Should You avoid Cold/Dry Herbs If You Are Cold/Dry? 

Question About Cold/Dry Herbs

I have listened to both your free energetics course a couple of times and have read through the workbooks, but there is still something that confuses me greatly. Picking the right herb.  

If my constitution tends to be cool and dry, then I shouldn't use cooling herbs like Nettles or Peppermint, even though I love the taste of nettles and peppermint? I'm afraid this is where I get stymied.  

Signed,
a nettle lover

Answer

Dear Nettle Lover, 

If your constitution tends to be cool and dry, you may find that nettle exacerbates your coldness and dryness. What that would mean is that after drinking nettle for awhile you might feel like you skin or hair is feeling especially dry. Some people get headaches. You might find that you feel colder more of the time. 

Does that mean you can’t have nettle? Definitely not! 

Here are a couple of considerations. The first is to pay attention to how YOU feel. Is nettle making you feel colder and dryer? If not, great! 

If it is making you feel colder/dry, then you can still enjoy it by adding other herbs to offset those properties. You could add a bit of marshmallow root to moisten things up, or a pinch of ginger to warm things up. Try that and see how it goes. 

Another consideration is that when we take herbs they aren’t in a vacuum. The foods we eat and the herbs we take day in and day out all intertwine with each other. So when we are learning energetics it’s easy to focus on the macro or the individual details. But as we learn those we need to take a step back and see the big picture too. Do you eat mostly warming and moistening foods/herbs? If so, perhaps some nettles won’t really cause a blip on your radar. 

The most important thing is to experiment with herbs and pay attention to how you feel. 

All the best, 

Rosalee

Rosalee is an herbalist and author of the bestselling book Alchemy of Herbs: Transform Everyday Ingredients Into Foods & Remedies That Healand co-author of the bestselling book Wild Remedies: How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine. She's a registered herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and has taught thousands of students through her online courses. Read about how Rosalee went from having a terminal illness to being a bestselling author in her full story here.