Ashwagandha: Herbal Support in These Stressful Times

by Susan Wolfe and Tom Wolfe R.H. (AHG) are both Smile Herb Shop Herbalists What a 2024 world we live in … I cannot speak for you, but I certainly appreciate any herbal help in safely reducing anxiety and helping sleep. Let us begin with an Ashwagandha story from the history of Smile Herb Shop. Back…

Nettles: Using The Whole Plant

To gain confidence as an herbalist, Jim McDonald suggests picking just one or two herbs and focus on them completely– Grow them, eat them, read about them, make medicine with them, etc. If you really got to know, say, Peppermint and Chamomile, you could work with an enormous variety of health problems with those two…

Getting To Know Reishi

Reishi’s Chinese name translates as “Spirit Plant”, or “Herb of Spiritual Potency”. It is a remarkable, adaptogenic mushroom that has been used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years. Like all adaptogens, Reishi has a normalizing effect on our overall physiology, and it can help restore us to health from a truly incredible range of…

Autumn Lessons

Autumn Lessons—The Need For Rest We have lots of traditions about Autumn: a new school year, visiting fall foliage, pumpkins, honoring our ancestors and hometowns, football games, celebrating a good harvest, marking the beginning of the holiday season, and many more. All these are wonderful things, and beloved traditions, but there is another aspect of…