By Elizabeth Barclay
The specificity of care these days is incredible. Every organ, bone, joint, tendon, and blood vessel has a specialist associated with it, and that specialist can prescribe you unique pharmaceuticals that target your specific issue down to the genetic level. However, in this epic progression of medical sciences, it seems that something has been lost. The overall picture of an individual’s health has been put aside to treat the specific cause of whatever is troubling them. For instance, if a patient has eczema, a specialist for eczema might treat them with a specific topical cream because the issue is on the skin, rather than advising the client to try a change in diet or a liver detox to clear the toxins from their body that are causing the eczema in the first place. This is where traditional practitioners — “natural”, “holistic”, etc., practitioners — come in. They take a step back and approach the body from a bottom-up perspective: addressing the root cause of the issue and working from there to eventually eliminate the presenting symptoms. This is often done through vitamin or mineral supplementation, exercise, diet change, and all manner of other interventions, but one of the most traditional and ancient ways to address a chronic issue and restore the body to health is with herbs. Herbal medicine has been used since antiquity to alleviate pain, illness, fatigue, and everything in between. There’re three herbs in particular that have incredible restorative effects on the muscular, immune, and nervous systems, respectively, that everyone should have in their medicine cabinet: calendula, astragalus root, and milky oats.
There’s an old, herbal saying that goes, “where there is calendula, there is no need of a surgeon”, and I have found this to be almost literally true. Calendula is an incredible herb that has been used across many cultures to repair tissue throughout the body. In studies, calendula extracts have shown to decrease inflammation, speed up healing times, and promote the growth of healthy connective tissue, with no side effects. It sounds pretty great, but if you actually use calendula to help you heal, you’ll realize this herb does not play around. It’s remarkably gentle, but wickedly powerful. I’ve personally had wounds clear up in a matter of hours after application of the salve, and in the late 1800s compresses of calendula were used to heal bullet wounds! Hopefully you’ll never need calendula for something as serious as that, but it can be used topically on burns, cuts, scrapes, bites, stings, blisters, or anything else. Internally, it can be used to expedite any healing you need, but it’s particularly good for healing stomach ulcers or any sort of damage along the GI, and it’s also wonderful to drink after a surgery to encourage healing. I throw calendula into any tea that I’m hoping will heal a physical issue. When it comes to illnesses, calendula can also be incorporated to help repair any internal damage after-the-fact, but there’s a much better herb for immune restoration: astragalus root.
Astragalus root has been famous in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years, but it’s now becoming more popular in the west for its effects on cancer and the immune system. When the winter flu starts going around, many people will reach for echinacea root — as well they should! — but if they had been drinking astragalus root tea during those winter months, their immune system would’ve been like an impenetrable Russian fortress. Astragalus root has some incredibly polysaccharides that increase the effectiveness of many cells across the immune system — from strengthening natural killer cells to increasing interferon production. Astragalus root shouldn’t be taken during an active bout of illness; it would be like having a military drill during the middle of battle. It should be taken as a tea to build and strengthen the immune system before and after an illness — though if you’re taking it before an illness, you might not come down with any illness at all! Astragalus root works mightily for the immune system, but it’s also mild enough that it can be taken regularly for health. There’re many herbs that are both mighty and mild remedies for restoration. When thinking about the nervous system, milky oats is the second to none.
Made from the milky sap of oat straw tops, milky oats can really only be found as a tincture (unless you just drink it straight from the plant). It’s absolutely bursting with vitamins and minerals such as calcium, B-vitamins, silica, magnesium, and more, all of which contribute to its incredible ability to calm and restore a fatigued nervous system. Milky oats is considered a “trophorestorative” for the nervous system, because it has profound effects on the structure and function of the nervous system, powerfully rejuvenating the mind over time. A study in 2020 found that “chronic supplementation [of milky oats] can benefit cognitive function and modulate the physiological response to a stressor”. This is most likely due to its high vitamin and mineral content, and its moistening qualities. Milky oats provides the mind with a veritable bath of nutrients, allowing the entire nervous system to relax and rebuild from a state of anxious fatigue, nervous exhaustion, ADHD, addiction, or related disturbances to mental health. It’s a beautiful remedy for those who feel mentally exhausted from burnout, especially burnout in conjunction with stress.
There will always be need of doctors and specialists who can engage with a condition in a highly tailored way that herbal simples might not be able to account for, but when it comes to restoring the balance and harmony of the body, herbs are one of our most vital medicinal partners. Calendula, astragalus root, and milky oats are only scratching the surface of the profound world of herbs that are wonderfully healing to the body.
I encourage you to explore the possibility of herbal medicine in your life, and if you find yourself drawn in deeper and deeper, come to my “Remedies for Restoration” class this February at The Colorado School for Clinical Herbalism, and learn more about herbal remedies for deep, long-lasting restoration for the muscular, immune, and nervous systems.
Sources:
1. Givol, O., Kornhaber, R., Visentin, D., Cleary, M., Haik, J., & Harats, M. (2019). A systematic review of Calendula officinalis extract for wound healing. Wound repair and regeneration : official publication of the Wound Healing Society [and] the European Tissue Repair Society, 27(5), 548–561. https://doi.org/10.1111/wrr.12737
2. Ejiohuo, O., Folami, S., & Maigoro, A. Y. (2024). Calendula in modern medicine:
Advancements in wound healing and drug delivery applications. European Journal of
Medicinal Chemistry Reports, 12, 100199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejmcr.2024.100199
3. Calendula – Herbal Reality
4. Kennedy, D. O., Bonnländer, B., Lang, S. C., Pischel, I., Forster, J., Khan, J., Jackson, P. A., & Wightman, E. L. (2020). Acute and Chronic Effects of Green Oat (Avena sativa) Extract on Cognitive Function and Mood during a Laboratory Stressor in Healthy Adults: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study in Healthy Humans. Nutrients, 12(6), 1598. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12061598
5. Milky Oat | Nourishment for the Nerves – RavenSong Herbals
6. Astragalus – Herbal Reality
7. Bone, K. and Mills, S. (2013). Principles and practice of phytotherapy modern herbal medicine. 2nd ed. Edinburgh Churchill Livingstone, Elsevier.