Natural Remedies for Sleep with Tammi Sweet

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We all know how important sleep is. Our bodies and minds simply can’t be at their best without sufficient sleep. When we’re ill, sleep is foundational to healing. And yet, so many of us aren’t getting anywhere near the amount of sleep we need. 

So I’m truly excited to have Tammi Sweet on the show to discuss natural remedies for sleep, as well as her brand new class on getting a good night’s sleep. (Don’t miss downloading your beautifully illustrated recipe card for Tammi’s Sleepy Time Tincture recipe!)

►►►Whether you want to improve your sleep or you’re working with clients who need more or better sleep, I definitely recommend checking out Tammi’s course, The Sleep Alchemist: https://bit.ly/48u6ttV
(Disclosure: This is an affiliate link. By using it, you help support this channel. Thanks!)

By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

► Why herbs are only part of the answer to a good night’s sleep

► Five factors to address when you need support getting enough sleep

► Tammi’s favorite natural remedies for sleep

► When cannabis makes sense as part of a sleep protocol

► and so much more…

For those of you who don’t already know her, Tammi Sweet loves to teach. It’s her superpower. She has a magical ability to connect with almost anyone when teaching and help them understand complex material.

For over 30 years, Tammi has shared her gift of teaching with varying levels of students throughout the country. Her background in physiology makes her an invaluable resource to developing herbalists and health seekers alike, who want to deepen their foundation as practitioners.

In addition to her physiology expertise, Tammi is also a practitioner and teacher of herbal medicine. She is deeply influenced by her studies with accomplished herbalists, including Rosemary Gladstar, Pam Montgomery, and Tom Brown, Jr.

Tammi and her wife, Kris Miller, run their Herbal Apprenticeship at Heartstone Center. Tammi also offers online courses that integrate physiology and plant medicine.

She teaches extensively about growing & medicine making with Cannabis. She has published two books: The Wholistic Healing Guide to Cannabis and The Beginner’s Guide to Growing Cannabis.

I’m thrilled to share our conversation with you today!

-- TIMESTAMPS -- for natural remedies for sleep

• 01:17 - Introduction to Tammi Sweet
• 03:33 - How Tammi found her plant path
• 06:35 - Why Tammi developed a class about sleep
• 13:29 - Tammi’s favorite natural remedies for sleep
• 19:56 - What about cannabis for sleep?
• 22:07 - Sleepy Time Tincture
• 26:20 - The Sleep Alchemist: Transforming Nights through Traditional and Modern Wisdom
• 32:23 - The Queen of Memes
• 33:44 - Tammi’s herbal teachers
• 36:59 - How herbs have surprised Tammi
• 41:05 - Herbal tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

Good all-around formula to address monkey brain that won't quiet down or muscle tension. These herbs increase the inhibitory neurotransmitter, GABA, which quiets the nervous system.

Ingredients:

15 grams each, cut and dried:

• Skullcap
• Valerian root
• Hops
• Kava
• 300 ml vodka

Directions:

1. Place the herbs in a glass canning jar.
   
   
2. Pour the vodka into the jar. Tightly cover the jar and label it.
   
   
3. Store the jar in a cool, dark place for 6 weeks. Shake daily for the first week, then every few days after that. If the dried plant material absorbs some of the alcohol, add just enough vodka to keep the herbs covered. Avoid adding too much as that will dilute your tincture.
   
   
4. Strain the tincture. Squeeze the plant material well to extract as much liquid as you can.
   
   
5. Use a funnel to pour the tincture into clean dropper bottles. Label. Store in a cool, dark place.

Connect with Tammi

• Website | heart-stone.com
• Instagram | @_tammisweet
• Facebook | @heartstonecenter

Transcript of the 'Natural Remedies for Sleep with Tammi Sweet' Video

Rosalee de la Forêt:
Hello and welcome to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, a show exploring how herbs heal as
medicine, as food and through nature connection. I’m your host, Rosalee de la Forêt. I created
this Channel to share trusted herbal wisdom so that you can get the best results when
relying on herbs for your health. I love offering up practical knowledge to help you dive deeper
into the world of medicinal plants and seasonal living.

Each episode of the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast is shared on YouTube, as well as your favorite
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Okay, grab your cup of tea and let’s dive in.

This episode was so much fun for me because I got to sit down with someone who I’ve taken many classes from online but have never met in person. Tammi Sweet loves to teach. In fact, it’s her super power. I love taking classes with her so much that I invited her to be a guest instructor in my own Cooling Inflammation class. I’m excited to have her on the show now to discuss natural remedies for sleep, as well as her brand new class on getting a good night’s sleep. You can find more information about her class and sign up for it using this link.

For those of you who don’t already know her already, for over 30 years, Tammi has shared her gift of teaching with varying levels of students throughout the country. Her background in physiology makes her an invaluable resource to developing herbalists and health seekers alike who want to deepen their foundation as practitioners.

In addition to her physiology expertise, Tammi is also a practitioner and teacher of herbal medicine. Tammi and her wife, Kris Miller, run their herbal apprenticeship at Heartstone Center. Tammi also offers online courses that integrate physiology and plant medicine. She also teaches extensively about growing and medicine making with cannabis. She has published two books – The Wholistic Healing Guide to Cannabis, and the Beginner’s Guide to Growing Cannabis.

Welcome to Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, Tammi!

Tammi Sweet:

Yay!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m so excited to have you here. It’s kind of a strange thing because I consider you one of my teachers because I have taken many classes from you, but I haven’t really interacted with you until recently when you were the guest instructor for Cooling Inflammation, and now this. That’s the interesting thing about online learning. I spent many hours in the classroom with you little to your knowledge, so it’s fun to be able to spend some time with you.

Tammi Sweet:

Exactly. I always say to people I’m much bigger than this, the little picture of me walking around. Also, when you talk to me live, you can’t pause me.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Noted, noted. Something that I hear a lot from people is that they know my voice so well and that’s how I feel talking to you too. I just know your voice so well. Tammi, I always love to start with how you found yourself on the plant path. It’s always interesting to hear all the different weavings that has led you here to us today.

Tammi Sweet:

For me, my mom growing up—I’m a Gen X-er, and growing up, my mom’s answer to everything was go outside and play. So, whatever we were doing, the  house that I grew up in when I was seven—no, six, we moved there and every year, my boundaries—my mom would walk out into the woods with me and say, “This is how far you can go this year.” I spent so much time playing with all my friends out in the woods. When it was light out until when it was dark, I was outside playing. I would say that my first friend was this hemlock tree across the railroad tracks in a part of the woods I wasn’t supposed to be in. There was this huge old growth hemlock trees that just felt so comforting. It was really awesome to learn, my baby brother who is five years younger, that was one of his favorite places growing up too.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh really, special place, yeah.

Tammi Sweet:

That was just being outside, and then herbalwise, I would say—I worked for Outward Bound so I would teach things there, but then someone told me about the New England Women’s Herbal Conference. I went in the late ‘90s to Sargent Camp. Even though I felt like a tree among the flowers with my basketball shorts and my short hair, I really felt like I found my people. Then I studied with Rosemary and there it is.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that. I just talked to another guest too that also found her way—it was Mimi Hernandez. This might be a spoiler. I’m not sure when she’s coming out with her episode. She also went to an American Herbalists Guild symposium and that was her first, “Oh, I found my people!” Really, just to hear those back to back makes me think about how important these in-person gatherings are and how they can just be so transformative, to go there and find people who are interested in what you’re interested in and find like-minded people. I’m so glad that they are up and running again. 

Tammi Sweet:

Awesome!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

You are—normally, people come on and they talk about a particular plant. We’re doing something a little bit different with you, Tammi, which is I always love to just switch it up a little bit. You’re going to talk to us about sleep, sleepy time herbs. This is something that I’m excited to hear about from you. You also have a new class coming up, which I’m personally excited about as one of your students. I’m excited to dive into it. I guess we could start with when you have so much experience or so many things you can have taught on, can teach on, why sleep?

Tammi Sweet:

I tend to follow what excites me and what I’m interested in. Looking back, I can see there’s the pathway. One of the first things that I taught the big concept of was inflammation. For me, it was about—I think one of the first article blogs I wrote was if I read one more article about turmeric, my head is going to explode. You can’t expect one herb to counteract bad behavior of a whole entire lifestyle. That was the beginning of just trying to think about crafting how I am, as a teacher—which is let’s look at the big picture and unpack it by what makes sense of millions of years of evolution—what are we actually in denial about or fighting about, and understanding this big concept so that we can then apply our infinite creative wisdom. 

I did pain. I did inflammation and then I took on cannabis 10 or 11 years ago because I wanted herbalists to have this plant in their apothecary. I actually didn’t want it in the hands of people that only knew one herb.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Something I deeply appreciate from your perspective in regards to cannabis.

Tammi Sweet:

And I consider cannabis a gateway herb to herbalism. It’s like, “Okay, we’ll bring you in through this one plant.” The top three reasons people come to me to work with cannabis is anxiety, pain and sleep. I’m always like, “Have you tried these other herbs?” Cannabis is not my go-to for sleep, so that’s where wanting to know a lot more about sleep than I knew so that I could help people and help other herbalists think about how to help their clients. Patients. Clients. No, we’re using “clients.”

For about five years, I’ve been like, “I’m going to do a sleep class,” and then what I did is I got asked to teach at the international. I wrote up a blurb for sleep which would make me have to research it and teach it. That was my process. As I started to dive into the literature about it, it was like I should have been teaching this ten years ago because the foundation of everything is sleep. It’s not sexy. It’s not you could get away with just doing lifestyle changes. I don’t have to have you buy a pill or my gummies or whatever. It’s like, “Here are some really unsexy things to do to help sleep.” As I said to you before, in the blender of formulating this class, I’m trying to find what’s my voice. What’s the unique thing I’m going to bring to that I got too? Even though that two out of three adults in this country have sleep issues, there’s actually not a sleep problem. It’s a denial. A two-part thing, one is, we’re in denial and we need to grow up. I’m getting older-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Denial that we even need sleep? Is that what you mean? Denial that we need sleep?

Tammi Sweet:

Exactly. Denial that sleep is one of the four biological drives with 3.4 million years of evolutionary proof that we need it. The other piece of denial is that we’re in a 100-ish year experiment with electric lights that’s actually not going well.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Kind of getting worse too. It’s getting worse.

Tammi Sweet:

It’s getting worse and we’re getting to see this is because of technology. The part that is asking us to grow up is to do something about it because your little passion flower is not going to counteract the fact that you’re on your flat screen until 10:00 or 11:00 at night. They’re powerful but they’re not that strong. That, for me, is fun to challenge people’s perceptions and to encourage them to be like, “Time to grow up.” So, there’s the beginning.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s something when I think of you as a teacher, Tammi, is that you always do have this very holistic approach that is not in any way cookie cutter. You’re looking at things from a physiological perspective and thinking in really interesting ways about the herbs, but how, like you said it’s not just about the herbs but all of these other ways that we can interact and then with your own special sense of humor, which I really appreciate.

Tammi Sweet:

One of the things for me, there are two parts in there, one is when I’m preparing a lecture and getting my notes together, I pretend that I’m teaching to a class of aliens what it is to be a human. Nathan Pyle, the Strange Planet cartoonist, I love him.  I feel that we are—he’s my brother. What does it mean to be human? The second kind of philosophy I have is that I don’t like giving formulas because if you have the information about how something works, you might come up with a beautiful other formula. I trust that your wisdom and your experience is going to actually—once I understand how it works, it’s like, “You like passion flower? Well, I like pots.” The joke is you ask a hundred herbalists what’s their favorite remedy for anything and you get a hundred different answers. It’s so great! So creative!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That seems like a good segue. I know you said that there’s no one herb that is going to be the thing, but I would love to hear about some of your favorite herbs for sleep.

Tammi Sweet:

The way that I break it up and think about it is three sections. We’ll do three. Ideally, if you can get one that will hit all three, ta-da! It’s like mullein or coltsfoot but for the respiratory system, you can’t lose.

The first one is, how is the nervous system? One component of a recipe could be lovely if your client is going to be compliant, a nervine. That’s just going to help handle the tone of an overactive sympathetic nervous system. What’s a great one? I love oats, milky oat tops. It’s nourishing. It’s soothing. Anybody could be drinking nervine tea of milky oats there. Boom! There’s one. Then two, I’m coming up with—I love being able to make products. I love naming them and then designing the label. That just makes me happy. I have a Sleepy Time Tincture which I sent you the recipe for. That’s my general, “I don’t know who you are, how you are sleeping, here.” I’m coming up with two different sub-remedies. One is going to be “Stay Asleep” and one is going to be “Get to Sleep.” Those are the two major categories. It’s a problem with sleep latency. I just can’t get to sleep at night. I go to sleep, but then I wake up at usually—what time? 3:00. If we rule out all the factors, my Get to Sleep, if your—my favorite herb for monkey brain that just won’t shut up is skullcap. It “caps the skull.” Having a skullcap tincture to help, ideally, 30 minutes before bed. That’s part of the sleep protocol that everybody glosses over when you talk about how do I just start winding down my nervous system?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m so glad that you brought that up because I wanted to talk about that because when you said with the Sleepy Tincture, for everybody, you can download that at the show notes. What I really appreciated is that you shared dosing information on that, which is what you’re talking about right now. I agree with you that this is something that gets glossed over and people don’t understand how important it is. I just wanted to kind of interrupt you. You were highlighting this. This is gold right here.

Tammi Sweet:

What I recommend to people is take that dose a half hour before bed then bring your tincture bottle to bed, put it on the night stand with a little shot of water, and have it right there ready that you don’t have to get out of bed. You take your first dose of tincture a half hour before you go to bed, then you bring your little set up into bed. If after five or ten minutes you’re not asleep, do another dose and not have to get out of bed for it. I always say a shot of water because I make my tinctures with organic grain alcohol and that’s just mean to take that cowgirl, so just put it… 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Right before you go to bed.

Tammi Sweet:

Exactly! Whoo! That’s the Get to Sleep. The Stay to Sleep, I just have to say a few things about that. First of all, common sense things like how’s your bed? Is your bed comfy? Is that what is waking you up? Do you have pain? Do you have chronic pain that’s waking you up? Let’s deal with the bed, the chronic pain. How’s your bladder? Me, I love bubble water. I know all the data. I give myself a treat at the end of the day. I drink a quart of bubble water and then I have to pee in the night, so I’m trying to grow up a little. The bladder is another issue that we just got to pee in the night.

If we rule those out, then it’s about age. Here’s the bummer: As we age, let’s just say over 50. I’ll just be there. The ability to generate what we call a “sleep spindle,” which is a brain generating signal that keeps us to sleep. We actually generate fewer of those as we age so it makes it harder for us to stay asleep. I’m researching. I haven’t found anything like the magic herb that keeps us—how to make them. I can say that the bummer is that caffeine disturbs that. Even if you’re like, “It doesn’t prevent me from going to sleep,” we know that it has a quarter life of 12 hours and depending on how much you’re drinking, it actually disturbs sleep. Caffeine consumption is another issue. I’m drinking my bubbly caffeinated water right now, so I know.

Then we go to, “Who are the herbs that are going to help us to stay to sleep?” I think of valerian.  We want something that is a central nervous system sedative-like herb. I like valerian but we know that 25% of the population gets stimulated by valerian, so then we go into that whole category of GABA neurotransmitter enhancers. I think there’s passion flower, California poppy. I would say that we’re going to have to experiment with dosing but it’s going to have to probably be a little bit higher dose because you want it to hit you at three to four hours of being asleep. They are my basic herbs. Then people go, “What about cannabis?” Would you like me to talk about that a little bit?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Sure. Yes.

Tammi Sweet:

Again, I say to people, “Have you tried these other things?” Then it becomes the important piece with working with cannabis is cultivar selection. You can think of cultivar selection as complex as the herbal apothecary of choices. Every cultivar of cannabis is different. There are cultivars like Sour Diesel. I’m going to do math and I’m not going to be sleeping. I’m going to be like, “Whoa! What should I do now? I’m going to calculate some dosage.” If you do a high enough dose, you’ll go to sleep. I don’t want to be groggy the next day. I don’t want to be that altered when I go to bed. Personally, I don’t like being that altered. We want something that we can take a very low dose that maybe you’re not even altered, but it might help with pain, but it’s definitely going to be on the sedating end of the scale.

Cultivar selection and then how you take it. If you’re having a hard time getting to sleep, that’s when you could do a low dose tincture an hour before bed. Some people will say inhale it. Medicine, except for acute situations, we want to be taking oral dosing with cannabis tincture. Gummies if you must. If you wanted to inhale, take some calming cultivar. Do that right before bed. If you’re having a hard time staying asleep, you want to take a higher dose. It’s actually going to just keep you sleeping. So, cultivar selection and then dose. There.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Let’s see. I had some questions. Let’s talk about your Sleepy Time tincture since that’s the recipe that you’ve given us. Talk about the herbs in there and then I want to hear some more about your class.

Tammi Sweet:

Okay, great. The skullcap and its equal parts. If you’re making your tinctures, equal parts of all the herbs. Skullcap is going to get the brain calming. That’s not the only thing it does, but it’s also a nervine and calming the whole system. Valerian, one of our best sedative herbs, and hops. Hops and valerian do the same thing. You could switch out. You could only do three herbs. You could also replace them if you have other favorite sedative herbs. The fourth is kava. I buy my kava fresh from Tane from Adaptations in Hawaii. He has a kava co-op so I know he has really good practices. He has beautiful medicine. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do that, but I can. Right now, it is one of the very few herbs that I don’t grow and I buy. 

I love kava as multiple. It’s one of our best muscle relaxants. If you’ve got body component that’s going on, you could replace that with cannabis. You could put that as a calming cannabis instead of kava. It’s also a nervine. It’s soothing to the nervous system. It’s really good for anxiety.

The third is that when I was researching and starting to teach about the heart as an organ of perception, I ask the plant world who is an herb that opens the heart. It was kava. I also feel like there’s this beautiful medicine in kava of when we’re going to sleep, our hearts open and we’ll do some dream work. We’ll work on opening our heart in that safe place of sleep. That’s why I choose those. The other thing that I’ll say for people is that if you don’t know there’s 25% of the population that has that paradoxical reaction to valerian, if you make this tincture and you have heart palpitations or you’re very awake, it’s the valerian and you need to change it out. I’ve had people go, “I thought I was having a heart attack at night.” I was like, “We’ll make a new formula for you.”

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Good to know. The first time is always the hypothesis and then we try to get through that. I love that formula. For me, I don’t have a lot of sleep problems generally, although just lately, I have been having some, which is a bit frustrating. I generally get good sleep, so the nights I don’t get good sleep—I’m always amazed after those nights when people who have insomnia and have recurring problems because wow! How are they operating? I am not operating well this one time. I love that formula because the problems that I have had with sleep, like if I have a cold or something, I’m getting over it. Those spasmodic coughing can keep me up. I rely on valerian and kava for that to calm that spasmodic coughing so I can sleep. The other thing is occasionally, I’ll get restless legs at night just when I’m going to sleep. Again, the kava and valerian can be a wonderful way to just soothe everything and drift off to sleep. I often feel like when I get those, I’m like—when I take the magnesium and everything like I do things daily, but sometimes there’s a breakthrough restless legs situation. I often think what do people do without herbs?

Tammi Sweet:

Exactly.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Because people suffer with restless legs seriously. I just get it maybe once a month, but for people who have that every single night, and the drugs for it are just not fantastic. Anyway, I’m really excited for your class. I’d love to hear more about it. What it’s going to be like? What are some topics you’re going to cover? I know you’ve seemingly shared a lot with us, but I know that that’s just the whole tip of the iceberg as they say.

Tammi Sweet:

I’m getting ready to film it live in front of a studio audience, in front of people so I’ve been cultivating my notes. My formula is a bunch of physiology and a deep dive into the geekiness of non-REM and REM sleep, what happens and why we have it, then a little spattering of neurochemistry, to talk about melatonin and adenosine. The big science because it makes me happy.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Let me just interrupt to say that you teach that so well because it’s not like I’m not the person who is going to read a textbook on these things. It will be in one ear and out the other, but you share it in such a way that there is like ahas and you draw things together that just make it really interesting and then I just feel so much more knowledgeable afterwards, like I got it.

Tammi Sweet:

Exactly. The way I tell people sitting in class is like I’m telling you a story and your job today is just to understand the story. You don’t need to memorize all the players. You can do that later. We’re going to go-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that when you say in an especially long word and I’m like, “What?” You’re always like, “You don’t have to memorize that.” Oh, good.

Tammi Sweet:

Exactly. It’s a learning thing. I want to understand the picture. If you want to, go fill in the vocab words. Usually, I write notes that go with the video. My training is every time there’s a new vocab word for the first time, we bold it so that your eye catches, “Oh, there’s one of those vocab words.” There’ll be notes because then I get to draw pictures, which I love doing. The breakdown is and always my formula when I’m teaching is bum you out with some facts that you don’t want to know. Here’s the new one: Ninety percent of adults worldwide consume at least 200mg of caffeine a day.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wow!

Tammi Sweet:

Yes, wow.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Our favorite herbs right there. Our caffeinated herbs worldwide.

Tammi Sweet:

So, bunch of facts. I always think like I’m a circus person trying to get you to come into my tent. I’m like, “Here are some facts to freak you out. Come in. We’ll learn some physiology.” Because teaching the physiology then sets up the framework for “What are the interventions?” In this course, of course, there is going to be herbal intervention. I pick 14. With sleep, there are so many other things to do besides herbs or magnesium or melatonin, but we’ll talk about all of those. The other cool thing that I’m excited about is that we’ll talk about these other interventions and why do them, and then how people figure out their own sleep protocol.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s a workshop in a way too. 

Tammi Sweet:

Exactly! I’m also doing something different. It’s four weeks. I’m doing a drip release so you don’t get the whole course. You do this class and then on Tuesdays, I’m going to be doing a Q&A and what I’m calling “coaching,” which I have a hard time with that word. I could play college athletics but I’m going to be coach. Maybe I’ll show up with a hat and a whistle or something, helping people, “How’s your sleep?” I’m going to give assignments and then on Thursday nights, I’m going to have herbalists teaching sleep case study with one herb because why not? I have Rosemary coming. I have Rosalee that’s coming. Not Rosalee, sorry. Maria Noël Groves who is just coming out with a sleep book.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I didn’t know that.

Tammi Sweet:

Yes, in April. Rosemary was like, “Hey, do you know this?” I was like, “No, I did not,” so I contacted her. Kat Maier is going to do one and then I’ve got Kate Gilday coming to film live with me. She’s coming to my house.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, fun! Oh, my gosh! I’m so excited for this, Tammi, because all the classes that I’ve taken with you have been after the fact. This is I’m excited to get in on the ground level. I know you’re going to pre-record the classes with your live audience and then release the recordings. I think it’s great that dual release, which is what I do with my courses too. It’s nice to know that someone is behind the curtain kind of thing and not just be entirely DIY everything. I really appreciate that. For anybody else who’s like, “Yes, I want to learn about sleep,” and knows how important this is, whether it’s for yourself or you’re working with other people, then I definitely recommend checking out Tammi’s course. You can do that in the show notes. There will be a special link for you there.

Tammi Sweet:

Yay!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wonderful! Thank you so much. I’m really truly excited for this.

Tammi Sweet:

Awesome! I am excited too. I’m at the point in the process where I’m now excited and not completely-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Because the work is mostly done.

Tammi Sweet:

The work is going like this. I’m on the path.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wonderful. I just think you’re such a treasure. I loved learning from you over the years, so I’m excited for this. Before you go, I have two more questions for you. At least, two more. The first one, I’m curious at what point did you realize that you were gifted with memes? And that you are known as the queen of memes. You just find the best ones. I don’t know if we just have the exact same sense of humor or something, but I’m just curious. How did that come about, Tammi?

Tammi Sweet:

I think when I became aware of it was after COVID. I started going to conferences and people would say to me, “I follow you on social media. You have the best memes.” That was when it kind of hit me. For me, social media should be funny or educational. I also try to be funny in a way that doesn’t hurt people. Anything that makes me laugh out loud, I want to spread the joy.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Love it. It makes me think of jim mcdonald. He often says be the Facebook post you want to see in the world and...

Tammi Sweet:

Absolutely that.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

For my last question for you, Tammi, I’m kind of going back and forth between two questions. One, it would be interesting to hear who some of your teachers are. We have one teacher in common that is not one that people find in common a lot. I’m also wondering if you’re willing to even answer another one is, maybe a way the herbs have surprised you.

Tammi Sweet:

Sure. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

This is me being indecisive. Let’s start with some of your teachers who you’ve learned from.

Tammi Sweet:

Sure. Today, I went out on a walk in the woods. One of the things I do is I do a thanksgiving address. I say it out loud and it gets me in the right place. One of the places is when I’m thanking the humans, the two-leggeds, I thank my teachers. The order is Rosemary.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Rosemary, who? Just kidding.

Tammi Sweet:

Rosemary Gladstar.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m just kidding. She who needs no last name.

Tammi Sweet:

Exactly! She was the first person that I called “teacher.” I’ll cry just thinking about her. She’s like my heart. The second person is Pam Montgomery because I studied plant spirit medicine with her. I did her apprenticeship. That changed my life. My third big teacher is Tom Brown, Jr. I studied with him for about ten years at the Tracker School. The path of classes that I took with him were his awareness classes and his spirit classes. I consider him a master map maker of the spirit world. Those are my big three. I also consider—I learned some beautiful things from Rocio Alarcon. I consider Stephen Buhner even though I only sat at his feet once at Rosemary’s advanced apprenticeship. His books I own every book. I’ve read every book. I feel like he is a brother and I am so grateful for what he has offered to the world. Those are my big teachers.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you for sharing that. Tom Brown, Jr. is the one that we have, surprisingly, in common. I don’t know—that was definitely my inroad into becoming an herbalist. I studied with him in California, not in New Jersey. I also did the awareness spirit classes and ended up studying with Frank and Karen Sherwood who were his herb teachers for a while. Karen was the plant person and that was how I found my way into the plant world, so a lot of gratitude for that pathway too.

Tammi Sweet:

Did you go to the Boy Scout camp in California? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yes, that’s where I went.

Tammi Sweet:

I flew out for two classes there. Beautiful place there. The second question was…

Rosalee de la Forêt:

A way herbs have surprised you. I’ll just throw this surprise question out to you.

Tammi Sweet:

This is embarrassing. I’m looking around. I’m home alone. We’re talking to lots of people. I am amazed at how dense I am as a creature, where I will be surprised when herbs work. I’m an herbalist. I’ve been doing this for 20+ years. I teach people this and still I’m like, “Wow, this shit works!” It’s embarrassing that—anyway, in general, that happens. I would say the last time was I made a formula of four different cultivars of cannabis for pain. It’s my pain—I call it “respite.” I am amazed at how beautifully that works. I have chronic low back pain. I mostly don’t—I manage it behaviorally. I don’t take a lot of herbs. I don’t take any herbs and then there are days where I’ve been in the garden, bending over all day, and that’s profound how well that works at very low dose. Again, I’m a wicked lightweight so I don’t want to be walking around altered. I would say that’s the latest.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thanks for sharing that. I feel like I’m also the same way. After 20 years, I feel like I have that giddy, childlike joy like, “Oh, my gosh! That worked! That worked so well!”

Tammi Sweet:

Who are we?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s been such a pleasure to sit down with you, Tammi. Thanks so much for taking time to be on the podcast. It’s just been a true pleasure for me. Thank you so much.

Tammi Sweet:

Me too. This was lovely. Yay!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

As always, thanks for being here. Don’t forget to download your beautifully illustrated recipe card above this transcript. And sign up for my weekly newsletter below, which is the best way to stay in touch with me.

Here's the best way to check out Tammi’s new class on sleep.

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I’d also love to hear your comments about this episode. What’s your biggest takeaways about herbs for sleep?

I deeply believe that this world needs more herbalists and plant-centered folks and I’m so glad that you’re here as part of this herbal community.

Also, a big round of thanks to the people all over the world who make this podcast happen week to week. Nicole Paull is the Project Manager who oversees the whole operation from guest outreach, to writing show notes, to actually uploading each episode and so many other things I don’t even know. She really holds this whole thing together.

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Okay, you’ve lasted to the very end of the show, which means you get your gold star and this herbal tidbit:

When someone is struggling to sleep at night, then they’re often desperate to find that one herb that will help them to finally get deep rest. Sometimes it is as easy as stumbling across that magical herb, but often times it takes a bit of time to figure out what’s preventing sleep and the best combination of herbs and practices to restore a healthy sleep function. 

For this herbal tidbit, I thought I’d share a bit of herbal vocabulary because there aren’t really necessarily herbs for sleep or that one herb for sleep, but rather, different categories of herbs that we can choose from when we’re thinking about herbs for sleep. 

Relaxing nervine is an herb that helps your nervous system shift from a sympathetic flight or fight mode to a parasympathetic rest and relax mode. These herbs, we reach for them when we want to relax the mind, relax the nervous system and help nudge someone to sleep or just simply nudge people out of a stress response. A great example of a relaxing nervine is passion flower.

Sedative herbs are often more, we could say, heavy-handed than relaxing nervines although there’s going to be some crossover between the two. Sedative herbs can more strongly produce feelings of sleepiness. They aren’t often recommended during the day. Valerian is a good example of a sedative herb.

Adaptogen herbs can deeply nourish the nervous system and help your body better adapt towards stress. These herbs are often nourishing in some way, not necessarily through vitamins and minerals although it could be, but more like nourishing to the nervous system. Because of this that nourishment often takes time to work, these aren’t often times herbs that you just take one day and expect immediate results, instead something you’re taking for the long-term. An example of this is ashwagandha. There are other herbs we can consider too if somebody isn’t sleeping for reasons of pain. We could be addressing pain. If somebody has muscular tension or restless legs, we can be thinking about antispasmodics.

Again, herbs blur the line. They can fit into multiple categories. Also, the dose you take can really shift how the herbs work. For example, chamomile can be a gentle relaxing nervine, but when you take it in really large amounts in a strong preparation, chamomile can be quite sedative.

I’m super excited for Tammi’s class on sleep where she’s going to dive into all of this and so much more. Check it out using my affiliate link.

As always, thanks for being here and here’s to a good night’s sleep.