144 – Crafting Herbal Protocols for Fatigue and Depletion

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.

Proud to say I'm not in a car park.

I'm also not in my beautiful herb shed.

I am indeed in the static caravan where I live.

I don't like working in here because I just want to like tidy up all my child's stuff,

which is like perpetually everywhere.

Like that is a real thing.

You try and put stuff away but it just comes back out again.

So anyway, I will be going to the herb shed soon.

I just wanted to come on and share this episode which is about crafting protocols for

fatigue and depletion.

So I'll get onto that shortly.

But before I do, I just want to say absolute

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yeah,

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is a massive part of our lives, unfortunately a big part of our world and massively affects

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And the next series I'm going to be doing,

starting next week is all about sleep.

So we're going to be going into kind of herbal protocols for insomnia and other things.

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Yeah, okay, thanks for listening and I hope the rest of this episode is useful.

All right, so I'm going to go into the kind of protocol and I just want to say like I will be

bouncing around and that everyone I see, one to one is very different.

So it's not always like a linear process of we do this, then we do this and we do this.

It might be often that it's kind of like a simultaneous thing, like we're working on

reducing someone's kind of fight or flight activation, but we're also,

you know, working on like gut health issues while also addressing some sort of longer term

immune challenge.

And all of these things are like super

connected, right? And part of the problem with kind of

allopathic medicine is that we go to the doctor and things are like incredibly

compartmentalised as separate issues when they're super connected and they're like super

connected to our lives,

to the, these bigger systems of oppression, to all of the things.

So addressing them, it can be a case of like this thing will reduce the demands on your

body by 5%, which gives you 5% more energy to do something else.

This other intervention, like these supplements, will help another 10%, which will

give you more energy.

Helping get, you know, improve your digestion will give you another 30% energy.

And it's kind of like going at it from all different angles, if that makes sense.

So I'm just going to give like a tiny overview of the protocol and then I'm going to dive

into more detail.

But I guess the first one is like ruling out any clinical red flags.

The second one I'm looking at digestion and nutrition and like addressing any core

deficiencies.

So yeah, I'm not going to go into detail now.

Then I look at nervous system support.

So what's going on in that person's nervous

system?

How does that affect their sleep? How does that affect their energy levels?

And then sleep becomes like a major focus.

And I feel like all of these things are very strong,

like self care things that we can do in terms of like addressing these different factors in

our life.

And then maybe what's more challenging from a DIY perspective is it's like the inflammation

support, right? So it's looking at where is this person's

fault lines, like where is inflammation showing up in their body that could be

affecting their energy levels or you know, causing high amounts of pain,

things like this.

So this will be like super specific to that

person.

And I'll talk about this in more detail.

And then because I'm a massive microbiology nerd, I will look at things like probiotics

and I've already talked about deficiencies, so that's where things like supplements will come

in.

But the kind of probiotics, I will be looking

at their kind of like microbial picture, if possible,

from their symptoms and if needed from testing.

And then at the end I'm just going to say a little bit about some of the kind of case

studies that I've worked with that I share in the herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress

course.

So that you can get a kind of impression of what this looks like in like a comprehensive

way.

And I just want to say that like, yeah, like everyone is very different.

This is not the kind of like be all, end all of herbal support I offer someone.

Like, you know, there's also topical things and recommendations for.

I hate the word lifestyle changes, but you know what I mean?

Like, there's all of the other things and herbalism is like incredible and amazing.

But it's like so vast in the options that we've got to support someone.

And this is like very what I'm talking about here.

It's like very long term,

one to one, like in depth, intimate kind of work.

It's not like herbal first aid, for example, where I'm like, okay, this person has like

some sort of infectious diarrhoea.

Like we need to get them,

you know, a stool test at the doctor or whatever.

Like it's.

This is like kind of long term addressing

depletion and burnout.

Does that make sense?

All right, okay.

Let's just get stuck in.

So,

yeah,

the first thing I will do is kind of screen for like clinical red flags.

So this is something that will be in your training, if you like undertake a kind of

clinical herbalist training.

And it's very, very important.

And one of the things I'm doing with my Frontline Herbalism membership which I'm

hoping to launch next year,

is I've whole module on clinical red flags for herbalists of all kinds, like grassroots

herbalist, DIY herbalist.

Because I think everyone needs this knowledge

of like, when is what I'm seeing, like outside of my scope of practise,

you know, whether that's just like distributing cold and flu medicine, for

example.

Like how do you know if that person just has a

simple cold? Or how do you know if they're at risk of

pneumonia?

Right. So anyway, I won't go into all of that, but with a lot of.

With most people I work with, I tend to encourage them to get some sort of blood test

with the doctor, if possible.

Or communicate their symptoms of fatigue to the doctor.

Because like I said in a previous episode,

I don't want to give people the heebie jeebies.

But like fatigue is a clinical red flag.

Especially if it's kind of recent and quite

sort of like massively life altering.

If that makes sense.

Like we want to rule out things like cancer,

but also because herbs can only do so much.

And if someone has like an underlying

deficiency, the common culprits being vitamin D,

iron significantly around fatigue and also B12 significantly around kind of like fatigue,

brain fog stuff.

It's just.

It's just smart to get that stuff tested.

B12 is a little bit more complicated and I'll save that for another episode in terms of,

like, its presentation in blood tests versus symptoms.

But,

yeah, I like to,

with anyone, rule out certain things, get things tested before, you know, Like, I do

tend to recommend sort of generic supplements, but it is always better to have, like,

a knowledge of where you are at the beginning of working with someone that you can then

compare to the end or, you know, just like I said, to rule out, like, certain things.

Okay, so digestion and nutrition.

So I wanted to sort of talk.

I. At the end of my recommendations document, I always put some nutritional recommendations

in,

but I didn't want to leave that stuff till the end.

I wanted to kind of talk about them together with digestion and I guess together with

supplements.

But if someone is not eating enough food or

digesting enough food or kind of nutrients from their food, they will not have the energy

they need to have a kind of,

like, healthy, active life, if that makes sense.

Because their energy mechanisms will be based on adrenaline and stress hormones, most

likely, that are kind of like maintaining them without that underlying nourishment, leading

to states of depletion, which, you know.

And I'm hoping this episode, like, summarises things I've been talking about through the

previous one.

So please listen to those where I go into this

stuff in much more depth, especially the last one where I'm talking about nourishment.

But the protocols will always look at is this person digesting food well?

And again,

this is ******* months and months and months, if not years of clinical training around,

like, the complexities of digestion, you know, like, is there underlying, like, inflammation?

Is there dysbiosis in their gut in terms of, like, potential, like, pathogenic bacteria or

yeast?

Is there,

like, problems digesting certain nutrients? Like, maybe someone's struggling with

digesting fat so they've got, like, constant diarrhoea or something.

Like, maybe they have a bile acid problem.

Like, maybe they're not digesting proteins

very well.

So, like,

that stuff is quite, like, very nuanced with your clinical training.

But if you're listening to this as a kind of like, DIY herbalist, then you can think about,

like,

what are the sort of signs that you are, like, potentially digesting well or where you might

need some support, you know, like, have you got a kind of, like, healthy st without much

undigested food that doesn't smell too strong, that's a good colour and a good shape.

Or are you kind of oscillating between constipation and diarrhoea?

Like, you know, are you getting a lot of bloating or burping or flatulence?

Like all of these sort of things we can get used to them because that's our baseline.

But actually they can communicate that we are probably not digesting our food as well as we

could be.

And that will definitely be having an effect on our kind of energy levels because they're

like super, super connected.

So I will be looking at someone sor digestive

state.

And I work a lot with teas in that respect.

Like a gut restoration tea blend that combines chamomile, calendula, some yarrow, burdock,

which is ******* fantastic microbiology wise as a prebiotic plantain and marshmallow leaf.

And that blend will kind of tweak for, for different people I'm working with.

Or I'll leave certain things out, stuff like that.

I'll often make like a kind of digestive soother blend.

So if someone's getting a lot of like reflux or heat and inflammation, then I'll give them

kind of like soothing herbs.

And again I will screen all these herbs against their medication they're taking.

Like that stuff's really important, so don't listen to this and be like, oh, I'll try that

herb.

Like just make sure you double cheque that herb safety for your,

your medication, your constitution, all of those things.

And that stuff's like covered in the herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course.

But I'll often make like a kind of digestive soother blend or some digestive drops,

kind of a more bitter blend that kind of like communicate to the body's digestive enzymes

and things to kind of like get going, start working, start digesting food.

Maybe I'm doing more of a like prebiotic probiotic blend with certain like roots and

things like,

like burdock that I mentioned.

So yeah, it's very like person specific.

Like everyone has a slightly different

digestive system but that's yeah fundamental to reclaiming energy.

And there's huge amounts of connecting fatigue, like as in like chronic fatigue,

which is like a whole different thing which I will talk about when we get to inflammation,

connecting that to you know, dysbiosis in the gut or intestinal permeability, which is sort

of colloquially known as like leaky gut syndrome.

Like there's lots of research around this stuff and yeah, like we can Work with herbs to

kind of address those things.

Also, there's lots of interesting research around long Covid and the microbiome and the

alterations to the microbiome.

So yeah, it's a really huge field.

But I am thinking about is that person basically digesting their food and then we're

thinking about what are they eating and is that kind of like adequate enough for their

needs?

And I will not talk about this loads because I talked about it last week.

But there are obviously a million and one factors that affect the food we can access,

the food we can afford,

the food we have the energy to prepare, you know, like whether we can actually access like

fresh vegetables with decent enough kind of nutrient profiles in them.

There's a lot going on and for some, some clients, I just care that they eat.

So I'm just like,

give them a meal plan, right?

Vegan gluten free burgers from Lidl's and a protein powder shake and some oats in the

morning.

Like that's it.

You know, just keep it simple, keep it really accessible.

When someone's like got the energy to prepare healthy meals, we can add in all the bougie

stuff, you know, like the seeds and the greens and all of this stuff.

But like, sometimes it's literally like a calories thing and people will feel

significantly better when they're eating more food or different food.

Food intolerances can also be a major culprit in fatigue in terms of inflammation.

So when we're looking at nutritional recommendations, it's not just what we add in,

but it's often like, what are we taking out?

And the kind of main things that are often culprits, I hate to say it, are gluten.

Like if you are gluten sensitive when you eat it, you will almost definitely experience some

fatigue.

For me, I will get like insomnia if I have accidental gluten.

Like, I will be struggling to sleep and that's because I'm feeling really, really, really

inflamed.

So it kind of makes me fatigued in that way.

But if I have something or like when I was really unwell and like years and years ago and

I would have anything containing yeast, I would be like broken.

Like I would just have to instantaneously sleep.

Like if I had like a mushroom soup or something, I would sleep for like four hours

afterwards because I just was having such a strong reaction to the yeast.

So it's like food intolerances are like another big part of the picture that is very

important for that kind of individual Protocol,

it's like a food intolerance will take a huge amount of energy from the body.

It will also,

yeah, like affect someone's kind of gut health, gut integrity so much that unless we

can kind of take out that inflammatory trigger, we're sort of like still going to be

using a lot of energy, like fighting fires in the body.

Does that make sense? And then, yeah, part of this,

part of the protocol is also things like addressing deficiencies in terms of nutrients.

So I mentioned the importance of blood testing.

But like this is where I'll be looking at things like vitamin D, magnesium, B12,

someone's like fatty acid profile, what might be happening there, like all of the kind of

other like nutrient stuff.

I will generally like recommend certain brands if possible to people.

But yeah, like this is this kind of like addressing core deficiencies section.

That's kind of what I'm going for.

And if you're interested in that, I think listen to the last episode about nourishment

and nourishing herbs.

Because herbs, herbs can play a role in that

too.

Like if we know that someone's got low iron,

for example.

Like I will work with herbs like nettles in blends to kind of like improve someone's blood

health picture, you know.

Likewise, we can look at herbs with an

affinity for like white blood cells, things like this and immune markers.

So yeah, we can kind of like work with that once we know what we're dealing with.

But yeah, just kind of anything in terms of depletion and fatigue.

I'm thinking about what's going on with the gut, what's going on with nutrition, what's

going on with deficiencies.

Please.

Okay, so the next part of the kind of protocols that I follow is focusing on the

nervous system.

And I know I'm very biassed because I

specialise in like nervous system stuff.

And I obviously have the herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course that kind of like goes

into this stuff in a lot of detail.

And I think because of the people I'm working with primarily, like folks who are

experiencing state violence, like a lot of people who come to me have gone through a lot

of trauma, so it's like a big part of their health picture.

And maybe other herbalists that's just like not so much of a thing.

Like maybe it's like a lot of chronic stress, but maybe it's not quite the same level of

like,

you know, like life changing horror, if that makes sense.

That a lot of people who've, you know, been in prison and all this Other stuff have gone

through.

So anyway, nervous system support.

So I'm going to talk about sleep separately.

But they're obviously super connected.

And for me I think nervous system activation,

well, I don't just think, I know this fight or flight response,

it takes so much energy from the body.

Like when you are anxious and you're like, for example, now I have a generally pretty good

baseline that when I have a bad day where I'm like particularly triggered or overwhelmed or

I know that I'm in that fight or flight response, like I will feel horrendous, I will,

you know,

in terms of that, like during it, but also that aftermath.

And it kind of makes me realise like how much energy I burnt through just being stressed,

like being triggered, you know, being in PTSD land of flashbacks and triggers and memories

and all of this stuff.

It's like the sympathetic nervous system.

This fight or flight response,

it is a response of action,

it is a mobilisation of energy in the body.

And to mobilise energy we need to use the

body's resources.

We need our blood sugar, we need our stress

hormones, our adrenaline, we need all of these things, our neurotransmitters.

Like everything is moving into action and when that is happening a lot,

it will just lead to a state of depletion, right?

So when I work with people one to one, I am trying to support them to just, just tone that

response down.

It might be that they've just got so much ******* going on in their life, like, you

know, kids, repression, whatever, like that,

you know, it's not going to go away completely, right?

Like we don't have these like perfect stress free lives.

But if we can just tone down that fight or flight response even by like 10%, that is 10%

more energy available for other things that we need to do.

You know, whether that's healing our own tissues or you know, living a life that we

want to live, whatever.

We can increase the body's access to energy and relieve some fatigue by lowering the

activation of our nervous system.

So that is working with nervine relaxants.

So I will nearly always give people a kind of

daytime nervous system support blend which again is super bespoke to them, their

medication, their constitution, their preferences.

But often it includes herbs like lemon balm and chamomile and maybe maybe hawthorn berry

and flowers or rose like kind of gentle nervine relaxants that help reduce the

activation of the sympathetic response.

And they often have a kind of like very gentle antispasmodic action on the rest of the kind

of blood vessels but.

And muscles.

But yeah, these herbs are kind of like not gonna knock you out in terms of being like

such strong sedatives.

They're just kind of.

Yeah, I call it reducing background anxiety.

And I've got a whole episode all about nervine

relaxants.

And if you join the herbalist and PTSD int

traumatic stress course, it's a whole module all about them, all the options, how they

work, you know, not how they work in terms of different meds,

but like medications, contraindications.

You have to be aware of the nuances of working

with them, like in terms of what sort of state they have an affinity with, like whether it's,

you know, more sort of rage or more kind of depression.

So it's not just always about calming down.

Right.

But daytime nervous system support might also look like stimulating someone if they are in

this kind of like shutdown, dissociated freeze ish response.

Like the freeze response can involve a lot of nervous system activation.

So often it's more of a like relax to kind of unfreeze, if that makes sense.

But sometimes, yeah, people are in more kind of low energy states.

And I've got a whole podcast episode about stimulants and also about stimulating

nervines.

So yeah, yeah, it is very person by person of what herbs they'll have in terms of like where

they need to go with their nervous system.

And then finally in terms of nervous system support,

pretty much guarantee that I'm going to be working with some sort of nerve tonic.

So excuse me, that's not normally one plant, that's normally like a blend of several

plants.

But these are the herbs that are kind of doing the long term reparative work, supporting

someone's kind of HPA axis,

supporting like their nerve, nerve tissue, physiology, staff, supporting their liver, you

know, herbs like betony and vervain.

Maybe it's herbs like skullcap.

Like everyone is different.

Sometimes it's more sort of like kind of

stimulating adaptogens like Schisandra berry for example.

But yeah, I'm working with nerve tonics or milky oats.

Yum, yum, yum.

I'm working with nerve tonics to kind of give

that nervous system support so that it can function more kind of like optimally, if that

makes sense.

Sense.

And again, I've got a whole episode all about nerve tonics and loads of them are profiled in

the herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course, which no one is turned away from in

terms of lack of funds.

So if you're listening to this, being like, ****, I want to know this stuff.

Please join the course that opens on Sunday.

Not if you're listening in the future, obviously, but.

Okay. I think that's all I'm going to talk about with like nervous system support today

in terms of this protocol.

But for me as a herbalist, it's a very, very

important part of the picture,

Okay, Sleep.

So if someone is experiencing fatigue,

my first question will be, how much sleep are you getting?

And some people are going for it.

Maybe they're getting nine, 10 hours and

they're still not feeling refreshed, which is when I know something else is going on.

But a lot of people will be getting like three, four hours maybe.

And I'm like, like, of course you don't have any ******* energy.

Like the body needs to sleep to feel energy.

So sleep is always like top of my list in terms of clinical support and priorities.

And I feel like this is an area where people can really, really go for it in terms of like

DIY support.

Like if you don't have the funds or interest

in working with a herbalist, but you want to kind of improve your energy levels, then even

increasing your sleep by like an hour extra a night,

trust me, will make a difference.

So with sleep, again,

it's really, really connected to the daytime nervous system support.

Which is why as a herbalist, I'm probably doing myself out of business.

Because my protocols are so like comprehensive in terms of like sending people huge packages

of things.

Like, not just like, here's your one mix for one area.

Like I did.

Just bodies are more complicated than that

anyway.

If you are experiencing a lot of stress in the daytime,

those stress hormones will trigger often a kind of night wake up response.

Right.

In terms of the cortisol cycle, we will be

waking up like 3, 4 in the morning.

And sometimes that's okay as a sort of survival mechanism.

Some people enjoy that time of evening.

They might do something and then go back to

sleep.

If you don't have the ability to go back to

sleep and catch up on the hours you actually need, like you've got to get up for work or a

child or whatever,

then that's going to be really affecting you.

So we want to be working with sleep herbs in

terms of like not only getting to sleep, but also just like getting a higher quality

restorative sleep and reducing night wakings.

And often night wakings are kind of, you know,

part of the picture of PTSD in terms of like nightmares.

So when we are going through nightmares in Our Sims sleep often it means that a, we're not in

a deep enough state of sleep because maybe we feel unsafe or hyper vigilant.

But also there might be other deficiencies, things like this going on.

Vitamin D's been shown to be highly connected to nightmares.

Again, I've got a whole podcast episode about nightmares and my next series now is going to

be about sleep.

So this will kind of come to life a lot more in more detail.

But yeah, like, we want to be working very holistically in terms of like getting that

sleep sleep as kind of long and deep and restorative as possible.

And sometimes people just need help with that falling asleep stage with that kind of

parasympathetic evening time window ritual.

And then they're off.

They're fine.

Other people, they can get to sleep fine, but

they just keep waking up early or waking up in the middle of the night.

Other people are just not getting any of it and are having ******* night terrors,

nightmares, like all of the other things.

So there's just so many angles that we can

support someone with.

And that's why it's not just like, oh, you're struggling with sleep, here's some valerian,

do you know what I mean? Like, it's why there's a whole *******

picture.

And in the herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course, I have a whole module about

sedative nerve irons, where I'm talking about herbs that do kind of trigger this hypnotic

sleepy state,

but some ******* warnings with that in terms of trauma survivors.

Like, if people have gone through things in that state, then these herbs might be very

triggering for them.

So again, there's so much ******* nuance.

I don't want people to have to listen to like 60 lessons to be able to implement a change in

their life.

But if you're interested in this stuff, I

think you will find the course a ******* epic resource because it goes into all this stuff

in loads and loads of detail.

And it means you can actually choose a herb that will hopefully be effective for you.

So anyway, so sleep is my number one priority.

Sometimes people just need a *******

permission sleep to get more sleep, honestly.

But yeah, there will be a whole series coming up all about sleep.

All right, so we've covered digestion and nutrition, nervous system support,

sleep.

Like, I feel like all of those things are

often things that people can kind of work with like on, not on their own, but like people

will need support with them, but I mean, like they're just core foundations, right?

And in the herbalism, ptsd, and traumatic stress course.

I literally have a module called like or Not Module series of lessons about, like,

foundations of health, like sleep and nutrition, for example.

I think where things get tricky is where there's more sort of systemic inflammation.

So I know that's a really ******* broad category, but health is really, really

complicated.

And again, like, I think my clinical training

you do all this stuff on top.

But basically it's thousands and thousands of hours of learning about different sort of

states of disease in the body and different forms of chronic inflammation and how they

sort of express in the body.

So I've talked about this before in terms of, like, fault lines of where someone's kind of,

like,

manifestations of, like, distress or imbalance kind of come up for them.

So for me, you know, I developed this costochondritis, which was this chronic

inflammation in the cartilage of my rib cage.

Like, I'm quite a kind of like,

musculoskeletal pain kind of cardiac person.

And my digestion has, like, generally been pretty good most of my life,

give or take maybe the prison years.

I've had appendicitis and stuff.

But, like, other people it might be.

Yeah, like migraines or other people it might

be like endometriosis or,

you know, like severe period pains or severe premenstrual tension.

Like, like we all have these kind of areas where our body is kind of.

Yeah.

Like, I don't want to say just unhappy because

that just like, minimises, like, the gravity of it.

But I just mean there are so many expressions of disease and inflammation in the body.

Right.

So normally when someone comes to see me in

clinic, it's like they've got, like, a specific pattern of that going on.

Like, sometimes it's just a bit more vague, but most often they've got some sort of

diagnosis for something that's going on, you know, where.

Whether that's pcos or endometriosis or something like this.

So, yeah, so all of that stuff will affect someone's energy levels.

Right.

Because inflammation in the body uses so much

energy.

Like when we're in chronic pain, when our

tissues are kind of needing this constant kind of like, attempt of the body to repair them.

For example, the immune system is, like, perpetually activating,

then that is using a lot of energy.

So that's why we have to address the kind of drivers of inflammation.

And I feel like that stuff's, like, way beyond the scope of this podcast episode because

there are like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of expressions of inflammation in the

body.

Do you know what I mean? So again there will be like very like person

specific.

But I did also want to talk about, about chronic fatigue and in terms of like chronic

fatigue syndrome slash me and just to kind of like name that, it's like another layer of

like inflammation, right?

And unfortunately until the kind of medical establishment and all these fancy doctors

started getting long Covid they were so ******* dismissive of chronic fatigue,

especially because it's mostly or not mostly, but it's largely in like female bodies.

So like, you know, there's all this misogyny and all this other stuff going on means.

It means it's like super under researched and people are like super ******* gaslit and it's

******* horrific in terms of not being believed for how exhausted they are.

And not that it's just exhaustion, it's a whole cluster of symptoms.

But this episode, kind of like at the beginning of the series where I gave the

disclaimer like this is more for people that are experiencing kind of like general burnout,

low levels of energy because of like states of depletion and chronic stress.

Whereas like chronic fatigue syndrome, me is just like another ball game of inflammation

that kind of needs to be addressed.

And one person that I found really useful, I

don't know her, like politics or anything, I'm not on Facebook, but she's called Dr.

Sarah my hill and she has worked with huge amounts of people with chronic fatigue

syndrome and me and she talks about the kind of like inflammatory part of me.

So sorry, I just pulled this to,

yeah, to kind of read something I wrote back in the day.

But yeah, the premise of her research with patients is that fatigue is a symptom we

experience when energy demand exceeds energy delivery and chronic fatigue syndrome is

summarised by poor energy delivery mechanisms in the body.

The central cause of this like in her kind of hypothesis and research and framework is

mitochondrial failure.

So that basically her theory is that the basic pathology in chronic fatigue syndrome and me

is like the slow recycling of ATP to ADP back to ATP again.

So basically the Krebs cycle and things around like mitochondria and I will, I am like keen

to do like a specific podcast episode about this.

But yeah, she defines me as chronic fatigue syndrome plus inflammation.

And this inflammation may indicate symptoms of allergy and or chronic infection.

Symptoms of acute inflammation may arise from infection, allergy, autoimmunity or chemical

poisoning.

And many cases of post viral chronic fatigue syndrome are triggered by gut viruses such as

Epstein Barr virus and other things.

So, yeah, so there's this kind of cluster of

many other symptoms beyond just fatigue.

Maybe someone's experiencing kind of like autonomic stuff, like dizzy spells.

They'll have often, like brain fog,

you know, but also these kind of, you know, like, more allergic inflammation symptoms,

like headaches and migraines or skin issues or like, you know, repeated kind of urinary tract

infections or connective tissue problems.

Like,

maybe they've got kind of like,

you know, light and noise intolerance or heat and cold intolerance, or just like, general.

General muscle pain, shortness of breath, basically.

Like I'm saying, like, chronic inflammation is such a massive umbrella for what is

potentially going on in someone's body.

And addressing those kind of, like, energy delivery mechanisms looks like, how do we

support our kind of,

excuse me, like, our cellular energy production?

So our mitochondria.

And there's lots of amazing herbs with an

affinity for mitochondria Nigeria that we know of right now.

Like, lots of herbs are obviously not researched in terms of that mechanism.

So we have these kind of, like, quote unquote adaptogens that have some kind of research

evidence base underneath them because of *******, you know, people testing them on the

army and stuff in Russia, like, all of this crazy stuff.

But it's like,

we're just at the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding how herbs, like, affect our

mitochondria.

And, you know, like, if we are looking at inflammation, they're super connected to

everything else I've talked about, like diet, for example, and gut function and the kind of

terrain of the body.

You know, also looking at things like our thyroid and our adrenal glands and the stress

response and also, like, our clearance mechanisms, like our bodies kind of like.

I feel like detox is such a dirty word now in terms of, like, being associated with, like,

weird, like, right wingers and stuff,

but actually just kind of like baseline detoxification in the body.

Like, is the liver doing its job and clearing our stress hormones?

Well, well, like, is that causing more fatigue because we've got more circulating kind of sex

hormones or whatever?

Does that make sense? So anyway, I feel like that is such a massive

other episode,

but in terms of the framework today, what I wanted to say is that, yeah, I'm looking at

that person's, like, levels of inflammation.

What is happening?

You know, maybe we are getting kind of like gut health testing or other testing to, yeah.

Work out what might be going on and what that body is Kind of confronting on a daily basis.

Hopefully if you're listening to this podcast, you're more in the kind of like *******

burnout, really tired, struggling, frequent colds kind of level of depletion that can be

addressed with rest and nervous system support and increased sleep and nutritive herbs and

improvements in the food you're accessing.

You know, there's so many things we can do to take care of ourselves.

Okay, so the last thing is like, because I'm like a big microbiology nerd, as you will know

if you've listened to this podcast for a while.

But this obviously comes in with like the gut health stuff, but maybe it's also to do with

like the vaginal microbiome as well or other kind of areas in the body.

But I will often be thinking about what is going on, like on a microbiology level in

terms of fatigue.

So when we have kind of like intestinal

dysbiosis where there's like a certain population of gut bacteria that are maybe more

dominant, we will often see symptoms like fatigue.

So certain probiotics which are very,

you know, which I kind of choose very specific strains and unfortunately they're often like,

expensive from certain companies.

But we want really high quality probiotics to

kind of achieve our goal in the gut.

You know, maybe that's addressing a certain pathogen, maybe that's repopulating another

bacteria or like beneficial yeast that we want in the gut to kind of like,

you know, outcompete the pathogenic yeast.

There's like, this stuff's really complicated,

but basically it's another kind of layer of the protocols that are kind of important to me

and only if they're necessary.

Right. Like, I don't like go down that rabbit hole for everyone, but it's definitely like an

area that I'm increasingly fascinating about.

And like, I just need some more money to do

even more training about it because I think it would be really, really helpful for folks.

Okay. If this episode has been useful,

I think you will enjoy listening to some case studies I put together.

So these case stud inside the herbalism PTSD and traumatic stress course.

But I also shared them as podcast episodes.

So I can't remember how many I did, maybe four or five.

But basically I gave examples of people who've gone through who've got some sort of PTSD

esque symptoms.

You know, maybe it's someone who is seeking

asylum,

maybe it's someone who has come out of prison.

Like, maybe it's someone who's experienced

like huge amounts of recent Chronic stress from burnout or bereavement or whatever.

And I talk through my framework, which is basically the same framework now as in like

nutrition, sleep, nervous system support, inflammation.

And it's kind of just a way, if you are working with people one to one at the moment,

I'm sure you'll have your own frameworks.

But if you are kind of like wanting to support

yourself or other people and you're kind of interested in just having a bit of a

structure,

then I think you'll find those episodes really, really useful.

And you can maybe see the kind of like power of herbs in terms of like.

Yeah, just addressing some of this stuff, like much more holistically and yeah.

In a more kind of strategic way.

So, yeah,

if you are interested in this stuff.

Shameless Plug Herbalism, PTSD and Traumatic

stress course opens this weekend on Sunday.

So. So get yourself on that ******* waiting list today.

I'm going to email the list in the morning.

Tomorrow on Saturday.

Sharing the discount code.

Sharing the Solidarity code for this year.

So yeah, those are kind of two codes you can use.

Well, you can only use one one time at the checkout.

But they're, they're, they're the codes you can use to access the course at the rate that

is possible for you.

No one is turned away for like a free funds,

you know, I've talked about that loads.

But anyway, if this stuff's interesting to you, I think you will get shitloads out of the

course because it's very comprehensive.

It goes into a lot of this stuff in lots of

detail and.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you for listening.

Take care.

Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline

Herbalism podcast.

You can find the transcript, the links, all

the resources from the show at Solidarity Apothecary Creed.

Org podcast.