Who doesn't love a 1000 year old recipe from a neurodivergent mystic?

The recipe I want to share with you today is not exclusively a holiday recipe, but these spice cookies will definitely warm you up and lift your spirits on a dreary winter day. And it comes with a story—a real one. Although typically I am not a fan of reading a bunch of fluffy background on a recipe before trying it out (oh how I love the ‘Jump to Recipe’ button), in this case the background info is essential if you are not already familiar with Hildegard. This is NOT just any spice cookie recipe.
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The story: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), was a German nun and polymath. She may be best known today for work as a composer and mystic, but her contributions as an herbalist and medical writer are just as impressive. Many scholars consider her to be the founder of scientific natural history.

Some of you may be wondering how a woman of this era was able to publish books and musical compositions using her own name or why she wasn’t burned at the stake for writing about herbal remedies, but it was really all about timing. Hildegard lived BEFORE things got that bad for women, although the church did investigate her to make sure her visions weren’t coming from the devil. I’m not totally sure how they determined she was a good egg, but I’m so glad that’s how it worked out! Now we have all this wonderful music and herbal insight to benefit from.

The other thing about Hildegard is that there is a lot of speculation today about whether she was autistic. I mean, I think anyone who develops their own alphabet should get serious consideration, but folks have written dissertations on this. In general, I think the monastic life would have had a lot of appeal for autistic folks throughout the ages—highly structured routines, repetitive behaviors, sensory solitude and space from other people….what’s not to love? But Hildegard has certainly captivated the imagination of many a scholar above and beyond other historical figures of interest.

The following recipe comes from her book “Causae et Curae” (Causes & Cures). According to Hildegard: “These cookies drive away all the bitterness of your heart and calm your spirit and open your heart and your five senses.”

In today’s language, we would attribute the nervine aspects of these cookies largely to the high amount of nutmeg used, which is wonderful for anxiety and restful sleep (although PLEASE be sure to read the caution below on dosing). To heighten the effects of ‘calming your spirit,’ I am a huge fan of listening to some of her music while making the cookies! It is so beautiful and restorative, and will transport you back to a simpler era.

Flour today is very different from flour 1000 years ago, so it’s not going to be possible to get them to be an exact replica of what was made in her abbey. But this is the closest version we have, and in fact I have heard that these cookies continue to be made in this abbey today using this very recipe!

I have made some tweaks to make it accessible for those with gluten and dairy allergies or anyone just wanting an anti-inflammatory diet, and have indicated my tweaks below along with the original.

CAUTION: This recipe uses A LOT of nutmeg, which can actually cause serious problems at higher doses. No joke!!! Some people intentionally ingest high doses in order to hallucinate, but typically end up in the ER instead. For some types of anxiety and insomnia, much smaller doses can be profoundly helpful, but you really have to dose it right and it isn’t for everyone.

For this reason, I suggest limiting it to no more than ⅛ of the batch per day
(a reasonable serving size).

Hildegard von Bingen Nerve Cookies

• 2.5 cups Dinkel (spelt) or whole wheat flour (I use almond flour which blends very well since the recipe also has crushed almonds)
• 1/3 cup butter (I use ghee)
• 1/3 honey (or to your liking–they are mildly sweet at this amount)
• 1/2 cup ground almonds
• 3 tsp nutmeg
• 4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 2 eggs
• 1 dash salt

Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
15 minutes
Total Time
25 minutes
Instructions

1. Cut soft butter in pieces and combine with the flour, ground almonds and mix together by hand. Add the salt and spices and mix in well.
2. In a separate bowl combine eggs and honey (easier if you warm just enough to liquify) and stir together.
3. Stir the egg and flour mixture together and knead into a smooth dough.
4. Place the dough covered into the refrigerator for an hour.
5. Roll out the dough 1/2 cm (0.2″) thick and cut out the cookies.
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 F for 10-15 minutes.

Enjoy!

Tips on navigating the challenges of dietary restrictions (including ARFID) with the need for social connection at the holidays.

The holidays are rapidly approaching, and this is when many of us begin planning feasts for gatherings with loved ones. We have our cherished, passed down family recipes and the more adventurous of us may experiment with twists on the old classics to add variety from year to year.

For many, these celebratory feasts are both greatly anticipated and dreaded–while undoubtedly delicious, for some the cost of fully participating for those with food sensitivities or dietary restrictions can leave us with discomfort and/or pain that can last for days, weeks, or even months to follow. But regardless of whether we have these issues or not, all of us desire community and connection in these times, and deliciousness should not have to be sacrificed for eating in a way that is nourishing to the body. And we shouldn’t have to accept a painful flare-up as the price we pay for social connection, although all too often that is exactly what we do.

What’s striking to me about the tension and stress that eating in social settings can create is that it’s a wholly modern phenomenon. Up until the last 100 years, it was understood that food is medicine. We ate for nourishment. But in recent decades that has flipped on us, to the point that there’s not a whole lot left in the grocery store that our bodies actually recognize as food, and so we have to take a bunch of this other stuff we call ‘medicine’ to fix the problems aggravated by our diets.

We act like this is a very hard problem to solve, like the only options are ‘healthy’ or ‘delicious,’ but I don’t see it that way at all. I’d like to argue that it is possible to make food that is incredibly tasty and nourishing at the same time for everyone at your holiday gathering. And it may be quite a bit easier than you think.

Consider the meat you are serving–whether it’s a roasted turkey or perhaps a pork roast or baked ham or whatever else you have in mind, where the meat comes from matters. The fat in an animal that was raised in healthy conditions is full of anti-inflammatory omega-3s, whereas the fat in an animal that was raised in a factory farm is full of pro-inflammatory omega-6’s. We actually do need some inflammation and some omega-6s, but the American diet is already drowning in both. Bottom line: you don’t have to change the kind of meat or the recipe at all–just buy from local family farms! Literally any farm on Lopez. It’s that easy.

And yet, I know this can also be really confusing. Different headlines may jerk you in different directions–RFK suggests cutting back on seed oils but increasing saturated fats….what to make of that? Well, again I would point to the fact that where the meat comes from matters. And unfortunately, when all the studies were done on how evil saturated fats are decades ago, they did NOT distinguish between Lopez stew meat and Oscar Meyer Bologna. And I find that unfortunate. RFK is promoting saturated fats but he isn’t making that distinction either, which is just muddying the waters all around.

I think the thing we can all agree on is that processed foods are bad news, so homemade cooking for your feast is going to be a step up no matter what. But you don’t have to stop there.

Now let’s move on to sugar, another holiday favorite. Here’s the thing about sweet things: in the natural world of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, sweet things were never dangerous to humans. They were hard to come by, but if you found something sweet, you knew it was not going to be poisonous and that it would have nourishment. Our modern bodies are still wired for that reality–sweetness still tends to give us feelings of comfort and safety, even though the majority of the sweet things we are eating today are anything but nourishing. This is why it’s so hard to stop eating sweet things, especially when we are stressed out.

So let’s not do away with sweets at our holiday gatherings–they have an important place at the table. What we can do though is swap our refined sugar and the like for anti-inflammatory sweeteners like honey, coconut sugar, maple syrup or monk fruit.

Quantity, of course, matters too. I’m a huge fan of flourless chocolate cake (which just so happens to be gluten and dairy free if you make it with coconut oil), and over the years I have experimented with just how much sugar I can reduce from the recipe without anyone even noticing. Turns out it’s quite a bit! Usually you can reduce the sugar by half in most recipes and it still tastes quite sweet. So even using less sugar in a recipe can allow you to make your old favorites while doing some harm reduction at the same time.

We’ve also never lived in an easier time to find gluten-free alternatives to just about everything you could possibly want or need. It’s gotten so easy. From pie crusts to sourdough bread to chocolate chip cookies, there are so many yummy ways to do it without gluten.

Of course, the obvious objection to doing any of this is that it’s going to cost more. And yes, that’s true–sometimes by just a little, sometimes a lot. And that does point to how much of ‘eating healthy’ can be tied to our socioeconomic status. But sometimes when we say we can’t afford something, we really mean that we don’t prioritize it. If we say we can’t afford eggs from cage-free chickens but still manage to get takeout a few times a week, it’s not really accurate to say we can’t afford it. If you are fortunate enough to have any disposable income, then your dollars (to an extent at least) reflect your values.

And the reality is that one way or another we are going to pay for what we eat with our health. Autoimmune disease rates, for example, have been skyrocketing the last ten years or so, to the point that in the course of my lifetime they have gone from being a rare thing to something incredibly common and affecting an ever growing number of folks. And neurodivergent folks, as usual, are more prone to a whole constellation of health issues (including everyone's favorite--GI trouble!) that make this all very relevant to our lives. 

Diet plays an enormous role here. As a clinical herbalist, you might expect me to say that herbs are the answer, but remember that whole thing about food being medicine? Ok, truth be told I actually do have a pretty great tea formula that can really speed up gut healing, but if I’m being honest, I have to tell you that removing problematic foods from the diet is going to have an even greater impact. And combining food with gut healing herbs can be totally transformative for someone living with chronic pain and debilitating limitations.

That being said, social gatherings make it really, really hard for folks with dietary restrictions to avoid painful flare-ups. Avoiding the gathering leads to social isolation though, and who wants that around the holidays!? It’s very challenging for folks to have to choose between their social needs and their physical health, but that is usually the reality people are dealing with.

One final important thing to consider here are those with conditions like ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder), which can show up for some autistic people and other folks as well. With ARFID, the root cause is often tied up in sensory issues–like an aversion to a certain texture–or about a fear of a food being unsafe because it could cause choking, etc. This condition is widely misunderstood, and often these individuals are accused of being antisocial, dramatic or get diagnosed with something like anorexia, even though body image is not at the heart of the condition.

Individuals with ARFID may have a narrow list of foods that are on their ‘safe’ list, and the holidays can be an overwhelming time. Particularly if someone has ARFID and autism, there can be the combined stress of social anxiety and anxiety about food. Being informed and compassionate about this and giving folks the space to eat what feels safe to them can help minimize the stress that holiday gatherings can bring.

So when you think about hosting an inclusive holiday gathering this year, consider broadening your ideas about what inclusivity can mean to include those with dietary restrictions and/or anyone living with chronic illness, pain or disability. You don’t have to try to create a menu that everyone can eat 100%--let your guests bring a dish too and share in the process. If someone needs to bring separate food for themselves because they have an especially challenging situation, that’s totally fine. It’s only a big deal if you turn it into one. Kindness and compassion are also part of being inclusive.

In terms of menu planning, if your meal is generally anti-inflammatory and low in major allergens, that is going to go a long way towards making it accessible to all of your guests, and literally everyone at the table will benefit from a truly nourishing and delicious meal that can give both your tastebuds and your bellies something to smile about.

For Further Reading
Inflammation, not Cholesterol, Is a Cause of Chronic Disease
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5986484/Nutrition and Health in Agriculturists and Hunter-Gatherers
https://proteinpower.com/nutrition-and-health-in-agriculturalists-and-hunter-gatherers/
New Insights About Inflammation
https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/new-insights-about-inflammation
Life Saving Cholesterol Facts
https://newswithviews.com/Ellison/shane13.htm
(About the author: https://shaneellison.com/)
Which Anti-Inflammatory Supplements Actually Work?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/three-anti-inflammatory-supplements-can-really-fight-disease-according-to/
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Disclaimer
This is not medical advice. Herbalists do not diagnose, treat or cure any disease. The information provided here is for educational purposes only.

Exploring the differences in wiring between a neurodivergent and neurotypical nervous system.
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Your first question may be “What is an interest-based nervous system?” Let me explain.

The world revolves around the idea that humans are motivated by rewards or avoiding punishments. We give kids gold stars for doing good work. We may be given a raise at work for a job well done or get sent to detention if we break the rules.

But for many neurodivergent folks, and those with ADHD in particular, motivation is more likely to come from staying engaged with things that interest us. I mean, to an extent I think everyone is like this–who can’t remember yawning through some boring class in school and having to really push to get themselves to complete the assignments?

But for some neurodivergent folks, it can feel just about impossible to do something that you are totally uninterested in. That can be a real problem, since we all have to do laundry and wash dishes and pay bills, and most of us have some aspect of our jobs that we totally dread and wish we could get out of doing.

As a neurodivergent coach, I sometimes will troubleshoot with my clients about ways they can push through the inertia of a dreaded task–can they save a special musical playlist or podcast to listen to while they are doing the task? Is there a special treat they can save for that time to make it appealing enough?

If you liken the interest-based nervous system to sexual desire, it’s a little easier to comprehend. When a man is not physically attracted to a woman, he’s going to have a very difficult time making love to her. It’s not a matter of willpower, or just trying harder. If the attraction is not there, you can’t force it.

But often, neurotypicals will continue telling neurodivergent folks that they just need to have more willpower, or that they aren’t trying hard enough. And so understanding that it is not fundamentally about willpower can be a real game changer. You cannot change a person’s wiring any more than you can change their sexual orientation.
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If you've found strategies that have helped  with your interest-based nervous system, I'd love to hear about them in the comments below.

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may..."

It's officially rose season! As I drive down Fish Bay road here on Lopez Island, the roses seem to be everywhere on either side of me. Too bad getting them off the side of the road is not an option (assuming you don't want car exhaust on your rose medicine—yuck).

But many of us on the island have roses on our property or know of places we can gather some buds and flowers to make medicine with. Or if you don’t have time for all that, you can do like my niece and just love pop them in your mouth when you pass them by (for wild roses only). They are pretty tasty!

While I normally am not a big fan of wildcrafting due to concerns about sustainability, we have so much Nootka rose on the island that this would be one of the exceptions. If you also live somewhere where there are so many roses around that many find them a nuisance and fear they are taking over everything, then go for it!

Rose is probably best known as medicine for the emotional heart--for grief and emotional protection in particular. Some herbalists will actually harvest just the thorns of roses (and hawthorn--also in the rose family), and make a thorn tincture without any other part of the plant!

In the natural world, the thorns keep larger predators away and allow the smaller creatures to take shelter under the protection of the rose bush. Sometimes humans need to take shelter as well. For those of us with different wiring, especially those on the hypersensitive side, taking on some thorn power could be quite nice on occasion. There are definitely times it would help to have some thorns in this world…rose can be a potent ally in that regard.

But for some, that’s getting a little woo-woo. Let me assure you, however, that wild roses have some very practical applications as well. Like diarrhea! Definitely not woo-woo. Wild rose tincture, made from the flowers and buds, is my number #1 favorite for diarrhea due to it's delicious taste, effectiveness, and how easy it is to make it from the roses growing in my yard.

You do need higher doses of this tincture than you would with most other tinctures--a dose is more like a teaspoon up to a tablespoon, and can be repeated every 30 minutes or so in an acute situation if need be.

But it is quite effective. I once saw someone who had had diarrhea for more than 48 hours in the aftermath of COVID and was about to get medical attention (dehydration can become quite serious at that point). They tried some of my rose tincture and reported that within several minutes 'it was like someone finally turned the faucet off.'

It’s also so, so delicious. Maybe you just want to infuse some vodka for the flavor and make some fabulous cocktails this summer. Knock yourself out!
If you’re new to making tinctures, the internet is full of instructions for how to do so. The more you read on it, the more you will see there are many approaches to tincture making. Who is right? Which one is best? Well, I advise you play around with some of the different methods and see what works best for you.

Click here for a good place to start.
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This post is intended for educational purposes only and to share my personal experiences. Herbalists do not diagnose or treat any disease. 

The world may have gone mad, but violets are here to help...

Early spring can be a bit overwhelming for me. This March, in particular, is feeling more crazy than usual in a more global sense. But the change of the season has always been hard for me. As someone with a hyperactive mind who is also hypersensitive and autistic, I thrive in the quieter, slower pace of winter. It helps mellow me out a bit. 

When spring jumps into the scene, it can quickly feel like too much. Too many smells, too much new stuff, everything suddenly moving so fast and feeling impossible to keep up with. March madness, indeed!

Nettles appear in early spring and it is a narrow window for harvesting, so there is a push to get while the getting is good. I love them, but they are easier for me to love at a distance or in small doses. 

Simply put, too many nettles in the house at once can be overstimulating. Processing the plant after picking it amps me up, sometimes to the point of agitation. I don’t usually have anything scented in the house, and although they smell just fine to me, it can quickly become too much. And I have injured myself on more than one occasion trying to harvest more than my body was ready to harvest (I have EDS so I get injured pretty easily). 

Violets, however, are another matter entirely. They also start to appear in early spring, but there is a much bigger window for harvest, so there isn’t the mad rush to go after them all at once. I have all sorts of violets in my backyard, and am fortunate to have a home that was previously owned by master gardeners who never put any pesticides on anything, so I am able to harvest freely. 

It’s so interesting to me that you pick up so much about a plant from harvesting it. As I said earlier, nettles are quite invigorating, and you don’t have to drink nettle tea to experience that. Simply harvesting and then processing the herb will have that effect on you. To me, violets are the opposite–picking them, washing dirt from the leaves, spreading them out evenly on a tray, all of these steps are quite calming and regulating to me. 

Violet is a nervine, so it is helpful in soothing the nerves, meaning it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that it has a calming effect. I just find it fascinating that you don’t have to consume the plant to experience this.

I enjoy the presence of violets so much that I will pick a small amount every week throughout the spring (it’s also the amount my back can handle before injury), and then spread them out on a huge tray and put them next to my bed to dry. They are my spring companions! I really feel calmed and comforted by their presence throughout our time together. 

Violets  have a very mild, light fragrance that is lovely, and is one of the only flowers that is mild enough that I can keep it indoors with me continuously without it ever becoming too much.

Harvesting slowly and steadily throughout the spring means I end up with enough to get me through the year. That’s particularly important because it has been almost impossible to find violets in commerce in recent years, which is a shame. If I had to live with only one herb, it would probably be violet, and it makes me sad that not everyone has access to it. But it does grow almost everywhere so there may be more access than you think…

So what is so great about violet? Well, for one thing, they are one of those rare moistening herbs. All medications and most plants actually dry you out to varying degrees, which can lead to conditions that range between a bit uncomfortable to downright painful. Severely dry eyes, for example,  are more on the excruciating end (it feels constantly like you have sand in your eyes you can’t get out), and rinsing your eyes in some violet tea with a bit of saline is the most soothing thing ever.

Violet is also a lymphatic herb, meaning it helps move stuck fluids out of the body (like taking out the trash). It is especially good at doing this in the chest area and in the head. So the tincture can be marvelous for certain kinds of headaches, especially because it also lowers inflammation. I particularly like it for sinus headaches combined with ground ivy (where there is stuck fluid and inflammation) and hot, stabby kinds of headaches or for times when too much energy is stuck in your head.

If, on the other hand, you’re having brain fog and have the kind of headaches that coffee helps, violet is not likely for you. I’ve given the tincture to a number of folks and I often get asked later “So…what all was in that?” and people are pretty astonished when I tell them it was only violet. Sometimes one herb is enough to get the job done!

Violet as a long infusion has additional benefits. That’s where you’re really going to see that moistening action–it can get pretty goopy if you let it sit long enough! That can really vary though depending on violet, if it was fresh vs. dried, etc. 

It’s also really high in minerals. You do have to let the infusion sit for at least 4 hours to extract all those minerals (that’s what I mean about a ‘long infusion,’ so sometimes I prepare it the night before and then start drinking it in the morning. People often drink nettles this way as an alternative to a multivitamin, but it’s nice to have an alternative to nettles if people can’t work with nettles for whatever reason.

And then there’s those nervine aspects! I find it very soothing to frazzled nerves. If you don’t have access to it locally, linden would provide a lot of those same moistening and nervine actions. 

Although it can’t usually be bought commercially these days, it does grow all over the place and you might be able to harvest it yourself if you trust the soil quality. One thing I get really irked about though is all these people on the internet posting pictures of all the violet flowers they harvested. You know what? The leaves are every bit as potent as medicine, and once you make a tea or tincture you can’t see the pretty flowers anyhow.

I try to leave as many flowers as possible for the pollinators, who absolutely need them in order to survive. I know the flowers are pretty, but so are butterflies. Spare the flowers and maybe you will be lucky enough to draw some rare butterfly beauties to your little patch. 

If you do not feel comfortable harvesting in your area, you are not out of luck. Violet medicine can still be for you–try sitting with a patch of violets and allow them to calm you the f*ck down. Believe me, they can do it. The world may have gone mad, but the violets are here to help us through it.

DISCLAIMER: This is for educational purposes only. Herbalists do not diagnose or treat any medical condition. 

Musings on why getting aligned with natural rhythms an be especially impactful for us neurodivergent folks.

Recently I overheard a conversation in a waiting room. “Do you know what I read the other day? Apparently there’s this phenomenon in hospitals. For some reason, whenever there’s a full moon there’s an increase in certain kinds of things people come into the hospital for, I don’t remember what exactly….but isn’t that the craziest thing? Isn’t it weird?”

In true neurodivergent fashion I bluntly inserted myself into the conversation. “Births and deaths, for starters,” I said. “More storms too, so probably more accidents. And no, it’s not crazy at all. It’s totally natural. What’s crazy is people never going outside and understanding they are connected to anything. What’s crazy is staring into a little screen all day.”

I was going to continue on, but I managed to reel myself in and not release the full tangent I could feel building inside of me. I was remembering the book High Tide in Tucson, in which author Barbara Kingsolver recounts the story of going to the Bahamas with her kids and bringing back a  bunch of seashells. Upon return to her home in Tucson, she discovered a hermit crab amidst the shells and she decided to build it a terrarium.

She found herself observing the crab from time to time, and noticed it would get very active at certain times and she wondered what that was about. Following a hunch, she looked up the tide tables in the bahamas and discovered the crab was getting active in rhythm with the tides, even thousands of miles away in Arizona. Removing the crab from its environment did not remove the environment from the crab…

Personally I get a little testy about the moon because the full moon means less sleep whether I am tracking the lunar cycle or not. I’m not even into astrology and will often only catch it in retrospect—why did I sleep so poorly last night? Was it a full moon? Oh, that figures. And if it’s a supermoon (when the moon is even closer to the earth than usual), the effects are even more pronounced. I can black out the windows, but something in me is still tracking it, whether I want to or not.

But much as I begrudge the moon, I do not want to sever my connection from it. In fact, I can’t think of a single time in which getting more connected with natural rhythms was detrimental to anyone’s health—emotional or physical. In fact, the opposite. The more disconnected we become, the more likely we are to get out of whack.

Consider melatonin. When you think of melatonin, you probably think of a little pill that people take before bedtime to get a better night’s sleep. Am I right? That’s how melatonin has been marketed, because that’s how others are able to profit off of it.

But the reality is that melatonin is produced naturally in our bodies and is cued by light signals. Consider it a privilege if you can get outside to experience sunlight in the early hours of day and have ways to block blue light after sunset (more on that shortly), because this will cue your body to regulate its production of melatonin, reset your circadian rhythm, and influence the entire hormonal cascade within your body. That’s pretty remarkable!

In a more natural world, we simply would not need melatonin (or anything) in a capsule. But it’s not like the capsule is our only choice now and it’s definitely not our best choice. Granted, this is tougher with some schedules and there are those for whom it is unrealistic.

Unfortunately, if we don’t ever get outside in the earlier hours of the day and if we are saturated with blue light after sunset (which is in the vast majority of lighting these days), those signals get all scrambled and can contribute to a lot of issues with our health and adequate sleep.

Last year I did quite a bit of experimenting with all of this, which broadly goes into something many refer to as ‘light therapy.’ I started off by making it a point to get outside for the sunrise, and walked 15 minutes or so to get to where I could see it (when it wasn’t completely overcast). My husband went with me on this, and we really enjoyed the ritual of it and felt some benefit from it in a matter of days.

The challenge is that the time of sunrise is always changing, albeit slowly, and so some times of the year are going to be more convenient that others. If you have breakfast at a fixed time, does that change due to going out for sunrise? What if you pretty regularly go to the bathroom at a regular time in the morning and suddenly you’re getting the urge to go when you’re out on your walk to see the sun? For someone who can get pretty stuck in their routines, I was both attracted to and frustrated by the dynamic nature of the practice.

Ultimately, I ended up making a bit of an adjustment. I now go out for the sunrise, but just stand in this one spot in my yard for a few minutes to orient myself and remember my place in the world. I’m always in the middle of doing a whole list of other things to get ready for the day and it’s a bit inconvenient to do it, but I never regret it.

I like that it gets me outside of myself, that it puts things in prospective, that it makes me remember that I am one being on this giant planet in a much larger solar system and my all consuming anxieties are just the tiniest speck in the entirety of things. It’s very freeing.

When my schedule allows, I then get back outside again for my morning walk at the UVA rise, which is basically an hour and a half after sunrise. UVA (ultraviolet A light)  comes into play when the sun is around 10 degrees above the horizon, and it affects us down to the molecular level.

Writes Carrie Bennett, MS, “The benefits of morning sunlight extend far beyond mere pain relief and mood enhancement. Exposure to these specific light frequencies has a profound impact on various aspects of our health and wellness. Hormone regulation, energy support, and sleep quality are just a few of the many areas that morning sunlight can positively influence.”

This has really worked for me. I feel more like walking at this time (could it be because I am wired to be most active at this time?), and my own experience with going out at this time has been a marked increase in my overall capacity. I have more energy on the walk itself and then just have more capacity throughout the rest of the day to do ‘all the things’ I need to do. I think that must mean less pain because pain is probably the biggest zapper of energy in my day to day life.

It’s fascinating to me that doing the exact same walk at 9 am vs 2 PM could have this kind of an impact due to the different cues my body is getting from the sun at those times. At the same time though, I’m wondering if this is one of those times being hypersensitive can actually be a blessing rather than a curse. So many of us neurodivergent folks are so sensitive to fluorescent lighting, and we tend to just see that as something annoying we have to live with.

But perhaps we are also the ones who can benefit the most from getting reconnected with natural light? I do know a few people who have said this kind of work is the thing that has made the biggest impact on their health, and that’s not something to take lightly.

​For both my clients who struggle with insomnia as well as my clients who struggle with being alert and focused during the daytime, getting out in the morning light can be an important tool in your toolbox, and it is almost never one that people have experimented with already. Again, in our consumer culture we are much more likely to reach for a pill or an energy drink first. I think there is a lot of potential here (and it’s free!)

When it comes to blocking blue light after sundown though, I have not yet found a way to do it without buying a few things. I mean, if you have a little cabin without electricity you can hole away in every night, go for it, and be careful with those candles, but that is not my situation.

It does seem to be getting more common for folks to have adjusted the settings on their phones and laptops for night time, and that is a great start, but in an ideal world we would not be seeing any blue light after sun down. You can make yourself go absolutely nuts trying to cut it all out though, since every little electronic, your smoke detector, your air purifier, etc. are going to have little lights on them.

I’ve also been encouraged with there being less of a stigma around wearing tinted glasses. I recently had a consultation with someone online who was in a timezone three hours later than my own, and the clinician showed up on Zoom with what appeared to be sun glasses. She told me they were blue light blocking glasses (more on these below) and that they were enabling her to do these later evening sessions without it keeping her up all night. So rather than being embarrassed about it, it became a moment to model self care to her clients. I really like that.

In the past I only focused on cutting out blue light at bedtime to calm down my nervous system, and it always really jumped out at me when I am staying in an AIRBNB. So many lights everywhere! I would try to remember to pack little things to cover them all up with but it seemed like there was always one I couldn’t get to for one reason or another. Sleep mask to the rescue!

But this last year I decided to try out those glasses that completely block blue light, like the ones my clinician was wearing on Zoom. A colleague of mine suggested putting them on as soon as the sun sets. You can buy a cheap pair to try them out first before investing in something nicer--just make sure they actually block light in the 450-510nm range (many don't). It kind of makes everything look like it’s in candlelight, and it takes a little getting used to.

My eyes like the feel and it instantly relaxes them, but initially wearing them just made me so ultra aware of how artificial our human world is and how that artificial world has saturated everything around us. Wearing the glasses made that awareness so strong in me the first few days, and was rather disconcerting, but I did end up getting used to it. Unfortunately you can’t wear them while driving, which is a bummer since really bright headlights at night drive me bonkers.

And that reminds me of my second great find—a blue light blocking book light.
I originally got this for power outages. You can just clip it right on to you so your hands are free of a flashlight or lantern. But even better, the orange glow is not harsh at all the way a flashlight is. In the past, power outages always led to migraines due to that harsh lighting, all the more piercing against the surrounding darkness. Total score!

But then I discovered that I could also clip it to my bedside table and use it if I have to get up in the middle of the night too. I am one of those people that inevitably knocks something off the bedside table in my attempts to find the bedside lamp, so having the clip-on light right next to me eliminates that particular problem.

I am very early on still in my explorations with light therapy, but it feels like a very important piece of a larger goal I have to rewild my body and reclaim my health and wellbeing. To tap back into natural rhythms and realign myself with them, to remember that I am a human animal and not merely a consumer whose primary role it is to keep buying things that will throw me even more off balance as a strategy to keep me needing to buy ever more things. It’s slow work, but it brings me alive. I’m ready to see where the path goes next.

Special thanks to my friend and colleague Heather MacMillan, a fellow neurodivergent herbalist, for encouraging me to go deeper in my exploration with light therapy. Her commitment to these practices continues to inspire me, and I am so appreciative of her support.

A look at why a one-size-fits-all approach to herbs is problematic and how to think about it instead.

What’s the best herb for allergies? Is there anything that will help my stomach ache?  What herb do I take for migraines?

I get questions like this frequently, and I know everyone just wants to hear the name of the magic herb so they can buy it, take it, and be fine.

But herbs are complex and people are complex, so more often than not it's just not that simple. The bright side to this complexity is that getting to know both the person and the herbs better is much more likely to lead to lasting improvements in your health—really getting down to root causes instead of just putting bandaids on everything indefinitely—and without the negative side effects we have just come to accept as collateral damage when we take pharmaceuticals.
Let me use myself as an example of how that can play out.

Throughout my 30’s I had severe allergies that really limited me. There were months of the year I tried to avoid going outside altogether. I wore a mask when I did have to be outdoors in peak grass season (and this was before the pandemic), and I rarely went over to anyone’s house unless I knew it was not dusty and was well ventilated because it could take me days to recover from the sinus migraines that ensued if I had a bad reaction.

I worked with a number of folks in the healing arts during these years, and I can’t tell you how many times people told me that nettles are good for allergies. So of course I tried them, and they did seem to help slightly, but my overall health never improved at all.

Fast forward to my 40’s when I began studying herbs formally and learned about this idea of ‘herbal energetics.’ It’s kind if a misleading phrase (or at least it sounds a little woo woo to me when it’s not). It’s about the characteristics of each herb—whether it’s moistening or drying, heating or cooling—that sort of thing.

Everything we eat and the drugs we take also have these qualities. Medications, almost always, are drying, and some more than others. The majority of herbs also land on the drying side, although thankfully there are numerous ‘demulcent’ herbs as well that hydrate and moisten.

A light bulb finally went off for me. I realized that taking all of my allergy meds since childhood, as well as some drying herbs for allergies, had totally dried out my mucous membranes over the years. Mucous membranes are your body's barriers that trap and expel irritants—if they’re not well lubricated, more irritants get in and stay trapped there. So the things that may have been initially helpful created a different problem over time that led to my allergies getting even more severe than they were in childhood.

The idea of demulcent (moistening) herbs appealed to me immediately because I also had been dealing with extremely dry eyes for a number of years (which feels like you constantly have sand in your eyes that you can’t get out). It dawned on me that this was not a separate issue from my allergies—systemic dryness throughout my body was wreaking havoc!

Now, that being said, nettles are highly anti-inflammatory and especially shine with allergic/histamine response. So I’m not saying nettles aren't good for allergies. But they are pretty drying. So unless you are a super damp person with too much mucus, you are going to need to balance that out with lubricating herbs  like violet and marshmallow root. 

Once I figured that out, I was able to vastly improve both my dry eyes and my allergies, and was able to participate in so many more activities than I had in the handful of years leading up to that time. I also saved tons of money on expensive medications and procedures and stressful appointments with specialists.

But that wasn’t the end of it! Due to some GI issues, I had had an endoscopy done in the midst of all this and found out I had a precancerous issue in my esophagus. As that is not something that the conventional medical world thinks of as improving on its own, they wanted me to come back for another endoscopy later that year to see how it had progressed. But as it turned out, the demulcent herbs I had been taking for my allergies and dry eyes ended up being just what my esophagus needed as well. The second endoscopy revealed no damage of any kind in my esophagus at that point. Pretty fabulous!

Now let’s look at migraines. Part of why migraines are so tough is that they are caused by so many different things, and herbal energetics play a role here as well. For example, if you have a sharp, stabbing pain like an ice pick stabbing you behind the eyes, that is completely different than a broad, dull pain that has taken over your entire head and leaves you foggy and unable to think straight.

Boswellia is a trendy herb right now that is advertised as being a potent anti-inflammatory. So you might think “Hey, what if I tried that instead of some ibuprofen?” But if you have the hot, stabby kind of pain, boswellia could actually give you whatever is worse than a migraine because it’s going to amplify the characteristics that you are already showing in excess. Let’s not even imagine it.
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Turmeric is another trendy anti-inflammatory, but most people don’t know that its actions are directed primarily in the gut. Usually that’s fine as the origin of so many people’s pain (whether we’re talking headaches, joint pain, etc) is stemming from what they’re eating.  So it follows that bringing down inflammation in the gut can keep that pain from spiraling to other parts of your body. But turmeric is also hot and drying, so if you’re dealing with osteo arthritis, those effects can actually exacerbate those excesses in your body.

With osteo, we also need those cooling, lubricating herbs (like Solomon’s Seal!) to soothe and restore joint function (Hey! There’s me again! Another hot and dry condition I have that benefits from lubricating herbs). That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t get any benefit from the anti-inflammatory benefits of turmeric, but over time you could be intensifying your body’s state of being hot (inflamed) and dry (those clicking sounds you get with osteo are indicative of dryness).

One more example. Who among us has not heard about how amazing echinacea and elderberry are for fighting off viruses? Take it as soon as you start coming down with something! Fight back!

For many people, they can be  helpful (although you really have to know how much to take and how often to take it to get good results), but if your body has any characteristics of autoimmunity you could be making things much worse by taking a strong immune stimulant.

Even if you think you don’t have an autoimmune disease, I highly advise trying out those herbs first at a time when you are not sick, and take a large amount (like a teaspoon of tincture as an initial test) and see how you do. Does anything flare up?

You can still have an autoimmune response even if you have not been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease (and it may be worth considering if things are heading in that direction fro you if you react badly to strong immune stimulants). If you do have a bad reaction, it’s a much better bet to stick with immunomodulating herbs instead (like shiitake, reishi and maitake mushrooms).

This all may sound a bit daunting, but there is another side of it that is quite liberating. With holistic herbalism, we don’t have to have a diagnosis to be helpful. Got a mystery condition? No problem! We can still support you because your symptoms are what matter, not your diagnosis. Whether you actually have a diagnosis of autism or not, or whether we know the name of that weird, creepy rash on your arm is pretty irrelevant. We work with what we see.

So instead of asking “What’s the best herb for sleep?” or “What are the best herbs for stress?” ask instead what herb you could be working with to fit your current needs. Is the insomnia caused by muscle tension, body aches or racing thoughts? Does stress make you lose your appetite or go on sugar binges? Does it it make you snap at everyone around you or hide out curled up on your bed ignoring the world? If you want to find the right herb to work with, we have to get at the heart at what your current experience is and how it is affecting you.

Now I wish I could say that it’s just a matter of doing your due diligence and patiently looking everything up on Google. But especially these days, the internet is becoming increasingly unreliable for good info on herbs. Did you hear about that family that went mushroom foraging based on a book written by AI and then got poisoned and died? Well I heard that story and the thing is, I don’t even know if that story is true. That's how convoluted everything has become…

So, if you are fortunate enough to be able to consult with a qualified herbalist, I highly recommend it. If you take any kind of medications, make sure you are working with someone thoroughly trained in herb-drug interactions. It really matters.
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If you can’t afford to go that route, check out the free and low cost courses offered by CommonWealth Herbs. Their $25 classes will be the best $25 you ever spent (if improving your health is what you’re after). They also offer free clinics once a month (although you really have to be on top of it if you want to snag a slot), and offer various scholarships to people of color and folks who are incarcerated.

With either route, you do have to put the time in. You have to get to know your pain, your symptoms and your unique challenges so that you can support them appropriately. It may not always be fast or convenient, but for me at least, it was totally life changing. When you’re ready for those kinds of changes, the herbs will be ready for you.

DISCLAIMER: This is not medical advise and is for educational purposes only. Herbalists do not diagnose or treat any medical condition.

https://www.menopausenaturalsolutions.com/blog/female-hormone-lifecycle

This is one of those times when a picture says it all…am I right?! Those intense squiggly lines dropping off into oblivion that correspond with a woman’s life during perimenopause is a good reminder of how much is going on under the surface at this time in life. Major upheaval! And major upheaval means less bandwidth. We maybe have not even realized we were masking all those years until we hit our 40’s and suddenly…well, suddenly everything feels amplified and some things are gonna have to give.

But this isn’t just for middle aged women. Times are stressful, am I right? While there has always been global injustice and too much pain and suffering in the world, we now have taken things up a few notches. The increasing frequency of climate disasters, for one thing. We are living on a different planet than the one we were born on, and it will continue to change faster than our infrastructure can keep up with.

And even without a ‘disaster’ things are just getting more intense. Can someone really say their allergies are getting worse when the pollen seasons are much longer and more severe than they used to be? How do you know if it’s you getting worse or the pollen going gangbusters?

Add to that the technology that dominates so much of our lives that is so out of sync with our natural rhythms. The algorithms that are getting better and better at manipulating us to maximize profits for a handful of tech giants. Give me a break already.

When I was a kid, school was consistent and orderly and (ok, really boring) but it was actually not a hard thing to know what was expected of me and just get through it without any major ordeals. It was unimaginable that school could just stop for a year or more like it did when COVID hit or that we would have the constant, chaotic distractions of technology and its glitchy software and the constantly shifting curriculum and staff turnover and everything that is in the schools today.

My autism went under the radar in the environment I grew up in, and not just because I was female (I do know some women in my age group that were diagnosed as kids, although not many). It went under the radar because for the most part, the consistent, predictable routine of school did not trigger me. Sure, I had issues and they would wear on me more and more over time, but it was a much better environment for me than today’s schools are. Same kid, same neurotype all along, but it looks different depending on the environment it is in. This is not an easy moment in history to be hypersensitive!

The last point I want to make here is about our neurodivergent elders. Certain neurodivergent traits are also traits that can show up more in seniors generally—things like forgetfulness, having less of a filter and just saying whatever you want, or getting more rigid in certain ways.

If an ADHD person has always been forgetful and late to everything, and this gets worse in their later years, I would argue that that can just be a natural part of aging and does not in any way convince me that their ADHD is getting worse.

Now the rigidity (typically more of an autistic trait) is a little bit different. Neurologically speaking, anything we do over and over becomes like a groove in our wiring that gets more and more entrenched over time. The more often you repeat something, the more it gets reinforced and the harder it becomes to change it. So if you had an autistic person who was very rigid in their habits, and they had some tendency that they were leaning into every day for decades on end (let’s say not feeling the need to pick up the phone when it rings), then I think an argument could be made that their wiring did in fact get more pronounced over time. But that is more about neuroplasticity than anything else. Anyhow…I think I may be getting a bit nitpicky with this example, so why don’t I end this paragraph before I disappear into the weeds…

The point is that some of the natural effects of aging can indeed appear to intensify some aspects of neurodivergence, and make them more obvious. But in reality, we are all impacted by our environment and all the natural fluctuations of life, and that is in turn going to impact our functional capacity at any given moment. While this can make it look like we are more or less autistic or ADHD when we are more or less overwhelmed, the reality is that we have the wiring that we have, and we have it for life. What really matters is that we recognize what kind of support we or someone we love needs at all those various points in their life and meet them where they are at.

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