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Herbs for Mood – Depression and many related conditions

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Herbs for Postnatal Moods – We use several really good ones.  Front line – I often call on Tulsi with Gotu Kola or another Brahmi tea – serotonin enhancing in Nature’s user friendly bio-balancing way that can be tandemed for month or more before beginning to SLOWLY reduce other herbs, according to some experienced Ayurvedics.  Transitioning off over at least 6 months, according to Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, if on mood meds for over a year.  She does not however have Ayurveda’s toolbox, so I believe there can be more help up front while still proceeding so very cautiously.   (Good results for a few days do not mean all is well – the medicines have stored in high quantity in brain tissues and begin to download in chunks into blood).  So this is just a beginning discussion of a number of mood supportive herbs.

These 2-3 herbs are also gentle at a time we need to be gentle!  They are key manas (Mind) rasayana (rejuvenative tonic) herbs.  Yes, they are safe in pregnancy and postpartum.  Especially for Mamas, I combine them a bit of digestive (ginger, pippali, or even cardamom), with shatavari (wild asparagus root) to potentiate the manas effects (connecting to body/hormones, and enhancing to lactation anyone?) and/or ashwagandha (more root chakra and Vata grounding/pacifying, also helps lactation).  There is controversy about use of ashwagandha in pregnancy, some are big on it, others totally avoid, I take a more middle perspective, in smaller amounts and well combined.  We can discuss that again another post.

Although there are many distinct diagnoses for mood issues after, or before childbirth, in Ayurveda we see a common thread during the postpartum time of high Vata, which may also push another dosha out of it’s right place and function.  We can consider support with herbal foods – a gentle benign tea – and leave the legally appropriate scope of practice in hands of licensed practitioner.

Tulsi-Gotu Kola Tea is on sale – just received the message today – with this wonderful company, Organic India .  I so honor this company – they sustainably employ thousands of families now in India in organic herb production.  They have loose leaf tulsi and brahmi (gotu kola or bacopa both work similarly and are called “Brahmi”).

I learned this from Ayurvedic practitioner of many years, Sarasvati Buhrman – she gives 4-5 drops nasya (nose drops/nasal administration of herbs) per nostril of brahmi decocted into ghee for Vata depression, varying it for Pitta and Kapha, along with 4-5 cups daily of the above tea as front line support while the rest of needed “homework” is being put into place.  I’ve worked with an older woman her family sent me East to support for a week, in severe suicidal condition under Dr Bhurman’s advice, and watched it really help, but please note that nasya is contraindicated in Pregnancy.

And severe cases MUST be under her doctor’s umbrella of support and referral.  Particularly with pitta cases involving violent impulses or thoughts which are highest risk.  There may be risk to baby or mother’s life.  They often have many issues and sources of advice, which can throw them off from prioritizing use of your support, even dietary and massage gets de-prioritized.  So this is offered as beginning discussion on long term project for education and care research perhaps.  We would want to look at the individual’s other issues in postpartum time and prioritize for it all to create their unique herbal formulation, under client’s and Doctor’s OK.  Research projects would start with much simpler parameters of course, and less potent results for many.

How does all this fit in context of a postpartum care practice?  

The following perspectives and the best possible care are especially important!  Mood support is greatly aided with the following knowledge and skills which may be much less difficult to implement than herbal formulation.   A mother’s special abhyanga (massage) given 3 days in a row absolute minimum, or 5-6 days (not spread out, in a row) as a wiser minimum for more serious cases, so helps ground the herbal effects and not just pop back out of benefits to this process.  It is a deeply significant component of postpartum care and of mood supports,  actually advised for all mamas, not just mood challenged, for 42 days daily.

Also deeply important are the rather unique even to Ayurvedic students and many western trained Ayruvedic practitioners, dietary recommendations after childbirth.  You can learn more in my basic webinars on Ayurvedic Maternal and Newborn Care.  Also useful is the e-cookbook and e-handbook for your clients, Touching Heaven, Tonic Postpartum Care/Cooking with Ayurveda.    The advanced 5 hour webinar on Safe Postpartum Herbs is also available, and will be most valuable to those with some knowledge of Ayurvedic herbology.  Those wanting to get started with potent supports right away can begin studying client and practitioner use of aromatherapy.   A 2 hour Essential Oils (More than) Basics class is also now recorded and getting really good reviews – as I must say I expected – even from experienced aromatherapists.

The early post-pregnancy time has been called “The Black Hole in Health Care” by Dr. Jeanne Watson Driscoll PhD,APRN,BC.  It is a big Y in the road, and effects easily last for decades – “42 Days for 42 Years” according to “Mother of Ayurveda” in the west, Dr. Sarita Shrestha.

I must make clear disclaimers to this post – it cannot be intended to replace the advice of your medical doctor or primary practitioner.  Information here is presented for educational purposes and  you must complete your own homework and work within your appropriate scope of practice.  For serious concerns, you may wish to also look at the reports by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy on a well researched website maintained for many years, Drugawareness.org.  She still offers phone consultations if you feel you are having adverse reactions to mood meds.  For some of the heavy social/medical industry implications – The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a nonprofit mental health watchdog, responsible for helping to enact more than 150 laws protecting individuals from abusive or coercive practices.  This is not a first focus recommendation for mothers, please; there is a serious political and social conscience and service they provide for those so inclined to work in that arena.

In your service,

Ysha Bhu

Why avoid yoghurt postpartum, and why is it overrated?

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Why/when to avoid yoghurt postpartum, and why is yoghurt overrated for probiotic use?

Hello Cheryl !

It sounds like your lassi was yummy!   Yoghurt does have benefits after childbirth, after 2-3 weeks, in specific preparations.  And it has some not critical but – for some moms can be more of an issue risks, depending upon when and how it is used.

After childbirth our digestion is so fragile, and little things make a big difference for mama and baby sometimes for long time to come.  “42 Days for 42 Years” is a pretty stunning statement about it!  Yoghurt is creamy, cloudy, sweet and sour inherently – these things can help rebuild and knit tissues back together, sour can even help digestion.  It contains a little, or more probiotics, not a lot.  It is taken usually cold which complicates maternal digestion and absorption of the nutrients.  It is sour which has it’s place and risks.

Lassi is a dilute yoghurt, buttermilk or Kefir drink.  If not made with ice or fruit, and including some digestive spices (yes and with sweet or pinch salt), can act as a digestive with a non-meat or egg based meal, esp legumes, esp lunch time when our agni is highest.  Note that postpartum legumes have to be cooked to thin or light creamy broth also for a few weeks.

Yoghurt and soured dairy in general are advised to avoid for all of us after say 2pm, or certainly after sun goes down. Though the least problematic of this category, yoghurt is more phlegm producing than *properly used* milk. Agni (digestive fires or enzymes) are weaker at that time of day, and these foods even yoghurt easily clog channels in this way.  I believe it has something to do also with how much time it takes for the layers of yoghurt vs milk digestion, and that in the nighttime, more food means less of Ma Nature’s intended work on the body.

The all so popular yoghurt or any dairy with banana is also contraindicated for everyone.  This food combining tends to create some heavy incomplete products of digestion which clog the “shrotamsi” (channels) and risk buildup into carcinogenic influence, per Dr. Vasant Lad.

Postpartum conditions in first few days are such that although we need some very specific digestive spices which are also warming, and warm temp foods, other warming energetics with includes sour and even salt for 2-3 days or more, is generally contraindicated. Add to that the heavier nature of yoghurt, classical ayurved as I have learned it avoids yoghurt even in lassi for at least the first 10 days after birth.

That time period is when the body is still strongly bleeding or just lightening up, and at risk of increase after decrease is still high. IE, excess even to hemorrhage, and especially in our culture of doing too much after childbirth.  Sour, salt, laxative foods and herbs, doing too much, the wrong type of heating influences all can increase blood loss.

And most people eat pre-prepared yoghurt. If made with sweeteners, the culture value is pretty much stopped.  Yogurt past a day they say changes properties to more sour, less digestible, more phlegm producing. The probiotic value is minimal also compared to what is needed to re-culture the gut flora after antibiotics. Best use something more focused there – a liquid or rehydrated powder preferred.

Homemade Kefir seems to have better culture also, and should be treated like yoghurt when using.  Store bought kefir, IMO, and we know this about many yoghurts, must have some milk added to it after culturing, to even out the flavor and stabilize it form souring too fast.  But this creates another food combining issue.  Sweet milk and soured milk digest in different time zones and locations in the gut, and confuse the body, creating ama also (incomplete products of digestion) .

It is quite the story, isn’t it?  Controversies are I’m sure tweaked reading this post.

Add to all this, the sequence of dhatu (tissue) nutrition, so little understood in the west.   For instance, one’s self-assessments which really do not go beyond, for those who even make the connection, whether we have gas, bloating, constipation, loose stool, or heartburn from our food. Per Ayurveda from food to finest product of digestion, beyond rejuvenating the deepest tissues (reproductive), is at least 32 days most foods – who knows how to “feel” what our food 4 weeks ago did?  To say nothing of the extra time involved after childbirth, at least 42 days instead of “32”.  There are exceptions, including the fact that sweet taste is the first digested from upper stomach where generally it is absorbed. And milk properly used, is said to potentially convert to ojas in a few days.

As you must know, occasionally breaking the dietary “rules” or advice is not nearly the issue as is often doing so.  I hope this discussion helps?  And encourage you to just lean into any changes.  It takes time to make changes and we have to honor gentleness there too, of course.  Sometimes the scales are hard to read, which is priority.  This is one of the reasons to have someone who knows how to make the postpartum “rules” delicious and satisfying, helps so much!

Great to be still in touch, I honor our connection and all the amazing work you do.

Ysha