Finding Balance Through Herbal Formulation

Creating an herbal formula can seem tricky at first.  At first, we read about individual herbs and want to add as many powerful allies to our formula as possible.  Each herb seems to have some healing property that we need.  How do we choose?

When we take a step back and check in with ourselves, we can identify what state our tissues are in and then find herbs to re-establish balance.  Are we hot or cold?  Are we dry or full of water?  Are our tissues too loose or too tight?  Do we feel like we have too much energy or not enough?  Where in our body are we experiencing symptoms?  Is our environment hot and dry, cold and wet, or another combination? Getting a picture of where we are helps us figure out what we need.   Then we can turn to the plants and their specific characters to create our formulas.  Ready to get started?  

Determining the state of our tissues

Our first step in making any herbal formulation is to figure out what is needed. When formulating always start with yourself - do not formulate for others until you have training in clinical herbalism and know how to spot conditions that need medical help first - you can harm people this way! It’s also easier to determine tissue state on our own selves as we can sense changes in our tissues and are not relying on someone else’s interpretation of their tissue state.

We want to check in with the area where we are experiencing symptoms that we want to treat as well as our overall state. Sometimes these are the same and sometimes they are different.

Before you begin, be sure to be in a relaxed and grounded state as much as possible. Closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths can help with this. Next, we will check in with ourselves to get a feel for each different type of tissue state:

Am I more hot, cold, or neutral?

Feel into the center of your body, does it feel hot or cold? Feel into your hands and feet, are they hot or cold? Think about how it feels to urinate and defecate, does this feel hot or cold (is there a burning sensation?) Think about how you feel in a cold room or with a cool breeze is this pleasant or unpleasant, how about a warm room or warm breeze? Do you tend to wear more or fewer layers of clothing than the people around you? If you are experiencing pain, does it feel hot or throbbing or more dull and achey? If you have a rash, is it warmer than your surrounding tissues or colder? If you have joint pain is it hot and red or pale and aching?

Use these clues to determine if you are more hot or cold and if the are you are looking to treat feels more hot or cold. If there isn’t a noticeable excess or lack of heat, you can put yourself in the neutral category.

If you are hot, you want herbs to cool you down.

If you are cold, you want warming herbs.

If you are neutral, you will want to make sure your formula balances out and isn’t too warming or cooling as this could aggravate your condition.

Am I more moist or dry?

This one can be tricky, but again, we can check in with multiple body areas to figure this out.

Is my tongue dry or moist? Am I constipated (dry) or do I have loose stools (moist)? How hydrated am I - check for skin tenting? Are my eyes dry or moist? If I have a vagina, does it feel dry or moist? Do I have a cough, is it wet or dry? Do my hair and nails feel dry and brittle? Is my skin dry? Do I sweat a lot? How often am I urinating and is it dark or light in color? If I have a rash, is it weepy or dry and flakey?

Once again, we can use these cues to determine if we have a moisture imbalance. Most herbs are drying, so if you are pretty dry, you will want to lean heavily on moistening herbs. If on the other hand, your tissues feel boggy and moist, drying herbs can be helpful. If it’s really not very apparent that you are too dry or moist, you will again seek herbs that are neutral in their influence on moisture.

Am I too tense or too relaxed?

As a society, we are pretty familiar with being in a state of anxiety, anger, excitement, or overstimulation. This can create a frenetic energy that needs release. In these cases, we wouldn’t want herbs that are excessively stimulating like coffee. You can imagine how it feels to be overly caffeinated - it is not balance!

We also deal a lot with being in a depressed (too relaxed) state. These are states when it’s hard to find the tenacity to complete what must be done. Here we wouldn’t want to work with herbs that are inherently relaxing like kava kava or cannabis. This also wouldn’t bring us into balance.

We can use the sensation of our mental state of tension vs relaxation to check in with our tissues too - there is usually a correlation between our mental and physical state here.

Do my muscles feel tight and tense or loose and weak? Are my gums swollen and boggy - too relaxed? Do I have areas of swollen boggy tissue elsewhere? Does my skin feel too tight or too loose? Am I constipated or do I have diarrhea - both can occur from increased tension or too relaxed tissues. Am I clenching my jaw? Do my joints feel stable or too loose? If I have pain, does the area feel dull, achey, boggy, and unsupported or does it feel tight and tense? Am I depressed? Am I anxious?

Putting it together:

You can see how there are different tissue states and how they would have different needs. This is one reason why you may hear me say that I don’t treat diseases, I treat people - this is because different people can have the same diagnosis, but completely different presentations needing different treatment approaches. If someone has hot, dry red joint pain, Turmeric won’t work well for them, but something like Marshmallow, Licorice, or Milky Oats may be a fantastic fit. If someone has cold, boggy, achey joint pain, Turmeric may be a fantastic herb for them as it is warming and drying. Someone with weepy eczema may react well to toning and drying topical herbs like Yarrow and Witch hazel where someone with dry scaly eczema may respond much better to topical Comfrey or Marshmallow. What if the condition is hot and moist? How about cold and dry? We build the formula around their tissue state and what is needed. Pretty cool right? Let’s jump into a few herbs and their energetics (hot/cold, moist/dry, tonifying/relaxing).

Hot vs Cold herbs

Herbs at either extreme of this spectrum are pretty easy to distinguish. Hot herbs tend to be spicy like garlic or cayenne. Cold herbs tend to have minty or menthol undertones and feel cooling when you rub them on your skin like peppermint or eucalyptus.

Cool and warm herbs can be a bit trickier to distinguish, but sampling them in different forms will help you feel their effects on your tissues. Drinking a warming herb such as turmeric or licorice will have you feeling warmer when you take them in and cooling herbs like marshmallow or dandelion will have you feeling cooler as well.

Some herbs like chamomile are more neutral in their effect on temperature and make a great base to build a formula from.

One of my herbal teachers Paul Bergner advocates for making different cooking spice blends that aim to help balance your temperature. You can learn from him through the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism, he has some great correspondence courses and is a frequent speaker at herbal gatherings.

Hot/Warm Herbs:

Garlic, Cayenne, Cinnamon, Anise, Cloves, Licorice root, Lavender, Cardamom, Rosemary

Cool/Cold Herbs

Peppermint, Echinacea, Nettle, Violet, Lemon, Rosehips, Dandelion, Aloe, Oregon grape

Moist vs Dry herbs

Here again, when looking at the two ends of the moisture spectrum, we can tell a stark difference between very dry and very moist herbs. Cloves while hot are also very drying. Try chewing on a single clove for a while, not only will you find yourself warming up, you may also find yourself sweating - loosing moisture. On the other hand, when we look at cool moist marshmallow, we see how an herb can deliver moisture to dried out tissues - I can attest to this directly having worked with Marshmallow in dry climates and found it very soothing. When we get to the middle ground, things aren’t quite so stark and some herbs may feel pretty neutral. These herbs again are a great starting place for a formula to be built upon.

Dry Herbs:

Turmeric, Fennel, Coffee, Black Pepper, Juniper, Ginger, Blueberry, Artichoke, Yarrow

Moist Herbs:

Aloe, Marshmallow (tee hee), Plantain, Oats, Violet, Borage, Eucalyptus, Chamomile, Licorice

Relaxing vs Stimulating herbs

I find these herbs quite easy to distinguish. One side of this spectrum will stimulate you, making you more energetic and active. The other will sedate you allowing you to relax and take it easy. Here we will skip the slideshow as I don’t have access to images for many of these herbs. Also, be very careful with herbs in these categories and only use them for short periods of time (days to 2 weeks tops). If you are finding yourself needing more or less energy on a regular basis, you need to work with a trained medical herbalist like a Naturopathic Physician as there is more going on than simply a need to adjust your energy level.

Stimulating Herbs

The most popular of these are coffee and tea. Additional stimulating herbs include: Licorice root, Chicory root, Ginseng, Maca, Ashwagandha, Yerba mate, Ginkgo, Rhodiola,

Relaxing Herbs

Here we have relaxing herbs that can ease anxiety and in some cases pain: Chamomile, Lemon balm, Skullcap, Peppermint, Kava kava, California poppy, Lavendar, Milky oats, Valerian, Cannabis.

Herbal Formulation Basics

Now that you have had the opportunity to play with the idea of herbal energetics and you have been introduced to a few herbs in each category, you can begin creating your own formulas.

If you have a headache that feels dull and achey with a heavy head and overall fatigue, warming and relaxing Lavender may form the basis of your tea along with other warming herbs to stimulate circulation while relaxing tense muscles. If you need some get up and go and don’t have time to attend to your headache, you may wish to add a bit of an herbal stimulant like green tea to your formula.

If on the other hand, you have a throbbing hot headache and are feeling agitated and restless, Peppermint may be a better herb to create your formula around perhaps also incorporating a cool moist addition like Marshmallow.

Before combining herbs, it is important to know how each herb works for you as an individual, then you can pair herbs together and then build on from there. If the idea of combining herbs seems a bit daunting, don’t worry, there are many herbalists who only work with single herbs - these medicines are referred to as simples. Simple is a fantastic way to start, and if you end up there, that works great too. I often will work with one herb at a time myself especially in tea form and always when exploring a new herb.

One way I like to work with herbal formulation is to pick an herb I would like to work with and learn about its energetics. Is it hot/dry/stimulating? If I don’t want to be overheated, I will pick a cooler herb to pair with it to attenuate that effect. Remember, the whole goal of working with herbs as medicine is to restore balance. We aren’t drugging ourselves with them, we are nourishing and nurturing ourselves back to wholeness.

What are some of your favorite herbal formulas? Have you ever combined herbs and found the effect less than helpful? I would love to hear about your experiences.

To Our Health!