by Dr. Talia Marcheggiani, ND | Sep 12, 2020 | Anxiety, Depression, Diagnostics, Docere, Emotional Wellness, Herbalism, Mental Health, Psychology
My best friend is a teacher.
She told me that lately, all the children she works with have a label. “Meredith can’t attend your online class because it’s her first day of school and she can’t handle more than two things because of her anxiety”, one mother wrote in an email as she backed out of a private class my friend had created by special request.
“Everyone is nervous on their first day of school”, my friend remarked, as she recounted the story to me.
“I need everyone’s microphones muted”, a 10-year old student exclaimed during an online class, “I have sensory overwhelm and attention deficit disorder and can’t handle background noise”.
My friend spent three years teaching in a rural school at the edge of a volcano in Guatemala. She worked in a private girls’ school in Colombia. And she taught grade 1 at an outdoor jungle school on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. “I’m not used to these North American kids”, she reflected.
“I wonder what diagnoses we’d have gotten in university?” I mused. I remember our Revolutionary Wall–pictures of Noam Chomsky, Victor Jara and Ghandi plastered on the wall that welcomed us into the entrance of our dirty apartment.
That year we’d worn our sweaters backward because it “felt right” to rest your chin on your hood, stopped washing our hair to “let the oils moisturize our roots”, and spent a week on a 1000-piece puzzle instead of going to class.
It was our last year. We were done.
My other friend was diagnosed with cancer, which would soon turn terminal. I was suffering from some sort of unacknowledged eating disorder–there were no body positivity Instagram feeds at the time. I could have used some.
It was a painful year.
For those and many more reasons, I’m sure, I was depressed.
I remember at some point during that year heading to a walk-in clinic because I was gaining weight, depressed, exhausted and completely shutdown. The walk-in clinic doctor told me “it wasn’t my thyroid” and to “eat less” so that I would lose weight.
I never got a diagnosis.
I was never offered an antidepressant.
I remember feeling hopeless. Desperate for an answer, but most of all, a solution.
If she had offered me an antidepressant, I’m certain I would have taken it. In fact, I did end up taking one about a year later for a brief period when living in Colombia (before the side effects made me stop).
I escaped a label.
My journey forked in the road and I took the one less traveled that led me towards naturopathic medicine.
Before that, though, I saw my own natural doctor who listened to me and put together the puzzle of my symptoms (who knew that skipping class to put together our 1000-piece puzzle would figuratively prepare me for my future career).
Rather than diagnose me, he listened to me and told me the underlying causes of my symptoms–not just what they were called.
And then, because we knew the cause, we also had a solution. And I soon felt better.
Of course, when I started naturopathic school, another 4-year full-time program with full days of classes (sometimes 10+ hours a day) and millions of exams and assignments, the underlying hormonal conditions that drove the original depressive episode I experienced at the end of my undergrad resurfaced.
I ended up seeing a fourth year naturopathic intern and she put me on something called adaptogens.
Adaptogens are class of plants. They support our Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) response, which orchestrates the stress response. They are studied in rats who, when given adaptogens can perform longer on swim tests, producing less cortisol (our stress hormone) in the process.
These rats can tread water longer, without as much stress hormone and therefore, with less damage from stress. Depression is one of those side effects from the damage of psychosocial stress.
Stress leads to shutdown, inflammation and further hormonal imbalance, causing a wide variety of symptoms that seem disconnected but arise from the same source.
After all, isn’t depression, anxiety and burnout just us trying to keep our heads above water?
Oh man, did I ever wish I’d known about adaptogens in undergrad!
If I could have, I would have shouted about them from the rooftops, thrown bottles of them out of a plane, put them in the water supply.
I can’t do those things, but I can put many of my patients on them. Many of my patients suffering from depression and anxiety, caused by problems with their HPA axises, end up taking adaptogens.
I prescribe them when those I work with experience things like low mood, fatigue, sleep issues, inflammation (pain and swelling), hormone imbalances, particularly PMS or peri-menopause, sugar and salt cravings, delayed muscle recovery, tension, panic attacks and anxiety, dizziness and weakness, low motivation, and other oh-so-common symptoms often labelled as Major Depressive Disorder or other psychiatric illnesses.
Did I ever wish I’d known about adaptogens when I was in undergrad.
Instead I remember taking a crappy B vitamin complex from the local drugstore that a roommate’s mom gave me because I was on the birth control pill and “you need B vitamins on the birth control pill”. (Which is true: you need more vitamin B6 on the pill, but probably not one from a local drugstore multivitamin).
It didn’t do much.
I really really wish someone, a fairy godmother, the walk-in clinic physician, a man on the street, an article somewhere on the internet (like this one), had told me, “You have these symptoms because you are suffering from HPA axis dysfunction, as a result of significant psychosocial stress. This makes you suffer from the symptoms you’re dealing with, depression not being a condition of its own, but just another symptom of this condition.
“Adaptogenic herbs can help you get through this, as well as some important foundational lifestyle pieces that someone like a naturopathic doctor can help you with.
“There is a reason for your suffering. A context behind it. There is a cause we can identify.
“And, most importantly, there is a solution.”
But, I didn’t have anyone to tell me that.
I really wish someone had told me about adaptogens, but I haven’t ever wished that someone had diagnosed me with depression.
Now, a diagnosis can be extremely validating for some.
It can be lifesaving.
Medical intervention can also be really helpful for some people. But, like adaptogens (I should add), medications aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution.
We don’t know what causes depression and anxiety (likely many factors, HPA axis dysfunction being one of them), but we do know it’s not caused by a chemical brain imbalance.
And medications are designed to correct the brain imbalance that doesn’t exist, which is why they don’t work in everyone.
However, they do do something in some. Because, even though they don’t really solve the problem they’re supposed to (at least not in that simplistic way), they might be doing something else, which solves a problem in a few people.
The problem is, antidepressants make some people feel worse. In others they do nothing. And, in some of the people they do help, they don’t do enough. We’re still suffering.
And labels, while they can be helpful and lifesaving in some cases, can do damage in others.
Take my friend’s student with anxiety. What if her story of “I get stressed out on the first day of school because I have anxiety” turned into:
“I get stressed out on the first day of school because a lot of people do. It’s normal to feel nervous and anxious on the first day of school and want everything to go right.”
Now, of course, I don’t want to insinuate that anxiety isn’t a real thing. Of course it is!
There are many of us who suffer from anxiety disorders–a higher amount of anxiety than is common. Rather than first-day jitters, they might experience severe panic and complete dysfunction that make life miserable.
However, in the first example, the power is out of this student’s hands. It lies in her identity. In her dysfunction.
In her label.
In the second, it becomes a shared human experience, which she might be able to externalize and work with. Because it’s a common experience, she might find support, kinship, and understanding in those who experience the same.
Of course, I don’t know her case specifically. Maybe her diagnosis has helped her. Maybe her anxiety is well labelled and managed. Maybe she doesn’t need help. Maybe she is doing just fine.
All I know is, I wonder what I would have been diagnosed with, with my sweater on backwards, my hair full of grease, my body heavy like lead, a million puzzle pieces spewed all over the kitchen table in my dirty apartment with the revolutionary wall.
I have no idea what my diagnosis would have been, but I’m personally glad I never got one.
Instead, I wish I had had the permission to go through what I was going through.
I wish I’d had context for my suffering.
I wish I’d been given hope that things would get better.
I wish someone had empowered me through understanding the underlying causes of my symptoms and, of course,
I wish someone had told me about adaptogens.
by Dr. Talia Marcheggiani, ND | Aug 25, 2015 | Botanical Medicine, Cold and Flu Remedies, Detoxification, Digestion, DIY, Fertility, Herbalism, Hormones, Medicine, Mental Health, Mind Body Medicine, Recipes, Skin health, Women's health
As a student of naturopathic medicine, I didn’t quite get herbs. They were natural, sure, but why would I prescribe them in lieu of homeopathy, dietary changes or nutritional supplements? I didn’t get it.
I liked herbs; I understood the idea of synergy—the fact that the effect of the entire plant is greater than the sum of its parts. Also, I knew that plants often have superior effects to some drugs in that they often contain active ingredients that balance the side effects otherwise caused by most pharmaceutical medications. For example, anti-inflammatory herbs like turmeric and licorice root also support and strengthen the immune system, rather than suppress it, as most anti-inflammatory drugs tend to do. For most drugs that lower inflammation, a common side effect is severe immune deficiency. This is not the case for herbs that lower inflammation, which actually benefit the immune system. So, I knew herbs were cool.
I also liked the idea that each tincture was individually created for the totality of symptoms a patient presented with. Creating a specific medicine for each individual seemed to fit with the idea of singularity in medicine, which I resonated with. However, for a long time I didn’t get herbs. And I’ve often been reluctant to prescribe herbs in my practice.
First of all, I don’t have my own dispensary so sending patients off to buy tinctures created a kind of disconnection from the source of my prescriptions. Secondly, as many of you who have tried it can contest, tinctures (or herbs extracted in alcohol) taste terrible and make compliance hard, even for myself. Thirdly, tinctures are quite expensive. Each 50 ml of tincture can cost upwards of $5 making a month’s supply of herbs quite costly. This is funny because many of the herbs that are so costly to buy grow like weeds in southern Ontario (dandelion, for example, is often considered a weed) and tinctures aren’t that difficult to make. Fourthly, I didn’t like to prescribe tinctures because, as I understood it, people would only feel better while actively taking the herb. In my mind, the herb worked like a drug in that once you stopped taking it, the positive effects would diminish. This differed from my understanding of homeopathy, which stimulates the body to heal itself, correcting nutritional deficiencies or looking for and treating the root cause of symptoms. I doubted whether the way we were taught to prescribe herbs did in fact treat the root cause. This is important because the guiding principles of naturopathic medicine dictate that we aim to do this whenever possible.
I had no doubt, however, that herbs were effective. Taking a tincture seemed to be far more effective for me and the patients I treat than taking supplements. Herbs are nutritional—they are a food and a medicine and therefore contain a myriad of health benefits beyond treating what they are prescribed to treat.
It wasn’t until I read author and herbalist Matthew Wood’s works on herbalism that I began to internalize the idea that herbs do in fact stimulate the body to heal itself. Plants contain an inherent wisdom, according to Wood and his studies in western and Native American herbalism. Plants eradicate disease by stimulating the healing powers of the body and strengthening the body’s capacity to heal itself from disease. The body is constantly trying to heal itself from ailments and, when these processes become blocked for one reason or another, disease symptoms begin to manifest. Herbs can strengthen the body’s healing processes, when prescribed in a certain way, and large doses for long courses of time are not necessary. Further, once the disease is eradicated, the herbs can be stopped. When prescribed as a healing catalyst, disease doesn’t return once the herbal prescriptions have done their work.
Wood writes, “It should be understood that herbs can be used either way: to stimulate the self-healing powers of the organism to return to health, or to artificially manipulate the organism to fit an artificial goal.” He uses the examples of goldenseal, which at high doses can kill bacteria or viruses that have invaded the body and in smaller doses can increase the mucosa and digestive systems of the body to rid itself of the invaders and, in turn, strengthen the body against future invasions.
In regards to the cost of herbal tinctures, there are relatively simple ways to get the effects of herbs by making your own tinctures.
Read on to support liver detox, hormonal health and cardiovascular health by creating your own rosemary tincture using dried rosemary, one of my favourite herbs of the moment, and a bottle of white wine:
Rosmarinus officinalis, is the latin name for rosemary, a member of the mint family. While better known for its ability to perfectly complement roast chicken, it has a number of health benefits. Rosemary’s energetic actions are stimulating and warming, according to Matthew Wood. It clears up phlegm and dampness, stagnation and sluggishness in the tissues.
Rosemary has the ability to boost metabolism and increase the absorption of sugars and fats, which make it an appropriate nutritional supplement for people with diabetes. It can help drive glucose into the cells, diminishing the need for the body to release large amounts of insulin, re-sensitizing cells to insulin and lowering blood sugar. It can help nourish the entire body and has a special affinity for the heart, lungs, spleen, liver and kidneys.
Rosemary is currently often used to detoxify toxic, exogenous estrogens from the body while promoting the conversion of health-promoting estrogens in the liver. It is a powerful stimulator of liver detoxification. It therefore serves as a cheap and useful remedy for seasonal, full-body detoxes or coming off oral contraceptive or synthetic hormones, such as the fertility drugs given before IVF treatments. It is also useful for promoting circulation and lymphatic drainage, moving sluggishness and excess weight and creating warmth and vitality in the body’s circulatory systems.
Herbalists use rosemary tincture or oil applied topically to the head and neck to treat migraines from tense shoulder and neck muscles. Its scent is aromatic and stimulating and can improve memory and cognition. It is an effective remedy for mental-emotional depression when taken internally, especially where patients feel damp, sluggish, lack motivation and experience feelings of mental dullness.
As a digestive aid, rosemary can help relieve abdominal bloating and flatulence. It also helps stimulates appetite. It helps burn up phlegm in the stomach and can aid in weight loss.
In addition, rosemary contains antimicrobial properties, meaning it can be used to kill bacterial and viral infections, especially when taken at the beginning of a cold.
It is a powerful heart tonic, especially where there is edema and circulatory stagnation, such as early signs of congestive heart failure. It also can help with arthritic pains and joint stiffness when applied topically to joints or taken internally as an anti-inflammatory.
In Matthew Wood’s book, The Practice of Traditional Western Herbalism, he recommends creating a rosemary infusion (infuse fresh leaves and flowers in a pot of boiled water and keep covered) or a tincture using white wine as the alcohol base.
A few days into taking this tincture (mixed with a little water to dilute the strong taste), I’ve noticed my skin clear, my digestion improve, my stomach flatten (I no longer have any bloating and I’ve been experimenting with eating wheat again for the first time in years), and my energy increase. My symptoms of PMS this month subsided before my period even came. I had a canker sore in my mouth that immediately went away once I started taking rosemary wine. I’ll certainly be adding this cheap and effective DIY remedy to my self-care and general health-promoting regime.
Here’s how to make your own.
Rosemary Wine:
Ingredients:
1 handful (approximately 250 ml) of rosemary leaves, dried, cut up as small as possible (you can use a packet of rosemary spice from the grocery store). Extra points for organic.
1 bottle (750 ml) of white wine (Wood recommends a good quality wine, I used a cheap homemade one I was given as a gift).
1 empty glass bottle/jar
Directions:
Put rosemary in the empty glass jar. Pour entire 750 ml bottle of white wine over rosemary and let stand in a cool, dry place for 2-3 days. Then strain out the herbs and store the liquid tincture in a cool, dry, dark place, like a cupboard.
Talk to your naturopathic doctor about appropriate dosing, though most botanical prescriptions involve 1 tsp of tincture 2-3 times a day away from food. This will vary according to your health challenges and health goals, among many other factors.*
Reference:
Wood, Matthew. 2004. The Practice of Traditional Western Herbalism: Basic doctrine, energetics and classification. Berkeley, California: North Atlantic Books.
*This article is not to be confused with medical advice from a licensed naturopathic doctor. If you suffer from one of the above-mentioned conditions and believe rosemary might help, please book an appointment to receive an appropriate assessment.
