141 – Nerve Tonics: Herbs for Rebuilding After Chronic Stress

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 in the car again.

It's just, it's just I'm finding this, these driving logistics to and from the herb shed to

the nursery to town, all the things too tricky.

So I'm making most of time by recording this in my car.

God, nobody just.

I feel like I didn't get a solid content

warning about becoming a parent of just like.

Oh man, it's just relentless.

I'm exhausted.

Which brings me on to this episode.

So today I'm going to be talking about nerve

tonics and I know I've done like a more focused nerve tonic episode before, so I'll

put that in the show notes.

Maybe I should have re listened to that to cheque what I've said, but I kind of think

with podcasts like you never know when someone's like coming in to the, to the

series.

Do you know what I mean? Like you probably don't.

If you're listening, you might be new and you might not know anything about me or the sold

out apothecary or how the.

Does herbalism support people experiencing state violence?

Like, you know, it might all be new.

So if it is, welcome shameless plug.

My Herbalism PTSD and Traumatic stress course is, is coming back next Sunday, 20th

September.

If you want to get in on that, please join the waiting list.

I'll put the link in the show notes but if you can join by Friday then it means you will get

emailed in time with the Solidarity code and also the 10% discount code if you're paying at

the like the standard rate.

It's really, really, really helpful for me to get an impression of how many people are,

yeah, are interested in joining the course.

As I've mentioned before,

the course like sustains the majority of the soldier Apothecary.

Like all I do, like thousands of books to prisoners, care packages to people all over

the world experiencing repression.

The Black Flag Herbal Clinic which offers like in depth herbal support to comrades for free

as well as like a bunch of other stuff.

So yeah, it's just really, really,

yeah, really critical time of year for me in terms of fundraising.

But I don't want people to join just because they want to support the Apothecary.

Like you know, you could just whack a donation in if needed.

But I want you to Join.

Because I do think this course is like very,

very trans.

And you can see on the course page like just I don't know how many are on there, but there's

so many testimonials from people who've found it super helpful, super life changing, who've,

you know, just got obsessed with herbalism through it.

And yeah, that's really, really supported them.

So yeah, please cheque out those testimonials as well.

Right, I'm gonna dive in.

So what is a nerve tonic? So basically nerve tonics are herbs that

support the nervous system, structure, communication and functioning.

So it' about how well is the nervous system like functioning?

And I mean like on a very kind of like physiological level,

you know, like nerve fibres, cells, like all of that stuff.

But it also mean like in terms of nervous system states.

So is someone in fight or flight a lot, this kind of sympathetic activation of the nervous

system or do they have a good kind of balance where they also have some parasympathetic time

where they are in a kind of like rest and digest day.

And you know, there's like a bunch of other states that I explore in depth in the course.

It's never just the binary too,

but I just mean like, is someone's body feeling like, okay, you know, and oh my God,

this would be such a big side rant but like it is okay to not be like quote unquote,

regulated in a world full of oppression.

So like, that's another part of the course which I think makes it very different to other

trauma related trainings is there's like a whole module about, about like the politics of

trauma.

There's a whole module about collective responses to traumatic stress.

So, you know,

your nervous system is probably working really well if you're stressed about money when you

have,

you know, not very much of it, or when you are facing homelessness or experiencing

homelessness or you've just got out of prison, you know, like all of these or you're living

in like an abusive relationship.

Like all of these things affect the nervous system.

And yeah, like I'm not talking about just feeling really ******* floaty and happy in a

world like full of oppression.

Like that's not where I'm going.

But I'm saying for people surviving these things, like, we also need support.

And people experiencing oppression deserve ******* care.

Not more than anyone.

Like everyone deserves care.

But I just mean like trauma shouldn't be about just recovering, right?

It needs to be about like getting through something.

And this episode is kind of about rebuilding after Chronic stress, but only in a framework

that maybe you've not heard of these herbs.

So, like, if you have that relationship with

these plants, you can work with them during a period of chronic stress.

And they are, like, ******* amazing and also preventative at things, you know, getting

worse in.

In terms of a, like, disease state, for

example.

But I think because so many people come to

herbalism or come to nervines when they're kind of on the other end of burnout and

exhaustion and depletion,

that's how I've kind of pitched this episode, is knowing that how do we sort of kind of,

like, rebuild, if that makes sense.

So I just want to share that, like, a herb can

occupy different categories.

Like, categories are helpful for our very overwhelmed human brains, but they don't

justify, like, the complexity of life, obviously.

And you may have heard me talk about different groups of nervines.

So I'm just going to differentiate.

Differentiate nerve tonics quickly.

But again,

a nerve tonic is almost certainly in one of these other categories.

So I have a whole episode about relaxant nervines.

So these are herbs that kind of, like, decrease the activation of the sympathetic

nervous system, so kind of decrease that fight or flight response and enable us to access a

more parasympathetic,

rested state.

You know, herbs like chamomile or lemon balm, I see these as herbs that can help us kind of

through the daytime, even though they can really help with sleep as well.

But they offer this kind of like, ongoing.

Ongoing support at, like.

Yeah, like reducing that activation in our systems.

Sedative nerve ions are herbs that have a particular affinity with helping someone get

to sleep.

They're often strong antispasmodics as well

and can also support with pain.

But their role is, yeah, really kind of like

switching someone into that kind of more sedated state to enable,

hopefully longer, deeper, restful sleep.

And you'll see that not all the herbs fit in

these categories.

Right.

So skullcap is a herb I'm going to talk about.

It's a fantastic nerve tonic in terms of,

you know, helping repair the nervous system, but it's also a sedative, so it also helps us

sleep.

And part of sleeping well is like a major

factor in how we rebuild and support ourselves after periods of chronic stress and then

finally stimulating.

Nervines are herbs that,

you know, kind of like, gently uplift the nervous system in the sense of, like, you

know, often increasing blood flow to the brain, reducing brain fog,

you know, kind of giving us a bit more Energy, but without kind of taxing our, like, adrenal

system.

So. So the last episode I did was all about

kind of the dangers of stimulants and the difference between many stimulants and sort of

stimulating nervines.

So, yeah, so herbs can obviously occupy more than one of these categories.

And in my.

Oh, sorry.

And there's also cardiac nerve ions, which are herbs with an affinity for the cardiovascular

system, like Hawthorne and motherwort.

Hawthorne is almost definitely also a nerve tonic.

But the way I've broken it down in the herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course is

to bring these herbs into these different categories just to help your brain organise

them so that you can get very specific about which plants you might support yourself with

and which plants you might support other people with.

Whether you're like a community herbalist or working in a kind of herbal clinical practise,

getting kind of very specific and knowing a plant intimately about when it would be

appropriate, maybe when it's not appropriate, what action are we seeking?

Like, I'm trying to move people away from this generic herbs for stress, herbs for anxiety,

herbs to asleep.

Do you know what I mean? Because there's so much ******* nuance.

So Anyway, it says 32 plants explored in the herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course.

And I break them down into these different categories.

So nerve tonics, I really see these kind of come into their own.

Like I said, when someone has gone through a period of prolonged stress where they have

been in survival mode, where their sympathetic nervous system, their fight flight response

has been heavily activated over a long period of time,

or even, to be honest, sometimes even just a short period of time.

But for example, you experience a bereavement and then you have like months of chronic

stress afterwards, like sorting at the funeral or someone's house, dealing with all the

grief, like you're super triggered all the time.

Like, that would be a period of chronic stress.

Likewise, for example, if someone has a baby,

they might, you know, that's obviously often a real blissful, joyful time.

But many people experience postnatal depression and vast amounts of sleep

deprivation, huge amounts of like, **** all structural support.

Don't get me started on patriarchy.

So it's like,

you know, that is like a heavy period of stress that someone would then benefit from

herbal support from.

Or for my line of work, I'm often supporting

people getting out of prison.

So, like, their nervous systems have been hyper vigilant for sometimes years and years

and years on end.

Like they do not know what ******* Safety

feels like because they've had to hyper vigilant and on guard and, you know, like,

some people grow up in an abusive environment where they are on high alert,

they're experiencing chronic stress.

They are experiencing surges of stress

hormones every 10 minutes because their parent is screaming at them, you know, so it's like,

I support people wherever they are and I don't want to define how long does it take till you

deserve a ******* nerve tonic.

Like, they are just for everyone.

And even if you don't have like a specific kind of stress that's like, you know,

related to state violence, like, even just.

I hate to say it, but like, even just

surviving in this world is really hard, you know, like witnessing all this on our phones,

like all the climate collapse stuff like genocide, war, invasion, like, just.

There's just so much.

Even if you're not directly harmed by it, it's

just,

you know, like our nervous systems have so much stimulation all the time that.

That I think we pretty much all benefit from nerve tonics.

I think another sign that someone is kind of potentially gonna find a nerve tonic really

helpful is when we see those markers of kind of like reduced kind of nervous system

resilience like I talked about in the signs of depletion.

So, like,

you know, move into tears quickly, getting anxious over like literally everything.

Like.

Like, it's like a feeling of our nerves

feeling like frayed and brittle because we've just been coping with too much for too long.

You know, feeling really easily overwhelmed, really, really fast.

But also, you know,

like this shutdown kind of state where, yeah, the chronic stress has just got too *******

much.

And then we've hit a period of like, low

energy and depression.

Like, you know, I feel like NERV tonics have

so many indications in so many different contexts, but knowing their differences is

really,

really,

like, amazing because we can, like I said, get really kind of like matchmaking and specific

about what herb might be really wonderful for someone.

So, yeah, so some of the herbs that I talk about in the course,

I. Again, it would be a very long episode if I go into all of these in so much detail.

Like, that's what the course is for.

I go into these plants in loads of depth.

I talk about how I work with them in practise, I talk about how they extract best in

different medicine types, I talk about their constituents, their.

I don't talk loads about folklore, to be honest, but I'll talk about their sort of

ecology and habitat and then I'll go into their different actions and Their,

like, affinities with PTSD and traumatic stress.

Okay, so which are my favourite nerve tonics and which ones do I explore in the course?

I'm going to go through some of these.

So milky oats.

I just need a oat farm, do you know what I mean?

Like, I get through so much of this herb.

Like, it is our kind of classic nerve tonic.

So it's.

It is really a herb with a lot of affinity for the nervous system in terms of its, like,

constituents.

I think it contains a lot of, like, B vitamins

and different amino acids that can help.

Like,

do not get me started on protein and chronic stress recovery, like, in terms of what our

body needs.

But, yeah, it's like, deeply nourishing and

restorative.

And there's a whole lesson in the course where

I talk about herbal energetics.

So this stuff might be new to someone or just might make no sense at all,

but milky oats is very, like, moistening.

And what we see with people with chronic

stress is they become very dry and tense, literally down to the nerve fibres.

Like, some people can,

you know, have such a sort of deficiency of, like, healthy fats in their diet that they can

get very kind of like.

Yes, and wiry, if that makes sense.

So milky oats is very moistening and it's.

Yeah, it's like our classic nerve tonic.

So Hawthorne berry is a herb that I include in the cardiac nervines section.

And it's also definitely a relaxant nervine.

So it does have this kind of broad spectrum

relaxant effect across the whole kind of cardiovasculature.

But I see it as so fantastic for people recovering from chronic stress who kind of

experience that a lot in the sort of inflammation of their blood vessels.

So it's very interesting.

Like, some people,

chronic stress, I call it fault lines.

I've talked about this before, but, like,

people will have different areas of kind of vulnerability where they sort of manifest and

express stress.

And it's not that we're, like, immune to different ones, but, like,

I just see the patterns in people so often.

Kind of like type A types will often have quite good digestions,

but they will get, like, a lot of muscular skeletal pain because they're holding a lot of

responsibility and tension.

And that's when.

When we need herbs that are kind of like,

yeah, like antispasmodic and kind of relaxing and relieving of tension.

Whereas other people, it would just all be their guts.

It would just be like, guts, guts, guts.

Like dysbiosis, like irritable bowel kind of

symptoms like that will be where they express their stress.

And so we're going to be working again with different herbs.

So something like chamomile, which is a wonderful relaxant but also an amazing

vulnerary so it helps to heal like inflamed tissues.

Like that's going to be our herb.

Does that make sense?

So I find a lot of like type A types are often quite kind of like cardiac type people.

Like they'll get Covid and their lungs will be okay, but the thing that goes will be their

heart, right? Like they'll get heart inflammation, they'll

get heart palpitations.

It's kind of like that typical guy like on movies who's like the lawyer and he's like

super type A and he's like living this like fast life and then he just drops dead of a

heart attack back.

Like I feel like Hawthorne, I mean Hawthorne is for everyone but like,

well I should have said the disclaimer about meds.

Like I hope no one is working with her before checking all of that stuff, especially if

you're on any kind of medication.

And I talk about that again in the course.

Like there's a whole lesson on herbal safety

and each plant profile shares the kind of like up to date knowledge of contraindications that

we're aware of and different mechanisms and things.

But like I see Hawthorne berry is really for that person that is like, like able to keep

going because it's really wonderful for the cardiovascular system.

Sorry, not just the cardiovascular system, but the musculoskeletal system for like collagen

synthesis and all sorts of stuff.

So it's like,

I think for people that have that fault line of like heart stuff, musculoskeletal stuff,

Hawthorne is just amazing.

And I'm very biassed because it grows everywhere where I am.

There are just miles and miles and miles of Hawthorne berries.

In fact, little shout out if anyone wants to come and harvest some Hawthorne near me.

I can give you a bowl.

It's really hard for me to do this stuff with

Lee.

So like when he's a bit bigger, he's going to

be the best little helper in the world.

But right now he just wants to run off in his own direction, which is fine.

I'm trying to, you know,

build a kind of anti authoritarian child.

But I just mean like it's difficult to do the

miles and miles of foraging especially because he wants to be carried and that kid is heavy.

So yeah,

if you have any thyme and spoons.

And you live near Somerset,

like, sort of street way, and you want to come and harvest some hawthorn berries?

I would love you forever.

They are my most used herb, pretty much in my

apothecary.

Okay. So.

Oh, my God, I knew this episode would take ages because I'm just so excited about all of

these herbs.

Okay, so then there's Bethany, and this is a

herb again, I profile in the course.

So Bettany is just this beautiful member of the milk fact mint family.

Sorry.

That has this square stem and this beautiful

purple flower.

And I have a bit of a thing about square stems.

And they're kind of like upright, kind of get the on with it kind of energy.

That's how I resonate with them.

But Bettany has an affinity with the head,

and it's also got an affinity with the Lev, with the liver.

So we're often working with Betany.

When people are experiencing a lot of, like,

neck and shoulder pain due to chronic stress,

when they are experiencing, like, nausea and vertigoes and migraine.

Vertigo's vertigo and migraines.

Like, there's this kind of, like, affinity with sort of the liver.

And the liver is, like, where we clear our stress hormones as well as, like, everything

else in our body.

But, like,

I find people's livers start to struggle after years and years and years and years and years

of chronic stress hormones.

And I find that Bethany is just really

fantastic for that kind of, like, frayed type A type person.

Again,

like, kind of like workaholic type.

Do you know what I mean?

And then there's vervain, which is very.

I use them in very similar ways.

Vervain is contraindicated for people in early pregnancy.

But again, it also has this kind of, like, upright stem.

Like, someone commented on an Instagram post I did about vervain ages ago, saying that it

has, like, sword energy, like, in the tarot.

And I know all about the tarot, but I think that kind of, like, straight up energy is,

like, really interesting because,

again, it's like vervain is really supportive where there's, like, a lot of tension.

And in France, they drink vervain, like, as a tea, like it does.

You know, it's not like the strongest of herbs.

Like, I think berries are just, like these slutty, delicious things, right, that are just

bursting with nutrients, whereas these kind of smaller plants are, like, a little bit more

subtle.

But I go into the constituents in the lessons,

and vervain, like, contains, like, certain chemicals that have an affinity with the

central nervous system.

And that could explain some of its actions.

But again, it's like this wonderful sort of nerve tonic and I find it ******* fantastic

for people experiencing premenstrual tension.

It seems to just have like such an affinity for people where there's like a kind of

hormonal clearance problem or like a kind of.

Yeah, just this like recovery from chronic stress.

Like, I really see it as like a burnout herb.

Okay. And then there's St. John's Wort, which is kind of like very, very heavily

contraindicated for people on most medications because there's like very studied mechanisms

around how it affects the liver and the sort of clearance of things.

So it will kind of clear that medication out of your body very quickly,

you know, and that could have quite dramatic consequences.

And as in, dramatic, like, as in like people can be hospitalised and stuff.

So we do to be very careful with St.

John's War. But if anyone isn't on meds or contraception, stuff like that, like, it's

amazing.

Like we.

There's so many studies around St. John's War

as a kind of hub for low mood and depression.

And it's kind of affinity traditionally for that is again through the liver and this kind

of liver stagnation that makes someone kind of like bitter and irritable.

But it has this really like uplifting energy which I think is kind of of difficult to find

in the herbal kingdom.

Is that bad to say?

Like, I feel like a lot of the nervines and the nerve tonics are really like cooling down

herbs because they're cooling that sympathetic heat kind of activation in the body,

that fight or flight Cortisoli activation.

Whereas St. John's Wort is a kind of gentle

relaxant, but it's doing something different.

It's kind of like.

Yeah, just bringing us more kind of energy, like lifting our moods.

It's got a real affinity with the nerves.

So people that have like actual nerve pain,

it's really helpful for like.

I've had a lot of success with it.

I make banging St. John's wort glycerite.

Oh my God, that herb.

And glycerin.

Oh,

delicious.

And super strong and amazing.

So yeah, try that out.

Oh my God. Sorry.

I'm looking at the clock because I have a lot

of clinical work to do today.

Oh, and this is my like last morning of

childcare.

So Friday morning.

Well, Liz only just started doing a Friday morning, but it's like a little bit stressful

today.

So anyway,

okay.

So then another herb, which I actually don't

think I profile in the course because it's something.

It's a herb I've only really started working with the last couple of years, probably since

I created the course, which was.

Oh, I don't know, 20, 23,

is a herb called Chatavari.

So I make an amazing glycerite with the dried.

The dried plant.

And like.

Like, it's.

Yeah, it's like, traditionally, like, the

lineage is like, Ayurvedic kind of medicine, like in India and South Asia.

And I think that's why I'd not worked with it before, because I try and work with herbs that

I can grow.

Like, I mentioned her, you know, like vervain, betony, Hawthorne elderberries, St. John's

well, all of these herbs are just, like, abundant where I am, where Shatavari is like,

a herb I have to buy in.

But it's very demulcent,

which means kind of, like, can help with this, like, moisture in the mucous membranes.

And, like,

for people who have kind of like, dry, inflamed tissues as a result of chronic

stress, like, kind of reflux and kind of, you know, sort of.

Yeah. Just kind of like heat in the GI tract or in the lungs.

Like, it's an amazing lung tonic as well.

Like, I feel like Shatavari is wonderful

because it's very moistening, because, like I said, like, vervain and betony, like, they're

not the most drying plants in the world,

but they're definitely drying.

Like, they are cooling and drying.

Like, they are cooling that heat down.

And Shatavari is very cooling, but it's also just bringing so much, like, moisture in.

And if someone is that kind of, like,

afraid, brittle, anxious,

like nerves on the outside of their skin feeling person, I think Shatavari is amazing.

And it's.

Yeah.

Traditionally used as this kind of, like, deeply nourishing restorative tonic.

You know, like, it's even used for, like, kind of, like, fertility stuff, for example.

Okay. And then the berries just to finish off.

So,

yeah,

two of the herbs I really work with a lot are elderberry, which, bless elderberry, is just

pigeonholed as this cold and flu herb.

You know, like, we'll just have elderberries

in elderberry season when everyone's getting sick, and you can make an elderberry syrup and

that's it.

But like me, this herb is so full of amazing antioxidants.

And again,

any period of chronic stress, unless someone is, like, really on top of their nutrition and

wild foods and all of this stuff, like, you are, you know, in a direction of getting very

depleted, right?

Because it's very difficult to digest our food when we are like super activated and stressed

all the time.

So I think having that kind of like

nourishment is really important.

And then the next episode I'm going to do is about nutritive herbs.

So elderberry is like, like nutritive.

Like it has so many amazing antioxidants and

different plant chemicals that are just amazing for all sorts of functions in our

body.

And it obviously has this affinity with the immune system, right.

And I think it's like no Sherlock.

But like any period of chronic stress, as we

all know,

will just smash our immune system to bits.

You know, like Covid really hurt people that

were are peak exhausted, you know, like doing hardcore work, like lots of burnout and then

they catch COVID and then that's it.

You know what I mean? Like they've got long covered, they're super

depleted, they're catching everything that comes round.

Like I do think elderberry as a tonic is wonderful for people experiencing kind of long

term stuff.

And I know like supporting the immune system,

like it does get a little bit complicated.

I mean the body is like literally the most complicated thing ever.

And then herbs are also complicated.

So it's like when I teaching this weekend, I

just kept saying to people, like people just ask me a simple question and it's like, it is

such a simple question, but like,

oh my God,

herbalism gives long answers.

Like I could be here for days explaining why

this herb is like effective for this type of condition but not this type of condition.

Do you know what I mean?

So yeah, there's a lot of nuance, which again is the whole purpose of the PTSD course.

And then the other berry I work with a lot is Schisandra.

And again,

I didn't like, it's not growing in my bioregion.

It can definitely grow in temperate climates.

But I get it from the organic herb trading

company.

So at least it's kind of organic.

I mean, knows what's going on with the supply chains.

But oh my God, it's just so amazing.

Like it's a bit similar to elderberry in terms

of like just so rich in antioxidants.

But it also has such a strong action on the liver.

And it's really wonderful for people that are experiencing a lot of kind of like allergies

and like immune dysregulation stuff.

But just like, like I said, a lot of these nerve tonics, they're very cooling,

sometimes drying Sometimes moistening Schisandra just brings a bit of that *******

heat back.

So when people are in that chronic depleted

kind of cold state,

it can be hard to not just give them like a whole mix of like very cooling herbs.

Like if someone is like super activated,

like a cold mix is lovely, but like,

you know, we're going into winter now.

Like, I'm very careful about, like, is this

herb going to be too cool and drying, in which case Schisandra is so wonderful because it

brings so much like warmth.

Like, if you've ever tasted it,

it's really kind of like spicy and peppery,

but just delicious.

So, yeah, and it makes an amazing warm infused

glycerite, so I can make like gallons of it in my slow cooker.

I find the tincture, like, almost too strong, but I find the glyceri seems to be really,

really well tolerated by people.

So, yeah, so Schisandra is kind of classified as an adaptogen, but it has like an affinity

with the HPA axis, which again, I blather on about in the course with the nervous system

physiology lesson.

So anyway,

short version is.

Oh, I haven't talked about skull cap, have I? Oh,

so, okay, sorry.

Like I said, there's lots of herbs that fit

into more than one category.

And one of the herbs in the course is called

Skullcap, which is more of a, like sedative herb that we work with at night, but it's full

of B vitamins and there's lots of research around how it might support,

like, myelination.

So, like the myelin sheath is like a layer of

fat that kind of surrounds the nerve cells and the nerve, I mean, like the nerve fibres.

And once that's sort of depleted,

in theory, it's kind of just depleted.

Whereas there are certain herbs that can help

with the regeneration of the myelin, which is like, very interesting in conditions where

that degeneration is like pretty serious, if that makes sense.

So working with Skullcap can be really effective in helping this kind of like help

someone anchor into a high quality sleep routine, which is ******* life changing.

No herb is gonna match decent night's sleeps for months in a row, do you know what I mean?

They're just, they're just not gonna match it.

Like, the body knows what to ******* do.

Do you mean? Like the body knows how to heal and recover

and repair tissues and how to digest food? Like, it just needs a break to do that

sometimes.

And I think Skullcap is wonderful when someone

is really burnt out and in a period where,

you know, sleep has just been the thing that's been really, really effective.

Or they've had a period of chronic stress which is like,

you know, really affected their sleep because of either, like, high cortisol levels waking

them up or because.

Because that's just been how it is, you know,

like, they've been caring for a loved one who's dying or looking after a newborn and not

getting any sleep.

Like.

But once we can anchor into that new sleep, not new, but that restored sleep routine,

then we're, like, onto a winner in terms of recovery.

So.

Yeah.

So skullcap isn't technically in.

I don't.

I think I've put it in the sedative section.

Not the nerve tonics.

But like I said, these hubs are like, have multiple actions in multiple categories.

And it is just, yeah, wonderful at helping kind of repair the nervous system over time.

Okay. I think I'm gonna leave it there.

And again, shameless.

Plug. Please join the waiting list for the

herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course.

I don't think there's anything quite like it,

if I'm honest.

I don't know many teachers that go into this

much detail about these herbs.

I think if you're supporting someone one to one,

you're gonna see nervous system stuff time and time and time again.

So it's like, let's get good at it.

You know what I mean?

Like, let's.

Let's, you know, work with herbs that are

going to be effective and helpful because people ******* need it.

Like, people are really stressed.

Like, people need that support.

And maybe it's just for you, right? Like, you don't have to work through the

course to help other people.

Like, you can just work through the course so

that you have a relationship with these plants and you can support yourself for the rest of

life, you know, I've been through a ******* lot the last couple of years in terms of

really unwell during my pregnancy and my ex relapsing after five years while I was

pregnant.

And then, you know, having a lot of time as a single mum.

All the, like, financial pressures, like, all the.

Yeah, just like, newborn survival stuff.

And, like, I wouldn't have got through it

without these nerve tonics.

Like, the second I gave birth, I was, like,

straight on my mix.

And I. Because I care about this stuff.

I pay attention to this stuff every day.

And I think hopefully it's gonna pay dividends.

Do you know what I mean? But I've been able to be, like, a loving

present mom to my son because,

you know, I've got the kind of like energy and the nervous system,

like, that's resourced.

And it's not just an absence of stress, do you

know what I mean? Because those are really stressful things.

Like thinking your ex is gonna die of an overdose any minute, like, is stressful.

But having those herbs that you can draw on, like I write it on the course page, like a

medicine cabinet of allies,

like, that you can draw on through your whole ******* life, you know, it's not just like

learn this skill so that you can do this ******* thing to earn money or something.

It's like, literally,

how can you support yourself? How can you support your loved ones for a

whole ******* lifetime? Because we are ******* in for it.

Do you know what I mean? Like, our generation, like, people listen to

this now, like, look at all the ******* **** that's going on in the world.

And I know that is a narrative that's been reproduced with every generation, but I really

think, like,

yeah, what is going to get us through is being able to like, support each other and,

you know, like, survive these conditions so that we can transform them so that people can

keep going.

And if our social movements weren't such a

burnout train, we might be getting like further.

Do you know what I mean? So nerve tonics are a way we can help kind of

not just like recover after periods of chronic stress, but also prevent that, like hardcore

life changing burnout, you know, that some people never come back from because they don't

have support.

So,

yeah,

anyway, I'm going to stop talking now and I'm going to go get on with my lovely client work

for the people I'm serving.

And thank you so much for listening.

Please cheque out the course page.

Okay, 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@solidarityapothecary.org podcast.