Some herbs are so common place, found in most kitchen cupboards; it is easy to forget they’re medicine. One such herb is chamomile (Matricaria recutita).
A strong cup of chamomile tea will solve many problems.
Chamomile is a sunshine flower. Its bright yellow face loves to bathe in the light of the sun all day long. It blooms in a pot on my deck all summer long. Neither my garden nor apothecary would be complete without it.
A chamomile tea with strong medicinal properties will smell like liquid golden honey. Take a look at the plant the tea has been made with. If the white petals and yellow centres of the flower are easy to see, the tea is probably a good one.
A cup of chamomile will slightly thicken the water it is made with. The tea itself has a bittersweet flavour. If the chamomile in the kitchen cupboard does not have any of these properties, it is not medicine.
A plant’s medicine can be determined by its smell, taste and look.
Let’s look at this lovely flower’s medicine.
One of my herbalist friends told this story. A woman in her ’70s suffering with heart burn was referred to her by a friend who had been taking herbal medicine for several months.
The challenge was the woman brought her husband who had no faith in herbal medicine and interrogated my friend. My friend, knowing a complex herbal protocol would be scorned by the woman’s husband, simply offered the woman chamomile tea. My friend did not see the woman again.
She did, however, run into the husband six months later in the grocery store. He greeted her with enthusiasm, “It worked,” he shook her hand congratulating her. “It was so simple and it worked!”
It wasn’t until she was driving home that my figured out what the man had been talking about. The chamomile tea had resolved the heart burn, of course.
One day a woman came to see me who was suffering with severe hot flashes. As she worked very closely with people, the flashes were impeding on her ability to help others.
Not to mention she was loosing hours of sleep each night. Everyday in clinic, I make a tea which I offer to everyone who comes in. On that day, I had made chamomile. The woman and I sipped chamomile tea and chatted for about an hour, when she said, “I have not had a hot flash for over 45 minutes!” So I gave her chamomile tea for her hot flashes.
Three weeks later, chamomile tea was controlling the hot flashes throughout the day but they were still disturbing her sleep. Several times a night, she was waking soaking wet and in the kitchen she gulped down ice water to cool her thirst.
I suggested she make a thermos of chamomile tea before bed, and sip it when she got up in the night. A week later the hot flashes, day and night, were few and far between.
Then there are the whiny babies who suddenly learn how to self soothe when given warm chamomile tea. (I am referring to whining babies of all ages here!)
In herbal medicine, as in homeopathy, there are specific characteristics in a client that herbalists watch for in order to choose the best herb. My friend from New Zealand calls the classic chamomile whine “a storm in a tea cup”. He is very laid back. He drinks lots of chamomile tea. He says, “Chamomile sweetens the soul”.
In all fairness, chamomile is also for those moments in a baby’s life when the storm is bigger than a tea cup, like teething, ear aches, mild intermittent fevers and the terrible twos.
Finally, there are the insomniacs which find relief with a cup a chamomile tea before bed. It is particularly effective if waking at 3 a.m. and not falling asleep again until after 4 a.m. In traditional Chinese medicine, this is the time when the liver is most active.
If the liver is hot and over worked, sleep is interrupted.
A cup of chamomile will cool down the liver and sleep will be deep and peaceful. It maybe necessary to drink a few cups of tea a day for a week or so before sleep is consistent throughout the night.
Herbs for Life is written by Abrah Arneson, a local clinical herbalist. It is intended for information purposes only. Readers with a specific medical problem should consult a doctor. For more information, visit www.abraherbalist.ca. Arneson can be reached at abrah@shaw.ca