Please acknowledge that this is NOT a blog for anyone who is suffering from a clinical breakdown. If that is you, click out of this and call your physician, counselor or guide.

If you or someone you know is experiencing mental health symptoms, suicidal thoughts, addiction or are in any way causing harm to yourself or others, please consult your health care professional. This information is intended to provide information based on the authors experience only and is not intended to diagnose, prescribe or cure any mental or physical disease.

I herby give you permission to surrender to an informed nervous breakdown. This is a bit of a misnomer because in reality surrendering to a nervous breakdown may have a healing affect.

What if we surrendered to the act of healing?

There’s a big difference between healing and curing. Can we be healed and not cured? Can we be cured and not healed?

Disease is curable. People are healed.

When you cure a disease, you cure a disease.

When you heal a person, you heal their spirit, their heart, their relationships, their body and soul.

We can ultimately heal without curing and cure without healing.

The goal here is to strive for both.

But how do I heal a nervous breakdown?

Surrendering to a nervous breakdown includes giving yourself permission to STOP. Stop trying so hard, stop putting on the face of strength and stop pushing the feelings aside. The most common sentence I have heard in consultation with others dealing with mental distress is:

“I finally allowed myself to lay on the ground and weep.”

….or lay on the bed or collapse in the chair or wherever and whatever it takes to get to the point of surrender. I know few people who did not do the steps of Having and Surviving a nervous breakdown in the last couple of years who actually needed it. For many, the act of allowing a nervous breakdown was healing, if not curing.

Herbs for Nervous Breakdowns

Now that we’ve acknowledged that nervous breakdowns may have some healing qualities, lets take a look at what herbs will help us as we navigate these states of mind. Some can help us in post nervous breakdown status as we integrate back in to the world. Or, should we choose to actually avoid the nervous breakdown altogether, herbs can help. Some can also help us when we are in active surrender to a nervous breakdown.

Agrimony (Agrimonia euphoria) is there when you have reached the point where you are no longer the nice person you used to be. You actually enjoy being mean. Or you may be dealing with someone who is mean and want them to go away. Enter Agrimony. Beware of using it if you are not prepared for a shift in your circumstances. Want to move away or have someone move away from you? Try Agrimony. Need a new job or want someone else to get a new job? Agrimony is ready to assist.

A person who needs Agrimony may seem kind outwardly and be a real jerk in their heads, like an inner asshole. When asked how they are doing they say “Oh, no, no, I’m doing fine.” Even though they are a mess. They may hold their breath to stop emotional and physical stress.

Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) I often watch out for this rebel healer when driving through neighborhoods. Lemon Balm loves to sneak away from its’ garden to spread about in urban neighborhoods and grassy lawns, sneaking in to any open soil it can. It has an uncanny way of finding the folks that need it and will literally not take no for an answer, at times growing up against the stairs to an entrance demanding to be noticed. When I see lemon balm doing this “in your face” behavior, I always wonder what type of struggle the folks inside those walls are dealing with.

Lemon balm is a joy tonic. It is cooling to the “hot head” when anger is rising and emotions are heated. Lemon balm calms the spirit, gently bringing down hyper aroused agitation. It lifts your perspective. Time and time again I see brows lifted and eyes lit up with the introduction of lemon balm. Hope, light, elevated mood and spirit. Lemon balm reminds us that we are worthy and deserving of love.

Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridus) is a fierce protector of those who are avoiding the nervous breakdown. Devil’s Club helps us find our path, our destiny even when our hearts calling is scary. Devil’s Club has harsh spines that grow up and down the powerful stem keeping predators away from those who seek safety under its limbs. Devil’s Club creates the same safe space for fragile things to grow when we choose the plant as our ally.

Devil’s Club keeps judging eyes away, including our inner judge.

Angelica (Angelica archangelic) is one of the plant community counselors. It’s an herb to use when surrendering to a nervous breakdown. Angelica is for those who feel empty inside and have a feeling that they have reached the end of hope. A common phrase from a person needing angelica is “I should pray. But I don’t feel like it.”

These hopeless feelings lead to frozen emotions. Angelicas’ roots are energetically warming and slowly thaw the frozen emotions in a safe way. Warming aromatic plants stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system allowing us to relax deeply. Living in the sympathetic nervous system state of fight or flight leaves us scared and thinking no-one will help us.

Over time, Angelica eases exhaustion through restoring adrenal health which can be depleted from panic attacks and flight or fight living. Angelica root can be burned in prayer to send messages to your guides and angels.

Rose (Rosa sp.) is gentle, rose is kind. Rose allows for the heart to open up to love or be loved. Rose can soften a heart, soften a hard shell that shields you from embracing the world around you. Adding rose to formulas will soften a harsh remedy if you are not ready emotionally to adopt change. Rose is for the broken hearted and heals the pain of a broken heart.

Erin Vanhee, Herbalist

Erin Vanhee, Herbalist

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Erin Vanhee, Herbalist

An Herbalists Guide to Avoiding (or surrendering to) a Nervous Breakdown

Herbs for Nervous Breakdowns