Post Election Anxiety and Fear

If you are feeling anxiety, stress, panic and fear after last night’s results let’s talk about some herbs that may be able to calm your system down.

Whether you are a democrat and are nervous, stressed and pissed off at the outcome or you are a republican and are quietly questioning whether Trump can make the changes he spoke of, I think we are all in a state of fear.   How the fear affects you may be different than others. 

I began to feel my entire chest tighten as soon as I got to the voting polls yesterday and it continued to tighten further all day.  I was busy teaching all day long which didn’t allow me to think this feeling through logically.  This morning I woke up and wondered why I didn’t go straight to my herb cabinet yesterday.  The message I received as I thought it through was that I needed to have that feeling straight up, but today I’m ready to open my chest, relax, make some big shifts and I wanted to share some of the ideas I had this morning with you.

This summer I made a lot of flower essences and have the bottles in a box.  I took the box out a little while ago, didn’t look at any of the labels on them and energetically tested them all to see which ones would be good for me.  3 of them gave me very high positives. I grabbed the 3 of them without looking at the labels, brought them to my desk and what do you know – they were lavender, and 2 different rose varieties. 

I put one drop of each in my water and literally in about 5 minutes I could feel my chest relax.  Pretty cool.  So, what can you do if you don’t have homemade flower essences?   You can try the following Bach flower essences

How about some Rescue Remedy.  It’s a calming essence. You can find it at any health food store.  Just a drop or two will help calm your body down. Want more specific, look right below

Aspen is for anxiety about the future

Mimulus is for anxiety about the past

Elm is for overwhelming anxiety

Rock Rose is for anxiety that escalates into panic

I also put together 2 tincture bottles of herbs to take over the next week to re-balance my nervous system which is being knocked out by the fear and anxiety I’m feeling and I’m guessing you are also feeling.

The first I made was just motherwort.  You can purchase motherwort tincture either at a health food store or get it at amazon  Motherwort  is an amazing calming herb.  It calms and soothes panic and anxiety.  I’ve seen it take someone out of a panic attack in moments.  Its’s not an herb that will make you sleepy and its not an herb that you need to take for weeks to get its effect. Motherwort needs to be taken in a tincture form, capsules are not very effective and the tea is so bitter that I don’t know anyone that would drink it, but just 5-20 drops of motherwort tincture will help calm you down quickly.

The second formula mix I put together for myself consisted of hawthorn berries, blue vervain and linden.  Let me tell you a little bit about these and why I chose them, afterwards I’ll list a few other herbs that you can try for yourself.  Realize that with herbs there is not just one size fits all.  We all need to figure out which herbs work best for ourselves.

Hawthorn berries – hawthorn berries make your tea sweet, they are a wonderful hawthorn berrycardiovascular tonic for people whether they have high or low blood pressure, but why I chose to add hawthorn berry to my formula today is that it is a wonderful remedy for a jittery heart.  A heart that feels very tight and needs to slowly open to what is occurring in our country.  I use hawthorn berries very often.  I love them added to my overnight nettles infusion as they add some sweetness and thorniness to my nettles.  If you’ve ever seen a hawthorn tree it has what I call big ass thorns.  I remember one year I was harvesting berries with a friend and we were chatting away about something and I had a huge thorn puncture me right between my thumb and pointer finger.  I stopped immediately and got the message that if I was picking the hawthorn berries I needed to pay attention to the hawthorn tree and not chat away.  So the message today seems to be that we need to focus on what is and not on what we thought could happen and let hawthorn bring both a little sweetness and thorniness our way.

Blue vervain -  I love blue vervain as a nervine (an herb that calms down my nervous system without working as a sedative)  It tends to work more for people who carry their stress in their neck and shoulders vs their gut (for those who carry it in their gut chamomile or catnip is a good choice). 

Linden – Linden is not only a relaxing herb, but it helps to release grief.  If you are feeling grief due to the election, a great solution is either some linden tincture or a cup of linden tea.  Linden is also called Tilia so you may be able to find it in a health food store or I recently found it in my grocery store that caters to a big Hispanic population.There are so many herb for you to choose, I may make some oatstraw infusion later.  You can choose rose, holy basil and so many more.  But for now just choose something to help you re-balance your stress and nervous system so you can stop being stuck in something that just is.

Take  a walk, go take a yoga class or get a massage.  Allow the stressful feelings to leave your body.

I wish you a stress free month. I wish you a month filled with thankfulness for yourself, your family, the country and the universe.