HERBS: VALERIAN
Valeriana officinalis VERBENACEAE
An unassuming,, small herb, valerian gives very little outward evidence of the value it has always had in herbal therapy. You might pass it by altogether and not comment on its tufts of droopy light-green leaves. Even the flower stems are not really attractive, looking anaemic and skinny, with a pale head of creamy pink tiny blooms in the late spring.
The herb has been known and used for thousands of years. Sedative plants are rare amongst common herbs, and if your diet is right and you live as naturally as possible, if you are happy in your work or in the home and life is not too frustrating, you should never need a sleeping draught made from valerian root. However, illness involving severe pain, an accident, or any crisis that keeps you worried or tense so that sleep will not come night after night: all these depleting circumstances can find you in dire need of a safe, natural sedative like valerian.
Valerian grows on banks and near stone if possible, and Chaucer called one variety “Setewale”, wryly commenting on its rather unpleasant odour and taste. Nature has put out her warning signals here, so don’t use this herb lightly. Unlike sleeping pills and many synthetic drugs, valerian will cause neither addiction nor side effects, and it does not have narcotic properties. There is no immediate effect—you do not fall asleep five minutes after the first dose; it has a slower far-reaching action, promoting healthy nerves that do not feel the slings and arrows so much. Once again, natural medicine reaches not only the symptoms but the cause of the bodily discomfort, the jangled nerve centres sending frantic, anxious signals instead of calm relaxed ones.
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