How Herbal Remedies Calm the Mind and Support the Stress Response in Menopause
Menopause, and perimenopause, can be stressful. Many women have increased feelings of anxiety, when entering the transition to menopause.
Herbal remedies can be a support for calming your mind and shifting feelings of anxiety, entering the menopausal transition.
Cortisol levels shift in menopause for a lot of women. The shifts in estrogen and progesterone may make you feel more anxious.
Stress is in everybody’s lives in some way. No one is immune to stress and stressful situations. Correne Omland, from Spirea Herbs, is back on The Podcast today to talk about STRESS.
She believes that stress is a product of the environment we are in.
I asked Correne how she saw stress show up in her clients, as a clinical herbalist.
Correne:
“The first thing that I've noticed as a herbalist is that no one is immune to it to stress these days.Stress is ubiquitous. No matter why someone comes to see me, what they've got going on in their lives, the underlying issue that seems to exist, regardless if it's digestive issues, if it's arthritis, if it's acne, there is an underlying stressor.
Everybody needs some kind of nervous system support, along with digestive support. The nervous system and the digestive system are intertwined.
Stress can be emotional, spiritual, and physical.
Stress can be:
Financial
Relational, as in relationships
Career
Lack of nutrients
Immune challenges
Blood sugar issues
Not enough calories
Negative thoughts
Tanya:
Is all of our stress just bound up in the way we live our lives today? Are women more prone, rather than victim, to stress in menopause, manifesting as hot flashes, because of the way life is?
Correne:
It actually sparks a memory of when I was in school, studying herbal medicine and my teacher was bringing up some of the cultures that are removed from modern day society, more ancient tribal cultures, say in remote parts of Africa, where in their language, they don't have a word for menopause.There is no transition phase between what we would call motherhood, and crone-hood. If we look at that maiden, mother, crone trifecta or archetype, there was no demarcation, you just stopped menstruating.
These symptoms that we now have, the rage, the hot flashes, the difficulty focusing, anxiety sleeplessness, is this a result of the toxins we are exposed to, the media we are exposed to?
If we look at these isolated tribes, what don't they have, that we do that results in the stress? They don’t even having a word for menopause. It's mind blowing if you think about it.I think you're on to something there. Meaning like, is much of what we move through as women, as we age, is this a result of our lifestyle?
Tanya:
That's just such a deep topic, as is the pathologizing of menopause. We turn things into a pathology. Menopause has become something to cure, whether it's with hormone replacement therapy, herbs, or supplements.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t have symptoms, whatever the cause is. and women need relief.
In a previous episode, about stress, I was reading Kelly McGonigal's book, the Upside of Stress, about stress resilience. She talked about a study about positive thoughts. If you had positive thoughts about aging, much like the ancient cultures that you're talking about, where they really didn't have the language about negativity and aging, you were actually more revered right?
Correne:
Yes! You were considered a wisdom, the wise elder in the tribe. This was a good thing!
Tanya:
Women who looked upon aging as something beneficial, as something to look forward to, their health, their symptoms, their menopause experience was actually POSITIVE.
The symptoms were non-existent. How? That's a whole other energy level we're talking about, when it comes to the thoughts around our being.
Correne:
That's fascinating to me. We could get into things like the placebo effect and whether you believe in your treatment modalities, and whether you're joyful in your life, and therefore do you experience pathology different than someone who has the same condition as you. Which one is more miserable?It goes into so many different thought patterns, and ponderances, I think. Such a good topic.
Tanya:
It's such a good topic. I need to zoom right back in more of a basic thing, although this is where I would love to take the conversation.
When you are bringing in your foundation of the gut, the nervous system, herbal medicine, and your wisdom to your clients, what types of things are in your herbal toolkit?
Nervines for the stress response and nervous system:
Correne:
There is a category of herbs called nervines. I want you to think of nervines as this umbrella term, because within that we have our general relaxants and “tranquilizers”, and these are not pharmaceutical relaxants and tranquilizers.Herbs work on a different level.
Relaxants physically relax the body, tranquilizers help to soothe the mind. This is also where we have our antidepressants and our anxiolytics, herbs that help with anxiety. These all fall under the category of nervines, and this is the plant family you want to be looking at.Then of course you have some that are specific. Lots of people know St. John's Wort, for things like depression.
You have lavender, chamomile, your mint family, bee balms, and so many other amazing herbs. The category of “nervine” is actually quite large and there's a lot of different plants.Many crossover. An example of a crossover herb is peppermint.
It's an amazing digestive plant, but it's also an antidepressant.
It helps with anxiety.
It's a general nervine, and most of my digestive plants are nervines.The gut and the brain really go hand in hand because what's one of the first things that ends up not working right in the system when we're stressed out?
Our digestion.
That's where a lot of people feel it.
Long-term wise, you might start getting things like insomnia, and some body aches because our body's not feeling rested. Those butterflies in the stomach also come from somewhere!
As a herbalist, I try my best to match the right plant to the right person. I look at things like your Constitution.
If I have someone who is experiencing a lot of hot flashes, tends to get very flushed, and when they're anxious they tend to run hot, I'm probably moving towards cooling herbs, like in the Mint family, because they will support their constitution.The last thing I will do is give them something like bee bomb, or menarda, that has heat and pungency to it, to someone who's already feeling “hot under the collar”.
That's what's so nice about having such a huge category, like nervines, is I can really find the right plant for the right person.I look at things like:
Are they sleeping a lot or are they not sleeping at all?
There are some people that are so anxious they can't sleep at all, so maybe valerian, herbs that are more sedative and relaxing are better for that person.
Tanya:
For that woman who's listening, who may be feeling moody, can we touch on that? I hate to use the word moody, but I'm trying to use safe language for the woman who might be diagnosed with depression.
It might be attractive to want to go off your antidepressants and look to something like St. John's Wart or combine them, but I know from my dental hygiene background that combining certain herbs and medications like SSRIs, Is really not great.
Could you just give us a little info on that please?
Correne:
I do wanna preface that I am a clinical practitioner, so I am trained to help people work with herbs and medications. In terms of layman's terms, or someone who is just popping into the health food store, my general rule of thumb is you want to avoid botanicals that do the same thing for a medication you're already on.
I always like to use blood pressure medication as an example. Some people want get off their hypertensive meds, and start taking herbs that are also hypertensive. Suddenly their blood pressure plummets and they start to getting dizzy when you stand up. Maybe even to the point of passing out.We have to be really mindful. I like to remind people that PLANTS ARE MEDICINE. They were one of the first medicines that humans ever used. We have to treat them that way. Now, it doesn't mean it can't be navigated, but if you're on medication, it really does help to work with a practitioner who understands that pharmacological kind of interaction.
If you're not on medication, there are a lot of very safe botanicals, very safe with very little side effects that you can do some research on and explore.
Tanya:
This is very interesting because I don't know if I knew that there was a separate part of herbal medicine where you would be trained clinically to work with medication.
The term community herbalist, clinical herbalist, can you clarify?
Correne:
Herbal medicine, especially within Canada and Ontario specifically, is interesting because it's currently not a regulated field. One of the reasons why it isn't, is because it's a very difficult field to regulate because of cultural differences in herbal medicine.For example, if I was given an exam on Ayurvedic herbs from India, I'd fail miserably. If I was given information from a Traditional Chinese medicine paradigm, I wouldn't understand how to apply that because I've been trained in Western herbs.
It's an area that doesn't have regulation. There is a voluntary group called the Ontario Herbalist Association, that you can join and become a registered herbalist.They have educational requirements and one of them being basic anatomy and physiology, understanding chemistry, biology, and pharmacology. If you want to work with clients that are on medications, you really do have to understand that.
Some herbalist will distinguish themselves by saying they're either a registered or a clinical practitioner. That usually indicates a level of education that allows them to navigate. The term herbalist, as I say, isn't registered. Someone who makes lip glosses, bath bombs and teas can also call themselves a herbalist.
I think that's where doing just a little bit of legwork and contacting your practitioner, or reading a little bit about them in their background to see if they have experience working with medications. It's not impossible to learn, but you do have to have some background in it.
I have very few clients that aren't on at least one medication.
Tanya:
I think that's a common thing today, especially as we're moving up in age and people move up the ladder of having ailments. It's still pertinent to go seek medical attention for whatever it is that you're experiencing.
If you want to also have an integrative approach, you need to know that the person that you're dealing with is trained.
Correne:
In a perfect situation, you have a physician that's thrilled to work with you too, and is willing to tinker medication levels. Especially when it's things like thyroid meds, and those kinds of things where you do have multiple levels, depending on thyroid activity.
If I have a physician that wants to work with me, I'm like, YES!
It's a wonderful situation, because then I know my client's being monitored by someone who can requisition blood work, and do all of those types of things that are out of my scope of practice.
Tanya:
How often does that actually happen for you?
Correne:
Not as often as I would like, but I do find that it is shifting and changing. Even in just the last 10 years, I'm finding that I have more physicians that are at least going, “So your pulmonary functions actually increased? I didn't know how that could happen? What are you doing differently?”
They start asking their patients what they're doing differently and the patient says they are seeing this herbalist. Then it's starting to shift the way that they think about botanicals, and medications and those kinds of things.I have a lot of hope that in the next 10 or 20 years that there will be this more integrative approach, where our naturopaths and our acupuncturists and our herbalist are working with our medical practitioners and creating a really beautiful, holistic, well-rounded approach to health.
Tanya:
Yes. I love that you say that. I think that sometimes in the wellness community, we poo poo doctors a fair bit. They only can do so much and they only can learn so much. When you think of the knowledge out there when it comes to health and wellness and different philosophies, it's mind boggling.
Correne:
I absolutely agree. I often get a really interesting example to this, and while it doesn't have to do with stress, it kind of drives your point home.The number of midwives that will say, “you shouldn't take any herbs”, it's not in their scope of practice. They don't have time to learn about herbal medicine. When they're going to midwifery school, they maybe get 10 or 15 minutes. It is actually very appropriate for them to say, don't use these botanicals, because I'm not trained in them.
Wouldn't it be a better experience for everybody's clients and patients if we could have an integrative team where we would say, “You would like to use botanicals during pregnancy to help strengthen your uterus? Awesome. I've got this herbalist on my team.
I really do feel like we moving there. That's my hope. I'm putting that energy and intention out there, that that's the way that we're going with medicine!I think we are just gonna have healthier, more well-rounded humans if that's the way that we moved towards.
Tanya:
And isn't that the goal really? That's the goal.
For the woman listening, who is curious about trying something simple, do you have a top two or three simple herbs, for someone who's interested in getting into herbal remedies for midlife and their nervous system?
Correne:
It's so hard because I work with over, over 120 different herbs in clinic.Motherwort. I would want be friends with motherwort. It's earned its name and while it does tend to be used more during childbearing years, I have personally found it to be a great herb to use during the transition.
I find a lot of my clients do really well with things like Ashwaganda and the aforementioned valerian tends to be one that's very helpful because a lot of my clients suffer from sleeplessness.
Any herbs that help to relax, and if they're not against the flavor and taste: Lavender. I absolutely love working with Lavender, because it's enough of a relaxant that I find it really helps to nourish and soothe that nervous system.
I'm gonna mention one more that's really safe and most people are probably quite familiar with, which is oat straw.
I really like working with oat straw as well, because that's one that people can have as a tea. You have that nourishing ritual, I think we talked about that in a previous episode. There's something therapeutic about a cup of tea as well, that really helps to kind of soothe and calm the nervous system.
Tanya:
What we're talking about too is calming that conscious part of your nervous system. The thoughts and the runaway feelings of the body, of overwhelm and too much going.
Correne:
I would be remiss if I didn't mention flower essences for that as well. Flower essences are more of an energetic remedy. If any of your listeners are familiar with Rescue Remedy, I think that's the one that most people know.
Flower essences can really help support emotional states. What's beautiful about them is: they're energetic and very much homeopathic in nature. They don't interact with medications and they won't interact with hormone replacement therapy, or anything like that.We can find a way to use supportive botanicals to help. Whatever emotions, rage would be a great example, poor self body image, because the body shifts and changes during menopause. We can use flower essences as well to help support that.
Tanya:
Are you able to dig into that just a little bit deeper? We've had discussions, you know aligned with Balanced Health (CBH Energetics). I'm very much in love with their emotional Awareness Scan. They have some remedies that are very specific to the U.S. and they use flower essences too.
I've been very curious about your own take on the energy of the flower essences and how they shift the energy in us, as humans.
And can you blend your own? I know I asked you three things in there!
Correne:
You can definitely blend your own. Just a quick (I'm not usually a huge proponent of the Google search) But, google flower essences for supporting menopause. When people think about flower essences, I want them to think very along the same lines as homeopathics.The more specific you are about what you're feeling, the more accurate pairing and matching you're going to get for flower essences.
If you are bringing up feelings of trauma for some reason, deep-seated, traumatic events and those kinds of things, you would want something like Star of Bethlehem.
If there's feelings of disliking your body, feeling unclean or, in essence in some way of toxic, or not at home in the body anymore, a flower essence like crab apple would be really excellent for you.
So it's one of those things that the more closely you can match what you're feeling, truly feeling, is what you're ready to shift and move.
That's a big component too with flower essences, is that humans are kind of like onions, aren't we? We have these beautiful layers and we're not gonna treat the inner part that we're not ready to look at yet before we deal with the outer parts.
The emotions that you are ready to say: yes, this is how I feel, this is what I'm moving through and I don't wanna move through it anymore, those are the ones you wanna try to find, you know, most closely match.
There's so many flower essences out there. Most herbalist, like me, have our own line of them plus Bach. Dr. Bach has an entire line of 38 flower essences. There’s a lot out there.
You just have to find the right one for you and what you're moving through.
Tanya
So as a clinician, Correne, if you have a person who's coming to you for their emotional support, their physical support, and they're not quite able to be honest with themselves with what they're feeling, how do you know you're actually matching that flower essence to that person?
Correne:
A traditional flower essence consultation, I let my clients speak. Let the words flow. As I'm writing down, verbatim, I want to kind of match their words, as I'm writing down what they're saying, I start to pull out flower essences.
I'll go back through and I'll say, “You know, Tanya, I heard you mention this particular feeling. How would you rate that in your life? Do you feel that's a really big part of what you're going through, or not so much?”Consciously, or subconsciously my client is going to say, “That's a 10 out of 10. That is a huge issue for me. I don't like it. I'm not happy with this. Or they will say it’s a small issue.
That's how I start to pair down. And also the frequency at which someone is repeating something over and over again. If that point is continually being made and driven home, chances are that's a flower essence that they need.
I usually put it in the hands of my client, in a way of getting them to rate things, and then they tell me. Or a client will research and askme to make something, and I will do that too.
I have kind of two different ways that I operate depending on what my client needs.
Tanya:
Well, I love that. That's client-centered care. You're meeting your client where they're at, and addressing things where they're ready.Correne:
I like the client driven model too.I'm never going to make a formula when a client says, I just Googled all these, if they don't have a herbal background.I do want them to feel like these are the issues that are most prevalent in their life.
Most of them will come to me and say, what do you think? Then we can work together to help formulate, especially with flower essences.
I see two types of people.One, they got no clue, not in a bad way, but in an, “I'm overwhelmed and I don't know what I need to focus on first.” That's where that traditional consultation can really help us suss things out.
Or I'll have a client that knows exactly what they want. I like working with both, I like to shift my treatment protocol based on client centred care.
Tanya:
Do you think that women in general resistant to the idea of being stress resilient? When I was in a victim phase in my life, there was a lot of inner language saying: “I can't do that. I can't handle that. That can't be fixed. I can't address that.”
There are parts of us as women that don't want to acknowledge that we might be on an absolute stress rollercoaster and we just muscle through.
We have all these ailments crop up, but we're, how many women have you heard say, I'm fine. I'm fine. It's fine.
Correne:
I think it sort of circles back to what we talked about right in the beginning, this idea of being a product of our environment. Is that really a good thing? I know it was a wonderful shift, movement and change for women to be able to have careers and children and all of these things, but have we moved to a place where we are now demanding of our women to be everything for everyone, all the time, to the sacrifice of being anything for themselves.It's an interesting philosophical question. I can speak from my own personal experience of how of being an entrepreneur, of being a home steader, of being a homeschooling mother, as well as a wife and someone who takes care of the home.
Those are a lot of different roles and it's become accepted that a particular amount of stresses is just going to come along with that.
You're gonna have to be okay with it, honey.
I don't know if that's really good for us. What are the long-term ramifications on the nervous system?
Tanya:
Any woman listening, if you are an entrepreneur, you created your own job. I'm putting air quotes around the job because anybody who also takes care of a home, whether or not they're a homesteader, hello, that's a freaking job.
Having relationships are, I hate to say it, like a job because you're dealing with other people's emotions as well.
I didn't mean that in a negative tone, but we're really bringing out all of the the things that pile on women. I think genetically we are in a nurturing role. Women are the nurturers. The world is not gonna turn without women on the earth because we are the nurturers.
When you start to add all of these other things, what we're doing is almost impacting humanity and which is really broad to say. Am I off base here?
Correne:
I don't think you are. I think what has happened is, we sort of touched on this before, this idea of stress being a badge of honor and it's become something that we all just have now.When did we get to a point where working 80 hours a week was considered okay? When did we get to a point when we rushed home, put whatever food we could find in the house in our faces, so we could get back in the car and get the kids to soccer and to baseball.
Then there's piano lessons on top of all of that, and then hockey tournaments on the weekends and people are working at night because now we live in a global world where I can have a business meeting with someone in China at three o'clock in the morning!
Many of these things have opened up really beautiful doors of being able to experience other cultures and interact and, have more for our children. There does come a point where the stress load on the human hasn't adjusted to what is now the expectation for people.
Then you throw in things like social media and phone addiction, and we have a whole new world, that people are really trying to balance. I don't know if it's only just women. Men are working longer hours too. The role is shifting. I know lots of fathers that are the ones getting the food on the table as well.
In general, the world's become a stressful place. There doesn't seem to be a lot of solutions for it. We're just supposed to get used to it.
Tanya:
I like that you brought that up. I didn't mean to just push men aside. I think that's another conversation that doesn't get pulled out enough because men do go through their own andropause.
Men might also be genetically wired to hide this stuff because they're the warriors. They are the hunters, they are the gatherers, they're the protectors. If your vulnerability comes out, you're not even in that role.
Correne:
Absolutely. There'd be a coup, you'd be usurped as theleader of the tribe the minute you showed weakness!Is that the case for women and the amount of stress that they're taking on? How many people do I hear that comment, oh, I'm fine. They’re not fine. We've become used to this. Just because we've become used to not being fine, doesn't mean it's healthy. There's a big shift and a big difference that just because everybody is under stress and everybody's going through this, it doesn't make it healthy and it doesn't make it normal.
It just makes it accepted. And in that acceptance, what are we losing? Are we losing a beautiful opportunity to say, hold on, is this really what we intended?
Is this really what we intended when we wanted both parents in the workforce?
Is this really what we intended when we had to have our children so socialized that they've gotta be in multiple activities?
Is this, is this what we intended as humans?
I hope that maybe as a society, we're at a resting point to go and reflect and say, is this what we want for future generations? Our kids learn from us, and so this is a great opportunity to ask, is there a shift in the way that we want to bring work, abundance, family, and community into our lives?
Tanya:
I hope so. I think this is a great way to wrap up because we're bringing this back to when you're talking about this shift. I don't know about you, but over the last two years I've had many conversations (I think this is how we started chatting) about our current beliefs of what we want for our lives.
After the last two years, they've been stripped away. I want something completely different.
What I thought was important, is not anymore, and it's showing up in the things I do, the people I see, all of that.
We talked about plant medicine, what herbs can do for us., and when we talk about stress, there's financial, there's workplace stress, environmental stress, but when we launch into speaking about flower remedies and the energy of plants, this is a time that we can't negate the deep emotions that are hidden within us, that are causing us to react to the outer world.
I know people are afraid to dig into that. I know I have been. But it is to use an overused cliche, life-changing.
Correne:
It absolutely is. I think that for a lot of people, for, you know, for good or for bad, these last two years has forced us to look at our lives, through a different set of lenses and as you say, reevaluate.How many people started gardening?
How many people started figuring out how to make sourdough bread? There were all these things that were trending, that were things that our parents, our grandparents would've just done, and there is a rediscovering.Whether we like it or not, we can put as much tech into this world as we'd like, but we are still mammals that are deeply interconnected with this planet. There are rhythms that we follow innately, like shifting into menopause. Instead of trying to be the person we were, prior to menopause, accept and embrace that a new person is being born.
That rhythm is moving. It's changing. I keep bringing a lot of hope back into this particular episode, but I have a lot of hope that people will reconnect with nature and recognize what they actually really want from life.
Tanya
What you're talking about is giving me a lot of chills.
When you talked about our grandparents, that's my mother. My mother was an earth lady. She lived in her garden. Her house was a mess, because all she ever wanted was to be outside. She had a remedy for everything.
The trending of sourdough, and all the other trends!
I had made an episode before, about bone broth. The bone broth craze, to me, that was dinner. That was dinner. It was medicine. When I was sick, you got the soup. I hated every bit of it, but now I've come full circle to embrace that part that was instilled in me by my mother and my grandmother, and it feels luxurious.
The simpleness of it is luxurious.
Correne:
We've lost the ability to have the simple, because life got so darn complicated. Everything became a convenience food, and a convenience factor that where is the simple joy in kneading a loaf of bread? Or going out to your garden to get an herb, because maybe you've got a chest cold, and you remember that grandma used to make you honey and thyme tea.Where's that?
I do believe that we can have fulfilling careers and lives and do all the beautiful things. I think we just have to find a way to balance it all again.
Who said we needed to work all these hours?
Why can't we have fulfilling careers to support our families, our lives, our hearts, and our souls, and maybe only work four hours a day?That sounds pretty darn cool, and that leaves time for sourdough!