A Brief Introduction to Herbal Medicine

Something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while is Herbalism. I want to tell you how I came to understand plant medicine, what herbalism is, what herbology is and how it came to be that we believe plant medicine to be bunk science. To be frank, I am not an expert, I have simply had occasion to be in rooms with (self-taught) herbalists. I make the self-taught distinction because it matters, at least to some extent. The herbalists that I work with know their limitations, there is a lot of complexity when we are working with plant medicine. My purpose with this post is to lend credibility to Herbalism as an ancient and complementary practice that works with modern medicine. First, let me tell you a bit about my mother, the first herbalist I learned from.

My mother has had many medical issues in her life that I can remember. She’s an alcoholic, she has had mental health issues including suicidal ideation, she has fought several different kinds of cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. I watched my mother struggle with mental health meds that not only didn’t help but also caused a slew of other issues with the side effects. I watched as they put my mother on med after med until she eventually worked herself off of all of them, because she understood that this med caused the high blood pressure, and the high blood pressure med caused another issue that caused another med and another issue until she was taking 10 medications a day. This prompted my mother to start making St. John's Wort tinctures. She made several others that I don’t remember but I remember the St. John’s wort was the first. She had researched enough to know what the plant was, where to find it, and perhaps most importantly what you can and cannot take with St. John’s Wort. My mother continued making tinctures and other herbal concoctions for many years and by the time my mother and I had a relationship again, she had painstakingly researched and produced a salve for her arthritis, we call it At Bay, because it keeps the pain at bay. I use it for my migraines, my sister for her fibromyalgia, a friend used it to help her knee after surgery, another friend uses it for migraines, and a few years ago a friend that has arthritis asked to try it again. My mother taught my oldest sister and I how to produce it when she got a grim diagnosis a few years back, it is her legacy. 

So what is Herbalism? The Merriam Webster dictionary defines it simply as “herbal medicine”. In the USA you often have to have a degree or certificate to practice as an herbalist. Technically the mentors that I have probably fall under the “Herbologist” label. Neither my mother or my mentor will diagnose you, neither will feel comfortable telling you what you need to take, that is stuff you learn in courses. But both know things like; soy is an estrogenic, or capsaicin is a vasodilator, and St. John’s wort is a nervine. It was on me to learn that the soy carrier may be what’s helping my migraine, or that I can use capsaicin in a poultice to draw heat to an area, and that a nervine might help me relax. It was also on me to learn that several nervine herbs I might take for my extreme PMS or anxiety/depression would also interfere with my birth control.  My mentor is a nurse, so she goes even deeper, recently she was telling me about plants she was going to try that affect specific parts of our brain chemistry. 2 things to note, she did the research on the plant and her symptoms, and advocated to her medical team that she would like to try plant medicine, but still work with her medical team. Even Western doctors are starting to recognize the benefits of plant medicine, though most still won’t even entertain the idea of connecting you with an herbalist. Do you wonder why that is? Or maybe you think that my claims are too anecdotal. Well to explore both of those points further let's chat about how we abandoned our roots. (A rare intended pun for you.)

I would hope that it is common knowledge by now that all ancient civilizations had a deep relationship with the plants found around them. So when did we stop favoring plants and start looking to modern medicine to solve our problems? In the 19th century, scientific advancements allowed us to isolate and extract active compounds from plants. This was revolutionary because it meant that medicine could be concentrated, mass-produced, and fast-acting. For instance, one of the earliest examples was the isolation of salicylic acid from willow bark in the 1800s, which later became known as aspirin—one of the most widely used drugs in the world today.

But instead of honoring the roots of this discovery, the powers that be (pharmaceutical companies with money and political influence) chose to rebrand herbal medicine as “folk medicine” to discredit it. Why? To pull the power of healing from our hands, funneling it into their pockets. In the early 20th century, as pharmaceutical companies grew in power, they began lobbying governments and medical boards, establishing the dominance of Western medicine. The infamous Flexner Report of 1910 played a key role in this. Funded by the Carnegie Foundation, it reshaped medical education in the United States and Canada, pushing for a more scientific, pharmaceutical-based curriculum, while discrediting practices like herbalism, homeopathy, and naturopathy as “unscientific.”

What chaps my ass is that instead of acknowledging herbalism—which WALKED SO MODERN MEDICINE COULD RUN—as a foundational practice, they ridiculed it. The pharmaceutical industry is now a multi-billion-dollar juggernaut, generating over half a billion in the USA alone annually, and that number is only set to increase. The discrediting of herbal medicine wasn’t about its efficacy, but about profit. Herbalists were painted as quacks (along with massage therapists, chiropractors, and other “alternative” medicine practitioners) so that these corporations could monopolize healthcare.

When I first started looking into herbal medicine for myself at 19-20 years old, the information available online was sparse. It was a lot of digging through folk remedies and reading about the properties of herbs to see if there was sound logic behind why they worked. But let’s not forget, even with limited research back then, some remedies have always been effective. I’ve used garlic and turmeric for a mouth infection, clove for the pain, and a mixture of onion, garlic, ginger, and black pepper for bronchitis. These were the remedies of our ancestors, and in many cases, they still work just as well today—maybe just a little slower than modern medicine.

Fast forward to today, and now, when I look up the properties of herbs, WebMD itself often provides peer-reviewed studies on the topic. However, even with this newfound access to information, many of us don’t know the right questions to ask or where to find reliable sources on how to harvest, work with, and properly ingest these herbs. Modern society is preoccupied with quick fixes, and that’s where modern medicine excels. It’s why specific compounds in plants are isolated and concentrated in the first place.

Take cannabis as an example. Since its legalization, there has been a surge in research on how its compounds interact with the body. A key concept emerging from this research is what’s known as the entourage effect—the idea that the whole plant works together to create a synergistic effect, with compounds like terpenes and cannabinoids complementing each other. In contrast, isolating just one compound, like THC or CBD, can reduce the overall efficacy of the plant. The Swamp Yeti Project, an industry leader, advocates for this whole-plant approach, emphasizing that isolating compounds can strip away many of the plant's natural benefits. (We’ll get into more cannabis specific lore and research soon.)

This principle applies to all herbalism. Some folks will try an herbal remedy, and when it doesn’t work immediately, they dismiss herbalism as “bunk.” What they don’t realize is that their fast-acting pills also have roots in plant medicine, often with their active ingredients isolated and concentrated to act faster. The issue here is a fundamental misunderstanding of how herbs work. Take catnip, for example: I can’t take it once and expect to experience all its benefits. As with anything natural, consistency is key. We’re working to correct imbalances in the body—imbalances that didn’t develop overnight.

Herbalism, like proper diet and exercise, is about working with the body over time, not forcing a fast, temporary solution. Maybe it’s my experiences with my mother’s journey, or those of others who have been steered wrong by modern medicine, but I always seek a long-lasting solution with as few side effects as possible. That being said, I don’t hate modern medicine entirely. I hold a healthy skepticism about the motivations of the doctors I speak with, and an understanding of the limitations of both modern medicine and herbalism. I’m not like these other spiritual girlies, looking at you queen of appropriation, I’m going to the doctor for a kidney infection, or any infection really - the garlic and tumeric helped buy me time to get to a dentist but I still needed antibiotics. I’m still getting vaccinated against tetanus. Herbalism is a great preventative measure, as I alluded to earlier, but it’s awful for a fast acting CURE. Herbalism is also a great long term solution for righting imbalances. If your suicidal and can’t make it to tomorrow, please, please seek medical attention but know that there are other long term solutions, once your brain is in a better spot. 

I have provided a link to the Swamp Yeti Products page for your cannabis (THC, CBD, and Nootropics) herbal needs. Full disclosure, I am a part of their affiliate program, but I believe in their mission, and I personally know the passion and care they put into their research and products. Also, for other tincture and dry herb needs, Holly at Wyrd Owl Cottage has you covered. I am not an affiliate of hers, but she is my mentor, and someone I know to be responsible and ethical in her production.

Love yourself better by questioning everything, 

Mia Marie

Book Review: Science of Breath A Practical Guide

We’re back with another book review! In my last post, I mentioned that the book I’d just finished prompted me to start reviewing books. Specifically, the conversation about breath in that book was intriguing enough that I wanted to dive deeper. So I went to my boyfriend and asked him what book I should read next if I wanted to learn more about Pranayama, specifically, and he went to his library, emerging with my next two reviews. 

I can already sense your eye roll: "Mia, it’s breath. It’s an automatic function—wtf are you on about?" But breath is foundational to many practices, like singing, yoga, meditation, and many other various sports and hobbies. This is something I’ve been vaguely aware of for quite some time, especially from my years in choir and band, where we were taught basics like standing up straight and breathing with the diaphragm and again later when I started to get into Hatha yoga and meditation. Fun Mia fact: diaphragmatic breathing was also a topic of heated debate with a particularly contentious ex of mine. So if you don’t believe in anatomy or science, feel free to skip this post. But if you're curious, let’s dive into Science of Breath: A Practical Guide by Swami Rama, Rudolph Ballentine, M.D., and Alan Hymes, M.D. (Copyright 1979, 1998)

Before we do that though, let’s meet our authors. I intentionally did not look up these people before reading the book so as to remain impartial to the information it held but I did look them up afterwards. The book tells us of Swami Rama’s credentials, which, among the authors, is the hardest to prove to our Western Standards. So, let’s first understand that Swami is a title given to yogis that have attained a certain level of mastery, specifically in the Hindu faith system. Even that is an overly simplistic explanation of Swami Rama, even though it isn’t intuitively understood by many of us here in the US, it is in fact, a high honor. Swami also opened the Himalayan Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy. We will have to discuss his and other spiritual leaders' misdeeds another time, as that is a more nuanced discussion but one absolutely worth having. The M.D.s in question are Ballentine, specialty area psychiatry, and Hymes, a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon that is apparently still practicing today. Their credentials are of course a lot more straightforward. Together they take us through a technical and in-depth journey that is almost reminiscent of a Magic School Bus episode, sadly, sans most of the magic.

Ballentine and Swami work together to bring us ideas and supporting evidence on how breath affects one’s psyche. For many of us with C-PTSD and other dysregulatory conditions, we are familiar with this concept on a surface level at least. Take deep breaths and count to 10, focus on your breathing. You hear it in labor classes too, they teach specific techniques to breathe through what is commonly considered one of the most painful things we can experience. So the connections that Ballentine and Swami make here are not hard to digest for many of us. The more mechanical and technical aspects of these connections are explained expertly by Alan Hymes. Hymes in my opinion is the backbone of the book. Without him, a lot of this would be Eastern practice and psychology which is valid but also harder to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

The authors start by acknowledging that breathing is an automatic, involuntary process. Sort of. As they take us deeper into the topic, they introduce us to yogis—traditional practitioners of yoga. This is a more loaded term than what most of us, who have only been exposed to Hatha yoga, might think. Yogis have made claims since ancient times about being able to do great and unthinkable things, including healing themselves.

"Okay, great, what’s this got to do with breath?" I hear you. Yogis believe that their ability to control breath is foundational to all other parts of their practice. The authors also point out why Western science hasn’t studied breath as much as other bodily functions—we’re more interested in matter, things that can be easily observed and quantified, like the heart.

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while, you know that the heart has an electromagnetic field that extends beyond our body (an aura). Western science only recently discovered this, while yogis have known about this energy long before we even understood electricity. Swami explains that yogis recognize three distinct bodies: the Subtle body, the Vital body, and the Energy body (or aura). Prana, or energy, travels through the breath, and the nasal cavities play a far more complex role in this process than I expected. Did you know our noses have erectile tissue?! I, unfortunately, am at 33 years old, a 12 year old boy, I laughed a little too long.

Hymes does an excellent job explaining why the lungs often get overlooked compared to other organs. He makes a solid case for why they deserve more attention, as they help carry oxygen to all the organs in the body. This information is essential for understanding the gap between Western and Eastern knowledge. He also describes how emotions and breath are scientifically linked and touches on other systems that interact with breathing and emotions. One surprising fact I learned from Hymes is that sleep apnea and heart disease are connected. So, make sure you’re breathing well at night!

But, also, like, maybe learn to breathe properly. Many people that decide to read this book will be unnerved to know that they have forgotten how to breathe somewhere in the transition between infancy and adolescence. I know for myself, even being aware of the differences in diaphragmatic breath and a more “normal” shallow breath, it is hard to remember what once came so naturally. Apparently proper breath, (and diet, and exercise but those are other topics to dive into later) helps our body dump toxins. You’ll have to read the book to understand how the nose gets so worked up over waste in the body that it puts us in danger by changing its mucus viscosity, thus making us vulnerable to viruses and infection. I did not realize that this is why Indians use the neti pot. 

Neti refers, perhaps obviously, to the nasal passages, which is one of the areas yogis are instructed to keep clean. I did take a little issue with Swami throughout the book for offering instruction on advanced techniques, both for the neti pot and later for asana, and breath work, while only offering a small disclaimer about the advanced forms needing to be done with an advanced practitioner. (Even before I learned about his misconduct it gave me the ick.) He of course did this because he wants us to all go to HIS school to learn these things. It would have been more responsible to explain there are several other techniques that one can do and given instruction on how to find a teacher. I don’t love hidden motives, even if I understand them. 

Outside of what I would dub the sales tactics of Swami, this book has a lot of technical information about both Eastern and Western studies and it does a good job of linking them. I recommend reading Science if Breath to just about anyone, again as long as you believe in science and anatomy. This book would be excellent for yoga instructors, practitioners and anyone looking to bring the mind and body back into balance through breathwork. I will say that I was familiar with a lot of the Eastern concepts due to the yoga teacher training that I started but having such a balanced perspective offered in this book was more beneficial than I expected. It has also made me draw more awareness throughout my day about where my breath is going, and I am excited to dig deeper into Pranayama.

8/10 Do recommend. Book lost points because of Swami’s marketing techniques and because even with having a working grasp of many of the concepts it is still a complex read.

With Love, 

Mia Marie

Book Review: The Power of Trauma Informed Yoga

Recently, I realized I needed to start reading again—there’s something about writing truths I haven’t fully embodied in a while that pushes me to do better. I’ve also been neglecting several books I’ve collected over the years, all relevant to this blog. 😅 I decided to begin with The Power of Trauma-Informed Yoga by Sue Berman. Friends, this is *the* book I wish had existed when I began my healing journey. It’s so well-crafted that it inspired me to start reviewing books on this here blog. I truly believe anyone on a self-help or healing journey can benefit from the wisdom Berman expertly weaves through her anecdotes and insights as both a trauma-informed yoga instructor and someone who has personally benefited from the practice.

Berman begins by ensuring readers have a solid framework for discussing trauma, emphasizing the importance of a shared vocabulary for this sensitive and multifaceted topic. I anticipated these early chapters would be dry, as I’m not a patient reader and don’t love revisiting familiar concepts. However, Berman presents the material in a clear, concise way that makes it easy to follow, even if you're already familiar with the subject. I appreciate the thorough explanation of trauma, including the various ways it manifests, along with insightful tips on managing triggers. I also appreciate the stories she weaves into the book to underscore the humanness of trauma.

Once we’re all sharing the same language, Berman shares her personal journey with trauma, healing, and the power of trauma-informed yoga before explaining what trauma-informed yoga is. I don’t want to spoil her powerful story, not even a little for the sake of explanation, but I will say that I believe the trauma she describes is less common than what we usually see discussed in these spaces. Once again, she lays out the information clearly and concisely. Berman even provides a helpful chart differentiating between “traditional yoga” and trauma-informed yoga. I put "traditional yoga" in quotes because when we say traditional yoga in the West, we’re often referring to a type of yoga that is actually the most modern form and I’m not *actually* sure which she means, but I digress. She goes on to further explain how specific aspects of yoga help alleviate different aspects of trauma. There is even an entire chapter dedicated to breath! 

Sue Berman spends the rest of the book offering tips on setting up safe spaces to practice, highlighting the importance of being mindful and compassionate to ourselves and others. Additionally, Berman offers several asanas (or postures) and how to cue them, making this book a helpful resource for both individuals interested in practicing on their own and those already working in the field who may want to offer trauma-informed yoga themselves. Overall, I think Berman has done an excellent job of providing a solid starting point for anyone who has experienced trauma and is interested in yoga but doesn’t know where to begin. This book truly illustrates, as its title suggests, The Power of Trauma-Informed Yoga.

10/10 - Do recommend

Read this book, and love yourself better,
Mia Marie