a given, because without energy there's no life for ten units, whatever those units might be, of available energy you require for health. I mean, I say for health to feel well, to feel perfectly well. 16 minutes of reserve. And if that drops the 15, you feel a bit weird in one way or another, depending upon your terrain, you feel anxious or fretful or giddy or dizzy or must lie down or some sort of. And it's that relationship that one actually steers through life with. At the end of a working day, of course, you're tired, and if you rest and then sleep, you'll recover your reserve energy. It's as simple as that. But if you override it in some way, or if your terrain, or if your psyche in some way impedes that because of earlier experiences and so on, that's not going to be possible. And so you're going to eat into your reserve and you're going to feel unwell. And, pain and fatigue are the obvious first signs of loss of poise. Poise is what I call the ratio, ten to 16. but also anxiety, because anxiety is dissipated energy. Agitated states are, you know, we are oscillators and all our internal organs are in oscillation. and the signals are in constant oscillation. Agitated states are when the oscillation is sort of too much noise and not enough signal. So these three, I mean, I say these three as if there are no others. But these three states of anxiety, depression and agitated states, which of course is confluent with, anxiety, require an energetic approach. Is that actually you allow the person to recover their reserve energy and you do that by attending to their terrain. if you're looking at the relatively delayed signals, you've got the autonomic nervous system. I mean, that's the easy bit in a way, because there's barely a plant that doesn't have an autonomic effect. I mean, I suppose marshmallow might be one. there are one or two others, but they're unusual. the organ management of metabolism, liver, ah, pancreas. kidney, is not that you actually treat them particularly, but you, you facilitate their activity. More difficult when it comes to the kidney, because actually the thing is, with the kidneys, you want to leave it alone, let it do its work. And then the hypothalamic pituitary axes, the four axes. Two are catabolic, two are anabolic. You've got to try and understand whether the person is fundamentally anabolic or fundamentally catabolic. And that isn't quite. You can't just say someone who's overweight is anabolic and someone who's underweight is cat. It's not necessarily as simple as that. And then you have to look at their constitutional acquired biases in the posterior pituitary thinking. Of oxytocin and AdH. They're particularly important for emotional response. And then the interplay again, for emotion. the fundamental responses to the world is the interplay between prolactin and dopamine. The stimulus to create, to engage, to imagine, and the, inhibiting effect of calm down. organise. Let's have things in proper order. I mean, if you wanted a caricature, high dopamine will be a gambler and hydrolactin might be a librarian with respect to the crickets. So these are the main notes on which you try to understand. May I just interpolate that when you're in a consultation, you're using your right hemisphere. You're trying to be as wide and open and empathic to understand the reality of this person. Empathy is not sympathy. You're not trying to sympathise with their problems. You're trying to understand them. And for them to understand that you understand or that you're trying to understand that itself is therapeutic. It's the basis of therapeutics. Therapeuts, this greek fan made someone who is there attending to you. So that's a primary thing. But occasionally you need to flip flop. You need to go from this, this right hemisphere to the left analysis. Hold on, what does this mean? And try and come to a diagnosis and then flip back again and using that open, closed, open, closed approach without appearing to do so, I think is the art of the therapist. Now, have I wandered off your question? I'm not sure, no.

Sebastian: You know, you know, you painting a beautiful picture about how we must acknowledge and recognise people placed in their time and space, really their whole journey, a very sort of relational approach to life. And you have, in order to help someone, as we're talking about anxiety, depression, agitation here, you have to understand the context in which they've arrived at that state in order to help them move through it. And, you know, I like the way you place things in a sort of somatopsychic realm, that you talk about the herbs working in that way. It feels very grounded to me, Julian, and not too sort of, although some of the language you're using and some of it's quite technical and detailed in a way, that idea of grounding in the person and that ability to just hear someone, to really be present in that empathetic, compassionate, kind space, to hear, ah, someone's reality or their perceived reality and to find a way to help them through, basically.

Julian Barker: It's also worth saying, I think, that when I've treated for people who've had anxiety, all their life. If you look at the prescriptions, there won't be Valerian there. You know, it's too obvious. I mean, if valerian was going to sort out their anxiety, they'd sorted out.

Sebastian: Years ago, bought it off the shelf somewhere, probably. Yeah.

Julian Barker: Yeah. I mean, it isn't like that. You've, got to try and understand where they're wasting energy, where you can allow their reservoir to fill. Once you see, activities actually needs to be controlled. An agitated state is an uncontrolled state. Anxiety is an uncontrolled state. Depression is a hyper controlled state. In other words, the energy is sequestered. It doesn't flow at all in anxiety. It flows in a very surface way. So in other words, you've got to find out where the flow needs to be unstoppable. Of course, when, it comes to depression, let me just say that if you lack, if your available energy, if your reserve energy is, is in some way, compromised, one thing that you can appear to save energy on is going to spasm. And spasm closes down. But spasm is actually very expensive in energy. So all the sphincters of the body will be closed down, including the sphincters in the biliary tree, and therefore bile won't be released. And therefore you've got melancholia, you know, the cola, the bile cannot be released. So the microbiome is not fed, it's not lubricated, it's not altered to deal with lipid metabolism in the way the bacteria can't do so well as we can. And so bile, you know, the ancients were right about that, I think. Choleric and melancholic.

Sebastian: do you see that as quantitative in a sense, or do you see it as stagnation? Because you're talking about energy in terms of almost, an account that you've got a sort of certain amount. And when you're talking about this melancholia and this sort of contraction of sphincters and blockage in the flow of life essences, do you also relate this to some type of. I don't know, I'd call it a blockage or stagnation or that's how I would see depression and that's how I might approach it and treat.

Julian Barker: It's linked to blockage. I mean, you. I mean, it will lead to stagnation, of course, but, it's simply. It's simply blockage. You need dino rod. It's territory, you know, it's But you don't actually need the dino rod. I'm sorry. It's a city. to relax. But to relax you need energy. Because relaxation is actually an energy requiring, an energy requiring function.

Sebastian: I sort of see it as quite qualitative versus quantitative in a way that, you know, that you need the energy, which is like a quantitative amount of something. then relaxation feels like, a quality in a way that one can, you know, it's like a perspective you can put on life. You can see, you can go out in nature and you can be in a foul mood and you can just not see the beauty. For example, I don't know, a rising sun, rare that that might be, to not be happy over eyes of the sun. Or you can have other times and you can be totally ecstatic at seeing, you know, I don't know, bumblebee landing on the flower. And so that feels more of a, ah, engaged space. So yeah. Just interested in how, might you build someone's energy in that case? You know, if there is a deficiency you're seeing and people need energy to.

Julian Barker: Relax, you have to spot where the leaks are, or where the dams are. The leaks and the tams is really what you're trying to facilitate. And of course they lead to qualities. I mean, quantities are only the substrate on which qualities emerge. I mean, there will be a qualitative. You don't have to feature the quantities, particularly when out of about ten to 16. It's a ratio. It's not really a quantity. Yeah, you have to find out where the dams are. Ah, for instance, oxytocin, which is I mean, it creates spasm. Now, oxytocin is famously needed for orgasm, for ovulation, birth, for contraction, uterine contraction, for birth and for letting down the milk. So it's fundamental to life. But if it's operating all the time, if it's on all the time, it kind of is being very. That makes for a very intense life. I mean, those situations which I've just described are intense, but they don't go all the time. there's hope, you know. so that's one. For instance, the autonomic nervous system. If someone is phagotonic, so congested that they cannot judge their congestion, then you've got to open the stoppers. And usually you do that with beta mimetics. I don't know, it might be pine kernels, it might be cinnamon, it might be sage. But of course with every one of those plants, you think sage is oestrogenic and this person has got breast cancer. So you wouldn't use sage. And you know, so for every, there's a lot to keep in your head. but as you practise, the model sort of, the model becomes less abstract and more almost like an object in your head. I mean I think that's how we think. So the model isn't sort of inscrutable. It isn't fixed and it's plastic and can relax, but it needs to be fixed. Otherwise you're wondering about all over the place. Just using empirically, I mean that's hit and miss and that really is, there's no future in that. And it's not very rewarding because you don't know why people get better or don't get better. If you using, whereas if you use a very good complex model, when it fails you can find out how and you can change and do something better.

Sebastian: I mean there's a logic that you can follow. Yeah.

Julian Barker: Think about empiricism, m. You don't learn anything. You just do the same thing over and over again. 50% of how it works. It doesn't. What have you learned?

Sebastian: You mean you're just repeating what you found out from somewhere else or something else you're not basing it on.

Julian Barker: If you say Valerian is hypnotic, this person is anxious. So we give them a hypnotic. Sometimes it'll work, sometimes it won't. But you know it's hypnotic anyway. You haven't learned anything and the person has sometimes got better and sometimes hasn't. Often not. So that's why to be a herbalist, you need to develop your model and use it consistently and learn from it every day. I should have done this. I shouldn't have done that. I mean that's what learning is.

Sebastian: Are you suggesting that people should develop their own model off the basis of what they've learned? Because, it sounds like you've developed a very clear model. And something I've often wondered about herbalism is that, ah, in having studied quite a lot of chinese medicine and ayurvedic medicine, they've got quite a fixed. Almost like if you practise ayurvedic medicine, it's this way or chinese medicine this way. Not quite like that, but there is a sort of linear path. Whereas in western herbal practise almost felt like you can meet every, you can meet different schools of practitioner and they've got very different models in a way, probably because of the world we've grown up in, within modern scientific understanding.

Sebastian: So the model you've developed, Julian, is that, An eclectic approach that you've gathered over the years. Or, were there some foundational learnings that you had along the way, some foundational teachings that have helped you build that?

Julian Barker: It's interesting, isn't it? when I first came across the work of doctor Durafour and doctor Jean Claude la Praz in the eighties, I didn't know what they were talking about. I somehow knew they were wrong to something. So I think there has to be a relationship between what you didn't know. you know, the mind you had before the world was born. As, to use gates is phrased, somehow there's a fellow feeling there and I have no fellow feeling with antiquarian. I have some sympathy with Parkinson, for instance, and so on. When you see someone who was actually trying to understand the world, with Gerard, I think he was just on the make, really. and I think he was just, you know, to say he borrowed things is being polite. And with ayurveda, I don't know anything about ayurveda. I mean, it seems to have a tripartite constitutional understanding. Well, that seems to me too hierarchical and too definitive. M and I don't understand that. I've never been to India and I don't. So it's culturally, it's not sympathetic to me. but when I went to Mexico, I was very sympathetic to the notion of the law and the tonal, in Castaneda's terms. and I'm not sure I've entirely lost that. The thing is, the model has to be implicit. You don't parade it particularly. Although I do try and explain myself to patients. I'm rambling a bit here. Sorry. Now, when I came across Durafour la Prince, it seemed to be coherent and flexible at the same time. If, it's incoherent, it's no good. If it's inflexible, it's no good. To me, it needs to be both, because biology is flexible. Because if we're not flexible, we don't survive very well. We certainly don't thrive. But if we're too flexible, you know, we're in a, in a mess. M and it seems so the model, I suppose, is based upon that enough flexibility to be adaptive and not too inflexible to, to be constrained. But, I what did they add to your training?

Sebastian: Because obviously you had a background in sort of classical western herbalism. Should we say, what did studying with Doctor La Prince really bring to you?

Sebastian: And it is very related back to Ayurveda and just talking about the constitution there. That is how Ayurveda practises in a way, the study of the terrain of the individual. Classified it around the doshas and things like that. But within that is you know, much attention and detail is paid to the nuances of the differences in digestion, temperature, stages of life, seasons, times of the year, times of life, etcetera. The whole relationship with treatment is based around daily habits, monthly habits, seasonal habits around that are fixed to that person. But I'm fascinated in the way you've arrived at that and how you've articulated it around, you know, science as well in a way. You know that there is the very sort of human element that you've got in there in this exploration of the terrain. And you sort of contemporized it in a way. It seems like when you, when I read your writing about how herbs work and relationship with central nervous system ans PNS, etcetera.

Julian Barker: Physiology is fascinating. And one thing likely upsets me about antiquarian systems is it's sort of pretending we don't know what we know. You know, you know, we live in the modern world, but many of us drive motor cars and use. I mean, look, we're using this technology which depends upon quantum mechanics. It so happens I don't understand quantum mechanics anymore. Perhaps you do, but that's not the point. To pretend we don't acknowledge these things seems really.

Sebastian: Well, I think lots of these antiquarian systems and, you know, around the world are you know, contemporizing in a way and modernising through research, through requirements and necessity on safety, drug herb interactions, you know, all the, you know, the necessity of helping people heal and remove pain as quickly as possible. But you're right, I hear what you're saying. That within the sort of theoretical framework that is sort of there's a constancy there.

Julian Barker: Well, the models were formulated in the ancient world according to the world they were in. And we're not in the same world. I mean, in some ways, there is a persistence. I mean, I suppose if the apart from Dugafour and La Praz, actually Hippocrates. Hippocrates was an ecologist. He was a health ecologist. and if you read some of the works of. I mean, he clearly was more than one author. Some of the works of Hippocrates, you realised that actually understood that the influences of, the environment were potent and also of the constitution, that the constitution was inherited. It's a pretty clear idea. Of course, it depends on circumstance. If you're in a war zone, you know, use a different sort of medicine if you're in an accident and emergency. So it principle, I mean, we're blessed that we're not. I mean, we're in a very factious world. But, at the moment we need peaceful lives to a large extent.

Sebastian: I know, I know. Well, given that, have you got any insights as to what you think is going on with what appears to be high levels of anxiety, depression, sort of social distress that comes into your clinic? When we do live in a relative, abundance in some ways, how come there is this growth in anxiety and depression that comes into our, clinics and you can see in prescription numbers and the amount of antidepressants, sedatives, etcetera, used. What do you think is going on there, Julian?

Julian Barker: Well, I mean, if you look at when the printing press came in, I mean, it was a time of huge upheaval and you think of, Thomas Wyatt, the poet. I mean, he lived in the court of Henry VIII. You could. Two syllables, and I'm quoting from someone else, two syllables could end your life. The wrong syllables. So it's a very paranoid world. And until we, you know, by the 18th century, people had settled down, people publishing pamphlets, which was the sort of social media of the day. It wasn't until the 19th century it all calmed down. Then we have the industrial revolution going to react to that and now we've got this, the social media age, which is, it's bringing, a paranoiac mindset and it's also allowing individualism, which I think is pernicious. That's why I say personalised medicine is not about individualism, it's always the opposite. And so we've lost the world of. Everyone wants to celebrate themselves instead of celebrating the world and our relationships with one another. And so, and trying to. I mean, people tell me, and they're not young people, people in their forties tell me. When I say, you know, when I go to dispense, I say, read, any of the books you like. And there's some magazines, they say, oh no, I've got my phone. I didn't know what they meant, but they're looking up stuff and communicating with people whom they've never met. And they tell me they're addicted to it. So it's a paranoid. It's a very inflexible, very inflexible. It's very fixed. It's very paranoid. Anyway, I don't have remedy for that, except, you know, I don't have. I've never been on social media. And I live life according to you know what. I have a very high sensory world. I don't live in a virtual world. Now we're being virtual here. it doesn't feel virtual. I can see. You've got books, I've got books.

Sebastian: It's pretty connected. We can see, can't quite touch, but we can see in here. So, Yeah. Interesting. So are you saying that you think maybe there's more anxiety and paranoia grown up in the world and so that's what's coming into our clinics?

Julian Barker: Well, I see a lot of older people. So not altogether, but anxiety and depression is very often, I mean, it goes back to the terrain. And so one has to look at the terrain of the individual. Also, I think the scale of plants that we use is what certainly in Britain, what we've lost, and maybe the looting in France too, is that, you know, we live, we survive by plants, food plants. And the more food plants you have in your diet, the better you, healthier you are. And seasoning is involved. So culinary herbs and spices and introducing those at a very early age is a very potent source of good health. And because, of course, the sensory priming, and the sensory priming of taste and texture and smell resides in the limbic system. So although the doses are very small, they're cumulative. And people, have got rather denuded diet in a way not only of food plants would have, I'd say, do you use pasta? No, not very often. So, I mean, I suppose I use twelve culinary herbs and spices in pretty well every meal I make. And I mean, I've got a new cookbook. I don't know if, you know, eat well, feel well. And it's trying to encourage people to not only do this for themselves, but for their children because that's where you build up. I call it a sensory priming. So when you do have medicinal plants at very low doses, they're actually primed to receive them. Right. So I think of, I suppose I think of three sorts of characterizations. I hesitate to use the word category of plants, which is complex, simples. A good example is Chamomile. It's probably not cumulative, but it treats quite low doses. A very identifiable area of the stomach. And so by being somatopsychic, relaxes, you know, the nervous indigestion actually reduces the nerves as well as the digestion. The two are connected, of course. And, I call them complex simples. And, plants that we mostly use are simple complexes. For instance, burdock, for instance, black horn. Actually, white horn as well. Where, of course, they're pharmacological effects. Well, the pharmacological effects are really quite transient and not huge, but they're modifying the terrain. And then thirdly, drug plants. So, the opium poppy and so on. With very toxic effects and very cumulative effects. And I don't use drug glass myself used to, but I don't think you get the best results that way.

Sebastian: We're not allowed to use a, profit.

Julian Barker: We're not allowed to use. I can't think of any other, for instance, feta anymore. I occasionally use bilia or myalis compillaria.

Sebastian: Yeah.

Julian Barker: Because it has other effects. Cardiovascular effects, bestial thyroid function.

Sebastian: Well, I think smelling a lily of the valley is the key. All the ales in the world look at it and you feel better. So, yeah, taking it internally, you need to be very careful indeed.

Sebastian: Yes.

Sebastian: see a herd list to ensure that.

Julian Barker: When we talked about, paranoia. Actually, if you perceive beauty, it's very difficult to. The paranoid state can't really see beauty. so if you can relax someone enough for them to see the beauty of the world, they can start to get better. I suppose what I would say is that pharmaceutical agents or drug plants have got a very high power, and a very narrow focus. Reserves we use have very low power and very wide focus. When talking to patients often say, look, the electricity in the wall there, you could boil a kettle with it. Whereas my watch has got a tiny battery. But it's not placebo electricity. It makes my watch go, it's real.

Sebastian: It's real.

Julian Barker: And, it doesn't boil a kettle of water. This is not what it's good for.

Sebastian: No. so is that. Do you. Do you use Melissa? I assume you use lemon balm and. Yes, I do. And some of these. Do you call that complex? Simple?

Julian Barker: Complex, yes. Complex, yes. Complex. they're simple complexes, yes. And more introduction. I mean, it's a bit arbitrary, of course. I make it, you know, just a rule of thumb for how I think about them. And of course, it depends on dose because I use chamomile very often at higher doses. And then it becomes a simple, complex. Not a complex, simple.

Sebastian: What's a high dose for you? Do you think of some of these ones?

Julian Barker: I mean, using a tincture rather than a design and using, I don't know, 30, 40% of a mixture despite a strong. And it becomes cumulative then I think. And, well, the person takes it every day. Anyway.

Sebastian: One thing I've noticed in reading some of your books and, writings, Julian, is that you seem to use lots of. Am I right? Lots of flowers and leaves, but there aren't so many roots. And, barks, I've noticed in your. In your.

Julian Barker: Which environmentally. It's environmentally much more, sustainable because you got to dig the plant out and you got to strip him. You destroy it.

Sebastian: Bark's particularly harsh, aren't they, in a way. With the root, you can replant the crown and things like that. But barks, well, there's lots of plants. Coppice, of course. Well, but it's still. It's a bit more, invasive.

Julian Barker: So I use herbernot cortex so much, really, I would say m lovely.

Sebastian: And will you give us some nice. Well, not nice. Some powerful insights, I think, in how you approach treatment and personalising it. And I'm aware that we're not going to talk about herbs for anxiety or depression, per se, because I hear that approach. But maybe you could share just some of the other species that you find useful for working with a, destabilised terrain where the mood and the psyches become upset, as it can through many of life's challenges. I mean, it's natural to be a bit anxious.

Julian Barker: Yes.

Sebastian: At some point. It's not a pathology, necessarily, unless it carries on for too long.

Julian Barker: So.

Sebastian: Just interested. You've got such an interesting approach. What would be your other favourite?

Julian Barker: Well, I don't believe in favouritism, mister Tarantino supporters, in nature, but I have a certain fidelity, if you like. towards the labiates. You think of all the alpha sympathetic reducing plants, like lavender. so obvious. Melilot. which Melilot? You need to understand the person using melod. So to someone with a lot of meridot is very good for introspective people. whereas lavender is rather good across the board. It's very interesting. People who dislike. And there are people who dislike the smell of lavender, so you don't lose that. But it tells you something about their terrain. Angelica is very useful. And here I use the root, because the trouble is with the fruits and the leaves of the umbelliferae is that they're very oestrogenic, and you don't always want that, whereas the root is much less so. Ah. So if you're trying to avoid the, all sorts of situation where you're trying to avoid oestrogenizing plants, you would avoid the umbellifera altogether, but the, Angelica would be an exception.

Sebastian: So it's biennial, so you wouldn't really be, You can almost count it as a sort of aerial plant. It's a biennial, so it will disappear off after a while. It's rooted. Good point.

Julian Barker: Very good botanical point. Yes. Excellent. Leonuris cardiaca, is just very remarkable in its flexibility for not anigra black hornout, and especially Lamia melbourne, because, you know, in the literature, it's supposed to be good for cystitis and urinary tract infection, and for vaginitis. But it's also a very profound blocker of central. A beta blocker. A central beta blocker, can I tell you? An epidote. But please do. I was going to my brother's funeral last year, and I thought I would go the country way. You know, I got stuck in mud m up at the farm track, on the way to Winchester, where it's going. I shouldn't take the motorways. You don't have these problems, the motorways. And I had to call the a in the end. I couldn't get out because a tree was in the way, of course, which, you know, no harm for the tree. Anyway, they were taking hours. It was a wonderful day. It was a calm, autumn, sunny day, and behind the calves, a long stretch of Lamia Melbourne. And I ate my way through it. When the AA bloke arrived 3 hours later, he said, you seem very calm, sir, except once a seat in this lot. And from his eyes, I could see the notion takes all sorts.

Sebastian: Can't have been the average. The average collection that have come across there. But it's a very good example of how you're able to, meet the moment yourself with, support from nature. And, yes, I really enjoyed speaking, julian, thank you so much for all that you do and the wisdom and care and love you bring to our, community. is there anything I haven't asked you? I mean, probably quite a lot, in a way, but anything you want to share at the end with any of.

Julian Barker: Our listeners, I think that the usefulness of. And I'm not trying to sell an idea here. Ah. I suppose there are two things. There are only two things we can ever do. any therapeutic intervention needs to increase a person's adaptive capacity or reduce the person's adaptive burden, or both. That's what you're doing in the end, one way or another. And I do think it's important to attend to the notion of energy, and circadian ones, circa lunar, circa tidal, circa seasonal, circa annual, and also seeing their stage in life and so on. You need to sort of anticipate all these things before you start reaching very herbs. So first the therapy, then the nurture, how you can alter their lives, and only then the herb.

Sebastian: Well, you've summed all that up beautifully in your book. I think your most recent book you've written is called Physic, which we'll.

Julian Barker: Put in the end.

Sebastian: And, it's a deep dive into your, your world model you've created. So I'd recommend it to any, any herbalist or healer that wants to understand health more deeply.

Julian Barker: Thank you.

Sebastian: great, Julian, lovely to speak. Take care.

Julian Barker: Good to speak to you, too. Bye bye for now. Bye.