Herbal Wisdom for Women: From Birth to Menopause w/ Dr. Judith Thompson, ND

When it comes to women's health and herbal medicine, there may be no better pairing. In this episode we had the pleasure of chatting with naturopathic doctor and herbalist Dr. Judith Thompson, who shares decades of clinical wisdom from her work with women, from postpartum care to perimenopause, the everyday herbs she trusts most for nourishment and balance, and why the intention behind how we make and use herbal medicine matters more than we might think. 

What's in this episode:   

* How Judith's Paraguayan roots and her mother's kitchen medicine shaped her path into herbalism 

* The near-fatal car accident that opened her eyes to the healing power of plants 

* Herbalism and naturopathy: two lenses, one deep relationship with plants 

* Clinical stories from birth to menopause: arnica for newborns, sitz baths, mugwort vaginal steams, maca, and evening primrose 

* Supporting women through HPV naturally with green tea, vitamin E, and dietary shifts 

* Safe everyday herbs for nourishment and balance: nettles, oats, parsley, celery, red raspberry leaf 

* Why the intention behind making herbal medicine matters, and what one doctor's observation revealed 

* Caring for plants as living beings and the Sustainable Herbs Initiative 

For full show notes and transcript: eclecticherb.com/podcast/womens-health-dr.-judith 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hello and welcome to Eclectic Herbal Wisdom, where we share stories from the roots of plant medicine. I'm Mel Mutterspot, clinical herbalist and herbal educator at Eclectic Herb. And I'm Chris Olstead, herbalist and owner of Eclectic Herb. We are so glad that you're here. Whether you're brewing up your first cup of metal tea or crafting your own complex herbal remedies, this podcast is for you.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

In each episode, we'll open the pages of Herbal Law from the archives of the incredible Eclectic Library to the living wisdom of today's best herbalists. Together we'll explore how plants have supported people for centuries and how they continue to do so now.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

You'll find stories, science, and soulful conversations with other brilliant herbalists, all sharing real-world insights that you can bring into your daily life and your practice. Because herbal wisdom is timeless and it's meant to be shared. So come grow with us as we rediscover the living legacy of the plants.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Welcome to another episode of Eclectic Herbal Wisdom. Today I'm super thrilled to invite a special guest on, Judith Thompson, naturopathic doctor, herbalist, and dean of herbal medicine at the American College of Healthcare Sciences. I met Judith in Cincinnati recently and immediately bonded with her. Would you like to introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yes, oh my gosh, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. It is absolutely my pleasure to be here. And Chris is so right. It really was incredible how we met and just instantly bonded. And it was like we'd spent decades as friends and herbal soul sisters. And it was just, it was really lovely to be there walking around through the United Plant Savers Botanical Sanctuary and just getting to be around lots of different herbalists from different countries and just talking, talking about the plants and their healing abilities. And it's just, it was such a wonderful experience to meet you and continue to just do more good things together. So it's really, it's exciting, and I'm happy to be here today.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

I loved some of the stories you had to share. You knew so much about plants and you had so much clinical knowledge and some of your stories with women. It was really wonderful to hear. Perhaps you can tell us a little bit about the start of your journey with herbs.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, you know, I guess I grew up with herbs. My family's from Paraguay, from South America. And we just, herbs are just a part of life. It's like, you know, you eat food and you drink herbs. Like that's just what we do. And so they were always around. There would always be random dried orange citrus peel or bags of plants. I had no idea. And to this day, I actually don't know, because a lot of them had the names of the indigenous language that's spoken in Paraguay. So it's considered a bilingual country. And so we'd have all these different herbs. And so they were around. And my mom would make me drink them if I didn't feel well, you know, when I was a kid, and just that that I didn't really think much of it until I was, I was 23 years old, and I'd gotten into this horrible car accident. This is truly like nearly fatal. And I ended up going back home and really recovering at my mom's place. I was in a car and I'd been driving through the desert at night. And I thought I was going to move to California. I'd been living in Arizona, graduated from college, and was going to go start my brand new life in California. And that didn't happen. And from that car accident, I had multiple injuries and my neck muscles tore. Half of my face was just raw flesh. I had a broken bone and I couldn't function. So my mom went to, she flew to California, took me back home, and immediately called up a friend of hers and said, What can I give her? Right? What can I do for her? And so my eyes, I have naturally brown eyes, but my eyes were brown and red. There was no whites, and there was like all kinds of internal hemorrhaging. I wear glasses. And so my glasses had broken on my face. So I had two black eyes. I was a mess. And yeah, I couldn't even, they were swollen shut for a while. And so my mom ended up putting, um, she got some chamber mile tea bags, right? So she put those on my eye, just you know, she'd make a little tea and she'd put them over my eyes. And then a friend of hers told her to use Malva to make a little decoction out of, well, I guess really an infusion, out of Malva Sylvestris. And so she would dip little cotton balls in there and just like just dab them on my face ever so gently. God bless my mother. She was so patient to do this every day. And my skin, it just like healed up and it scarred up, it turned into this scab within, I would say, like a week or so. And then by the second week, the whole thing just fell off. And I'm there were two different tones to my skin color. And I was like, oh my God, what I'm gonna be scarred for life. And she just kept using the Malva. And I mean, you can't tell at all. Anybody who sees me, you would have no idea that anything had ever happened. It healed perfectly. There's not a single scar. I couldn't, it's just amazing. That to me was like my eyes opened, like, what is this? What kind of magic did you do off me? And so, you know, she would just give me different things. She would have, you know, there were some nutritional things, like she would give me parsley water to drink, and and just keeping me in really good shape. Sometimes she would have like stalks of parsley and stocks of celery in water glasses, and she'd just make me drink that water every day. And so, you know, so she did this little combination of things, and I just like slowly over a relatively short amount of time. I mean, within four months, I was back to normal. Like you wouldn't believe it. Like all my muscles healed, and I was able to function. The one thing that I wish I had known that I didn't know about was Symphitum officialis, right? I didn't know about that. And for whatever reason, my bones didn't quite heal right. So I didn't end up having to get metal rod and pins to keep my bones in shape there. And the day I learned about Symphytum in my herbal medicine class, I just cried in class, wishing that I had known. And I think that was what really kind of cemented for me education, because I think about how many people don't know. And I had grown up with it, and how many people who never really heard about herbs, how they would never know that they have an incredible ally so close that can really help them heal from all kinds of things. So that was really what kind of catapulted me into studying herbs more and using them as a part of everyday life and using them with everybody. Wow.

unknown 7:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

It's amazing how like this story is so traumatic, but brought you to make such a powerful impact on so many people for years and years to come. I think it's a beautiful story, as much as it had to have been so hard when you were 23. And I think of my mother heart watching my daughter go through something like that and being there to care for you on such a deep level.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Like, bless your mother if she's still alive and well because she's picking her herbs. She's now 81. She'll be 81 in June. And she went through, let's see, she had two knee replacements and the following year, and she again used herbs to just help her heal. She was able to, I mean, she had those surgeries at like 75, but she was able to put them off for a good 20 plus years, taking herbs every day. So I love that.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

I love that so much. And one thing that I really love is that yes, you are an herbalist. You're also a naturopath. And I wonder if we can open up and chat about that a little bit because before we hit record on this show, you were talking about how it always feels so great and warm and loving and nurturing to be around herbalists. And it's a little bit different when you're in the naturopathic world. And I've experienced both hands as well. And I wonder if you could just talk about that. And I love that you are both, and that is very deeply integrated. And I think about the eclectic physicians and how that was all deeply integrated and how now, in some areas, there's a little separation. And I wonder with your experience, if you can just speak on that a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Gosh, it's that's a really deep question.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

I know it may be troubling too.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Well, and it's an old question. I think it's a really good question. And I think we could give it its due. What's the way it's two paths, right? But herbal medicine is so old, right? It's such an old practice. And to me, it is something that has stood the test of time, and people have been using it for millennia. I've heard this from so many herbalists. We've co-evolved with plants, right? They are our allies, and there's that vital force that lives in plants and it lives in us. And there's something that that comes together that our analytical minds cannot ever understand. I don't think we have the answers. I don't think we have, I don't think we have instrumentation that can measure that, right? So herbalism is is it just it goes back, it's so much deeper to me. And one of the things that I really love about it is that it is truly the medicine of the people that you can go out into your backyard and you can take the medicine that you need, or you can grow it on your windowsill. It's something that's immediately available to us. And I just appreciate all of the information because I've learned from herbalists and how it really requires for us to really know those plants, it requires for us to get still and to be quiet. And we engage in dialogue with another living being and we get to know them on a very personal level. And that's very different from looking at it from more of a bio, biochemical perspective, or looking at mechanisms of action where we're really like taking it apart, and what are the what do these parts do? And is this part active or not? Or and when we then start to take that medical view, which to me is also fascinating to be able to do that, that we can do that, that we have this information is extraordinary. And it's just two different lenses that we use to apply them. And so on the naturopathic side, I think having a really broad amount of information that's available to understand the human body about how the anatomy and physiology works, and then knowing the plant chemistry and being able to bridge those just it helps us work with people with chronic disease that often it has multiple factors involved. And so that we're able to help people from that angle versus, you know, what are the things that we can do quickly as moms, as you know, just people of the community that we can heal ourselves for things that are gonna keep us out of a, out of an emergency room, out of a hospital, out of urgent care. Like we, there's so much that we can do that's immediately available to us from nature. So they're just they're two different paths.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

I love that explanation, by the way. You did a fabulous job. And while they're two different paths, they often they meet together in such beautiful ways. And that's the really important piece. You know, Chris is a naturopath. Her late husband, Ed, the founder of Eclectic Herb, is also a naturopath and herbalist. And many of my great friends in this area are herbalists, naturopaths. And I'm I, as a clinical herbalist, I love to bring that whole science piece into it also. And the way you spoke to the relationship with the plants is the depth, right?

unknown 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

So you've been in practice for quite a long time and you work a lot with women's health. And I would love if you feel ready or willing to just share some stories or experiences in your clinical practice where you have just been like, wow, what an incredible healing journey this person went on. And maybe it were certain herbs that did something that maybe left you surprised or delighted in that particular case.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yeah, gosh, I guess I I'm gonna, I'm gonna start from the beginning because I ended up working delivering babies so that I had a lot of that training. And so I worked with women and their babies. And and so if we just start from the beginning, I I tended not to use very many herbs in in like the first trimester, and I would use sporadically here or there as needed. I would use herbs during pregnancy. It wasn't an area that I really focused on very much. I know that there are safe uses and I have safely used them during pregnancy, and so I'm not scared, right? I mean, I think the medical community will scare people into not using them. And I think that they can be used effectively and safely for brand new babies. Remember, one mom, she was in great shape, and she really did everything she was supposed to do. She ate while she exercised, she did her cagles, like she was ready for this baby. She was almost too ready. Like her vaginal tone was so strong that she really had to push so hard to get this baby out. And so she pushed for, you know, a good couple of hours and the baby was born. But this poor little guy just had such a cone head and it was so sensitive, right? And so we just put some Arnica oil on his head just ever so gently. And by I think by the next day, he wasn't, you know, somewhere during the night. He was fine, and that kind of sensitivity that he'd had that would just kind of set him off crying was gone within within a so this is another thing where I'm not scared to use herbs with babies, with brand new babies, with babies that are a week old. I've used herbs with babies. A lot of it has been like transitioning in that first week when mother's milk changes from just colostrum into the milk that it's going to be a more mature milk for the rest of the babies, the infants' stages, and they have all those digestive problems, right? So then we're able to give them a little bit of chemomile, like and they're just fine and it breaks up whatever gas is there and they're good, or some some lemon balm. That's another one that we would commonly just make a little tea and give them a teaspoon or two. And then the sits baths that we would use for moms, so healing, so nurturing, so good for them when they would they would use them usually within a week after delivery. Right. I mean, that's some pretty raw tissue that we could say. And really sensitive. And and so we would, I mean, that was just common. We would get usually a blend of like calendula, sometimes lemon balm. And it would be a blend of sometimes just whatever they had that would be appropriate for healing of the skin. And so we would make those sitz baths for them, and or well, they would make it for themselves and they would and they would use that postpartum.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

It felt so deeply soothing. Sitz bath. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah. And then often it and so like even after, so for women on the opposite end, getting into the perimenopausal or menopausal years when there would be tissue lax or tissue laxity or after birth, and women would just have a lot of vaginal, they didn't feel that they had vaginal strength, is probably the best way to describe it. And so we would do vaginal steam baths with some mugwort in there. And they would tell us how all of a sudden everything just felt stronger. And in some cases, it it even changed their sexual lives for how strong that tissue became with just vaginal steaming with mugwort.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Wow. Yeah. How do you do a vaginal steam?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Nowadays, I think it did get more popular. They're already made. It's basically like a big teapot, like a big tea kettle. You put just a little bit of water at the base, and it's just, it really is just like a little tea kettle. You turn on the heat and it'll, it has a little seat, right? Usually there's like a base and it's got a little seat, and you sit on it, and there's usually some kind of a gauge so that you can gauge how much of the steam is actually coming through. And so that one is a more, it's a more modern version, but women have been doing this. I mean, I remember speaking to Mayan women, for example, from Belize or from like Yucatan area of Mexico, and they would tell me how they would use that for their babies or for their women after delivering babies to help support, again, repair of the vaginal tissue. But they would just, they would have a little chair that had it's like a basically like a bird thing stool where there would be like a little hole in the chair. It'd be a wooden chair, and they would just put a pot of whatever hot water with the herbs that they would use and just drape a towel or like some kind of a little cloth, well, like a comfort or something, like a sheet, something that would be able to just contain the steam and sit there for 20 minutes, right? Like not really even that long, and just be there. I remember the first time I did one, I ended up I felt naughty. Like I felt I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

So naughty to care for ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

I think like vaginal steams are getting quite trendy these days. But I was wondering if you were gonna do it at home, I guess you could take the seat out of a chair, drape a towel, and have your steaming goods underneath and just sit there.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yeah, I mean, someone then put it like in like a little bowl in the toilet bowl, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Oh, that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Yeah, you just you know, flush out the water and so then just place it there and you just sit there and it's pretty I mean, it's a natural position for us to be in. So yeah, it's it's helpful for hemorrhoids also, so really helpful. Not good for women who have like herpetic eruptions, any kind of like herpes where that can actually aggravate it. So in those cases, not a good time to use it.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

But yeah, I've seen like the stools with like the three legs and a toilet seat over it. That is a nice, like kind of home easy way to do it. But one thing that I thought was really cool is just thinking about the goddess Artemis and the mugwort coming in and really strengthening those vaginal tissues and like what a beautiful story. And I wish I knew more about Artemis in a way that I could speak greatly about her, but I know she's really a warrior goddess, and so I think it's really cool that the mugwort had such an impact for all these women.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Truly, yeah. There's some really great articles I found one years ago from the Chinese medicine perspective of how vastly applicable it is for all kinds of health conditions, but specifically for women. Yeah, so that one's always been a just kind of one where when we know that we need to strengthen the vaginal tissues, that one usually comes on board.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

What about your experiences with us older ladies or getting older? Because I'm still like, wait a second, I'm not old yet, but I'm definitely in the paramenopausal phase of life.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah. The first thing that comes to mind is vaginal lubrication. That's probably the biggest one that like that's the first one that most women feel, right? If we're just talking about vaginal tissues, right? Because there's all kinds of other stuff that women will feel. But if we're focusing there, so this one was really incredible to me, maca, because for some women, It would bring back lubrication almost like they were back in their 20s. And along with that libido that matched a much higher level than they had experienced prior. So I always give that one with a little bit of warning, like just so you know, it might have been.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

So would they take the maca internally or internally?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

So that would be, yeah, as usually I do like a capsule of that. So yeah, that one would not be like intravaginal. That's just yeah, a capsule. And I've used it with women like well into their 60s, who they're just introducing it. And I just I really like the other benefits that come with it as far as like being supportive to the adrenal glands and helping with just natural hormone production. And so I just I love that I don't have to worry about using herbs, right? Because if we're talking about giving estrogen, progesterone, all these other things, I have to worry about other stuff with that versus I don't have to worry with the herbs. So that one's a really nice one. That one just comes to the top of the list. But evening primrose is another one that I absolutely love. Because that just that keeps the vaginal tissue soft and flexible, and it's just vibrant and alive. And I love how you talk about vaginal tissues. That's just beautiful. Um well it was a b-roll on this film, right? Put a warning on it. So I would actually use evening primrose oil with moms starting at about 36 weeks of pregnancy. So we always used it. So I never really thought about anything about the women that I was working with. I'd do vaginal checks, everything's normal, everything's great. And then I had one woman who she'd already had three babies prior. So this, well, this was actually sorry, this was baby number three. And so she had two successful births, no problem. And she couldn't afford it. She couldn't afford to get the evening from Mars oil. So we said, okay, you've had other babies, you should be fine. And so breathing was fine, her delivery was fine. But the one thing I did notice was that the cervix was much firmer up until the actual day of her delivery. So what I noticed for the women in that final few weeks was that the way I described it was it's almost like it does that early labor for you without you having to be in labor because their cervix would be soft and pliable and just stretchy.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

So it really, it just kind of all that early stuff was the body could just kick in at a higher level when it was time. So they did have an easier time in the beginning of labor. So yeah, so then that just kind of translates to the vaginal tissue that just keeps it flexible and and soft. So yeah, so that was a big noticeable difference for me to see somebody who hadn't versus everybody else who had.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Wow. That's that is a really cool, noticeable difference to think about. And I can't help but wonder, like, well, what else was happening in her world that might have made her cervix more tight than the others, especially if she wasn't able to afford the evening primrose? My mind immediately is going to like, well, is she really stressed about finances at home or other avenues where maybe she's not getting optimal nutrition?

SPEAKER_01 25:45

And you know, I mean, maybe I, you know, it's interesting because she was part of a Mexican community that we would take patients who were either migrant families or didn't have health insurance. And so we would do those births at a highly reduced cost of birth itself. And so, you know, they did have a pretty good traditional Mexican diet, probably more carbs, tortillas, rice beans, but still lots of a fair amount of vegetables in there. So I know that her diet was good. Uh, but maybe with the stress of finances and having two other children, and you know, so there could have been that part. Um, but she herself had a higher level of confidence in her body.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Well, I wasn't trying to downplay the evening prelims. I mean it's incredible power in that comment. It's just yeah, immediately where my brain uh went for that particular situation.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

So I don't know. I'm a huge advocate for natural birth and home births. I had a home birth myself with a naturopathic midwife. And how do you think we could reach more women to say this is available to you? And how would somebody go about seeking that out? Like what kind of resources? If you want to have a home birth and you're interested in natural birth and you get into that medical system, how do you find the resources to empower yourself to get a home birth or a natural birth?

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Yeah, I mean, there are midwives. So that this is a really that's a it's a much, it's a bigger conversation because how midwives can work changes from state to state. So the laws are very different. And in some states, depends, like a licensed midwife might be able to deliver babies or not, or you know, it's legal in some states, completely illegal in other states. So it just depends. And so, like naturopaths, naturopathic doctors who are licensed as doctors can deliver babies in places like Oregon and Washington and Arizona, but Vermont, I think, is another one. But other than that, you can't, right? It's not more of a scope. Yeah, even naturopathic doctors can't deliver babies everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

In New Zealand, you get the choice of a doctor or a midwife. I don't know if that's still the case, but a few years ago it was. So it's very different in this country.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

So different. So different. But I but there are a fair number of midwifery schools throughout the country, and there's a fair amount of training and lots of women who are still keeping the practice alive. I live in Florida, so I worked with lots of midwives locally assisting them in their um in their practices with their moms. So yeah, it just it varies. But probably checking the midwifery association of North America, right, manna, I believe they have directories that um where people can find a midwife in their state and probably at this point a good Google search. I'm dating myself because when I was in practice in my early days, there was no internet. And so, yeah, so now we can look for those kinds of sources.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

I think dating ourselves show how much experience we have and how long we've been around and in the world. So it was a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yeah, I think it's an honor. Yeah. You know what's interesting because we talked about, you know, women's health, how do we work with women's health issues? And probably the one thing that I saw women for the most was um HPV. Oh, wow. And HPV is one that would scare so many young women. And I think there's also like probably some level of like stigma and a lot of lack of understanding of what's actually happening, and also a lot of fear from the medical community. You have abnormal cells, and this could potentially be cancers. And that would scare so many of the women. And maybe by default, a lot of the women I worked with would come to see me because they didn't, they either were told by their doctors, well, there's nothing to do, or you need to get these kinds of more invasive procedures. And they didn't want to do those invasive procedures. And so then they would come to me recognizing that there's no medicine for that, there's a vaccine for it, and that's a whole other conversation. But for treatment, it actually responds, the body responds so well to the actual treatment for it. And so a lot of those women, we do obviously, we'd have to switch diet is always kind of foundational there. Really cleaning things up, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables. If anything, really going to a vegetarian diet for three months, right? So for some women that can be really hard, but it really is the best that I've seen to be able to get them back to just normal status. So there was that, and they would use a lot of green tea, right? So we would do green tea, they would drink it, they would take capsules. So that was one that we would have to do a higher amount. So green tea capsules and lots of antioxidants, right? But it responded so, so beautifully. A lot of vitamin E was probably my number one thing that we would use for those ladies. Um, and it worked over and over and over again. So that's one to to I that's the one where I always wish that I could just let every woman know you don't have to be scared of it. And, you know, I mean, granted, there are cases of severity, right? There it can get into higher states of where you do need some type of medical intervention. But if you're in those early stages of just abnormal cells and it hasn't, you know, morphed into something else, then we can work with the body to get them back to those healthy stages. So it's really it's activating the immune system to get it back to um, to get everything back to normal.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

So is that all oral treatment? Oral grain tea, oral vitamin E or some topical as well?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Topical for the vitamin E. Topical. So that was the big one. It would get a little messy. And there are naturopathic doctors in states where they're licensed. And I ended up showing a nurse here how to do it so that she could treat her patients, but they would use escarotic treatments. And so that would be painting the cervix with, I say, blood, what's it blood root?

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Blood root.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Blood root, yeah. So yeah, so they would do that. But, you know, I know that for some people that could be controversial because it would actually slough off the cells from the cervix. Um, but you know, if we're looking at something that is potentially becoming invasive and much more problematic, and we don't want it to get to those further stages, then that is an option that's there. Fortunately, with the women I worked with, we it was still on the early stages, so we didn't have to go there. But it is an option that's available. But not that many people know about it.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

I'm hoping you can just talk a little bit about the simplicity of parsley as food and medicine and even celery if you want. Because those are actually two products that we carry here at Eclectic Herb. Also, while it's great, easy kitchen medicine, it is easy and safe for most anyways.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

So maybe we could chat about that. Yeah. So, like that's when those are when I start thinking about those kinds of herbs, I think about what, you know, what are the things that we can do on an everyday basis to keep ourselves in good shape? Like there's so many plants that you can take every day and you're not going to hurt yourself, right? So if we're specifically talking about things like parsley and celery, these are herbs that will help to keep our water balance, right? We'll get some nutrients out of them, right? Some minerals out of them as well. But they just they help, especially if, you know, I think about how often we we're not eating a pristine diet. And even if we are, we're still getting exposed to all kinds of things and no one is perfect. And, you know, I don't think that's really a reasonable goal, honestly, people to think that there's a perfect way to eat. There is no perfect way to eat. Um the truth is, right? Like the truth is we're gonna, we're gonna travel, we're gonna go places, we're gonna pick something up at a gas station, we're gonna, you know, like whatever it is, if we're in an airport, train station, wherever, right? Like that there are decisions that we're making. And so we're our bodies are constantly going in and out of balance. And so when we include things like parsley, like celery, we're able to maintain a better balance. We're able to give our kidneys some really good support for whatever chemicals are coming in and giving them some extra nourishment or just ability to do their jobs, to clean out our bodies, clean out our blood, remove excess fluids. And so thereby taking off pressure from the heart. And we're just keeping all these systems moving really, really well. Nettles is probably another one of my favorites for that. And I mean, nettles is so safe. That was one that I didn't ever mind giving my pregnant moms. Like, have it, have at it, have it every day. It is not a concern. You're getting really nice nutrients in, you're getting those minerals, everything is staying in balance. Oats is another one, right? Like oats, I would always talk about that. Was again such a nice nervine, right? That we need nowadays, it it just every day, right? I don't know anybody who doesn't have some level of stress anymore, right? Honestly. And we put it in the water.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

That wouldn't be.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

So that's one that I would also suggest to my moms that were, you know, at any point, second, third trimester, go for it, you know. I didn't have a problem. And with the pregnant moms, and really for women, red raspberry leaf, right? Like again, another one that would be safe that I would not worry about them consuming on a daily basis. So we have so many things, so many herbs that we can use every day that are super safe, that have had the test of time, right? To be able to just nourish us, keep us well. We don't have to worry about drug interactions or all kinds of other things that people are thinking about, oh, this or that, or if they've got different kinds of conditions. When people are kind of managing chronic disease, then yes, they need to pay attention to what kinds of herbs they might be choosing to take. And some are okay to take over long term, others maybe not, depending on what's going on for them. But for people who don't, who are just, you know, living life going day to day, we've got a good number of herbs. I would even say, um, probably one of my herbs that my husband, for example, who did not have the best diet by any means, and would end up with, you know, oh, I feel so bad, my stomach hurts. Almost every day. It's like, well, if you stopped eating the potato chips and the pizza and the burgers, you'd probably taste better.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

It's not just me. I try, he's like, oh, this is happening with my poop. And I'm like, hello, this is what's happening with your body. Have you seen what you eat? Oh, that's not it. Oh, yeah. Clearly.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Yeah. So but wouldn't you know that I would have my bottle of bitters? So, and that would have gention in it. And I mean, gention, that's a strong bitter. And he would just ever he's like, Can I get those bitters? Yes, you can have the bitters, a little dandelion root in there, you know, and these and it just it helped him feel better, but it didn't stop the weight gain, right? Like he just kept growing.

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Well, he probably also kept eating the things that are causing bats.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Right. You know. But there is a happy ending. He ended up deciding to take really take control of his health and stop all of that. And he stopped the sodas and the fast food and all of it and dropped like a good 80 pounds and is in great shape. And now is just doing, you know, things like, I don't know, orange peel or something, you know, and almost never asks for the bitters anymore.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

How lucky that he has you as a wife.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Oh, yeah, super lucky.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Well, yeah. I mean, he's if I don't make his, you know, special teas and things, he's like, where's my tea?

SPEAKER_00 39:08

What's in your daily health regime? Are these some herbs that you take every day? Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 39:14

Um let me think. I I end up, for me, it's really just more of a what am I in the mood for? Or sometimes it could be like, do I have something coming up? You know, like I probably I don't have any now, but I often will keep a little bottle of lemon balm of tincture. Cause if I have to do a lot of presentations. And so if at some point I'm like, I start getting nervous, then I'll just take a dropper full and within 20 minutes, I'm like, okay, I can do this. Yes. Oh, she that's probably my favorite for those um chamomile. I love rubos at night. I know that if I need a good night's sleep, if I've had a stressful day, I'll have some rubos at night. But that was actually one that I just drank all the time when I was in school, like all day. Never, I never got tired from it. Licorice was another one that I would take, but I would be real, I'm one of those people who's really sensitive to things. So I couldn't have like, say, a licorice tea after three o'clock. No way. I would be awake for hours. So I'm like, all right, morning, not after 3 p.m.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

So that is fascinating just to hear. I I love licorice, but I've never really felt like a much of an energizing effect for me.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

Right. Well, so like that's what you know, I I look at so I part of my journey with herbs has also been because I had a lot of allergies. And so I had to take all the chemicals out and then figure out, okay, what do I need? So I went through my stages of having a lot of yellow duck to really clean out my liver, a lot of dandelion root and um just trying to think a lot of milk thistle, right? Like milk thistle and black Spanish radish, right? Or artichoke leaf, right? That was another one. I would use those quite a bit as I was working through the kind of the liver gallbladder support and got myself in really good shape. But I use them as herbs. So like I would put burdock, I would make like a stew or a soup, and I would throw burdock root in there. I would make a soup with a base of nettles because to me, nettles taste like spinach. And so I would, I, you know, maybe use like a real like a handful of it and throw it in a pot of water, some maybe some soy sauce, some garlic, uh, maybe a little bit of miso in there. And like that would be just a really nice light broth. So I really just incorporated it into my life as like, okay, this is what we're gonna do. And I'm not shy, right? Like I'll use, for example, like cumin. I'll put a ton of it if I'm making something that has like black beans or some some beef in there. I'm not shy with the cumin. You know, but you think about the native diets of people like from India, right? Like they're not shy with cumin or with turmeric or this is just fennel, right? Like it all makes sense, right? It's helping our digestive processes, it's keeping our immune systems really strong. So, you know, that's probably how I use herbs more so um nowadays. I'm not shy with the oregano. It's probably obnoxious how much I use.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

I'm the same. Always like whatever the recipe calls for, we're probably doing at least five times. Right. Every time. Otherwise, I find that the recipes are really bland.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

So well, you know, here's an interesting thing that that's a conversation I've been having with some doctors who've been in practice for, you know, 40 plus years and maybe come from a lineage of doctors, and we're talking naturopaths, right? And they would tell us how um call it in the previous generations, right? That people would get better using herbs, really light formulas, easy in one or two weeks, and you know, they'd have some condition and it would be resolved. But now it's taking five times as much of time and of herbs and all of it to for people to start to feel better. But the one thing that across the board everyone says is that when they grow their own herbs and they make those herbs into medicine, that medicine is always stronger.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Holy Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Like believe it.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

Because you've put so much love and care and intention, and you're actually building a relationship with this other leave living being that's like, hey, you are giving me love. attending to me and in return, I will do the same for you. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

I think also the herb that you're using is really fresh. So you've tendered it with love. You harvest it when it's fresh. It hasn't means sitting on some store shelf for a couple of years and expiring and then you make a tincture that's just not as potent. So when you get the fresh herbs out of your garden right there and make them into a fresh tincture, it's going to be more potent.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Yeah. Yeah. There's and there's that intention, right? There's that intention that goes into it as well. And that was an interesting observation that there was a doctor teacher of mine who would say that when he would prepare the tincture, because he would, you know, he would have his large bottles and then he would from those large bottles make whatever more customized formula for his patients. And that when he would make them the people would notice a bigger difference than if he asked his office manager someone to make it if he had too many people and then he would say oh can you make this formula that that intention played a really big part of that healing that would happen. And so I think you know that's one of those things that if we remember like you know Mel, you had mentioned it's that relationship, right? We remember that relationship, we remember that that we're part of this bigger web that when we're working to heal or help someone else heal, that we can acknowledge that there's that healing ability and that there's that ally that we have in the plants. So um so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

That's really beautiful to hear the story of this doctor and the intention behind his formulations versus when somebody else does it. I'm a I love making good herbal medicine and good herbal remedies and I love to teach people about it too. And I'll teach them everything I know. I'll give the exact things and they're like and it's still not coming out how yours would. And so for you to say that about your doctor and teacher is it clicks it connects for sure. There is that relationship that happens on this almost supernatural magical kind of level.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Yeah. So you know I I don't know I again it's one of those things that I don't think we can measure.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

Yeah absolutely absolutely well wow this is this has been a very enlightening and fun conversation and I'm so glad that Chris said hey we've got to have Dr. Judith on and this is going to be so great because when Chris and I began collaborating on this podcast it was right after she met you and she was so inspired by everything at that conference and by connecting with you. So I can absolutely see why and I thank you so much for taking time here to be on this show with us. I wonder if before we wrap things up, if you could just share words of wisdom from your years of experience with our audience that has to do with the herbs and the plants one little bit of wisdom beyond everything you've already shared what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 47:26

I think probably the biggest thing that that stays with me because I've become involved a sustainable herbs initiative and really looking at our plants as living beings regardless of where they are in the supply chain that when we care for our plants, we care for people, we care for the planet and that we're doing really important work, no matter how small um the seed that we plant is that it's really important um and to tend to that plant the way that we would tend for someone that we really care about, um, that we truly love and and honor and respect. And so um yeah that's really what what comes to mind at this point.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

I love that and I love the Sustainable Herbs initiative. We're now members also here at Eclectic Herb and I'm honored and beyond thrilled with that. I've been following Anne and her work for how long time now? Probably about 15 years. I used to share her film Newman in my apothecary in the public library near me and the work that she's doing for this entire industry and to raise awareness on how these plants, yes, as you just said, they're living beings and where we source them from matters and how they are loved and tended to matter on such a deep level. It goes back to that piece of magic that your teacher and that doctor was able to put into the formulas he was creating for his patients. It all starts at that little seed in the dirt and how much that is loved and fostered and cared for it truly does come through in the quality of herbs and the efficacy of them later on. So and I love also that you mentioned for our planet it's it's really what it's all about if you ask me so before we wrap things up I would love for you to share where our listeners can find you and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:44

Anna well send me message. I'm there pretty regularly just checking in I know I don't post that much but I am checking in and responding with folks that way. So that's probably the best place to get a hold of me at this point.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Yeah we'll definitely link to your LinkedIn in our show notes and everything else. And this has really been lovely. I'm so grateful to have you on the show and I can't wait to connect with you in person when you come out to our neck of the woods in June hopefully so I see you too me too.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Thank you so much for having me. It's my pleasure to be here and share little tidbits of my experience.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

So thank you both great to see you again and thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Eclectic Herbal Wisdom. We are so grateful you spent your time with us. And if you enjoyed this episode we'd love it if you share it with a friend who might appreciate it as well. And if you have a moment leaving us a review really helps other plant lovers to find the show.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

We'd love to connect with you. Be sure to reach out to us on social media or on our website at Eclectic Herb. Let us know if you like the show, if you have any questions or if you have any ideas for future shows.

SPEAKER_02 51:07

And speaking of future shows new episodes drop every other week. So make sure you're subscribed and you don't miss a single show.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

Before you go a quick reminder everything we share on this podcast is for educational purposes only. We are here to inspire and inform that this isn't medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare practitioner before studying any new herbal protocol especially if you're pregnant, nursing or taking medications. Thanks again for tuning into the show. Until next time, may the plants guide you.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

Take care