Herbal Self-Care Techniques for Stress and Immunity

Herbal self-care techniques can have a really big impact, especially for stress relief and the immune system.

From teas and supplements to echinacea tincture and elderberry syrup, there are a lot of “sexy” herbal remedies out there. But did you know there’s a whole other layer of home herbalism that’s steeped in a deeper self-care? Herbal self-care techniques can have a really big impact, especially for stress relief and the immune system, and I don’t see people using them enough.

In this article, we’ll cover four herbal self-care techniques that are easy to do and that can help take the stress down a notch: herbal gargle, herbal eye compress, herbal foot bath, and herbal salt glow. These techniques also support our lymphatic system. When we support our lymph, we’re supporting our immune system to help us during hard times.

These are four simple yet really valuable ways of using herbal medicine. You don’t need any special equipment and they are all super family-friendly. It’s all about layering in herbs in ways that make sense for your lifestyle. Even if you pick up just one of these herbal self-care techniques, I guarantee it will be worth your time.

 

Effective Herbal Self-Care Routines

The techniques I’m sharing are not just things that I’ve been learning about for the last 10 years or even two decades. For about 35 years, I’ve been helping people restore our relationship with the plants and reclaim the art of home herbalism and how to use herbs and natural remedies as the main approach to our health care.

In 1991, I started a clinical herbal practice and began teaching herbal medicine full time. I’ve helped thousands of women and families build their home herbalism skills and confidence. It’s really about what I call a “prevention-focused lifestyle” with herbal self-care techniques that are super family-friendly.

I’ve also been a student for all these years, and am still a student of herbal medicine to this day. There’s lots of great herbal medicine out there, but I’ve been tracking my students, their kids, and now grandkids. I have an eye for what it is that people will actually do to truly embed herbalism into the home.

So many people tell me that they’re overwhelmed with all the herbal information out there. I want to show you some really simple herbal self-care techniques that aren’t hard and take just 15 minutes here or there.

 

#1 Herbal Gargle: Self-Care for the Immune System

The first of our underused herbal self-care techniques is to throw back your head and do an herbal gargle. You’re probably thinking, “Seriously? What’s the big deal about that?”

Here’s the thing: what you can access with gargling is incredible. When you do an herbal gargle, you access all the lymph of your throat and sinuses, and the lymph that feeds your gums and teeth.

Herbal Gargle Benefits

When this area gets inflamed or stuck, the body can’t heal. An herbal gargle helps reduce the inflammation. You tighten and tone the tissues so that the nutrition can get in and waste can get out and eventually, the body gets in there and heals itself.

When we access lymph, we access immunity. Gargling can help reduce:

• Respiratory infections
• Allergies
• Colds
• Sinus congestion
• Inflammation

If you’ve been with me for any length of time, you may have heard how much I love my grandfather, John McBride, who facilitated my first herb walk when I was eight years old. I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house and he gargled every morning. I can actually hear him gargling right now. He was a 6’2”, Scottish Irish, big, strong man. He had this amazing self-care ritual that he learned from his dad that he did pretty much every day.

It’s something that I connected with and has been a really important remedy for me because I had tonsillitis twice when I was five years old. The ridiculous 1960s medicine was to remove your tonsils, so my tonsils were pulled at five years old. This is the gateway to your lungs and part of your immune system. So when things hit me, I almost always feel it in my throat first.

Even if you don’t feel things in your throat like I do, if you’ve got headaches, sinus congestion, or allergies, an herbal gargle helps to drain.

How to Gargle With Salt and Herbs

Making an herbal gargle or salt water gargle is very simple. You get 1 cup of herbal tea, ¼ teaspoon of salt, shake that really well, and you gargle and spit, gargle and spit, gargle and spit.

To make your herbal tea, you can use fresh or dried herbs or a teabag.

Herbs for gargling include:

• Elderflower (Sambucus nigra)
• Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
• Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)
• Sage (Salvia officinalis)
• Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

This is a great technique to teach your young ones. The art of gargling is one of the most simple home remedies and kids are going to have so much fun with it. They don’t have to have tea. You can start teaching how to do it with just 1 cup of water and ¼ teaspoon of salt. There will be stuff all over the bathroom, but it’s really a good one to get your kids on board with.

You want to drink the tea as warm as possible, but not so hot that you burn yourself. The warmth really will open things up and drive the medicine deeper into the lymph system.

What I do is I make 3 cups of tea at one time and add all the salt. I keep it in the refrigerator and it’ll last for 3 days. I’ll take out 1 cup at a time, warm it up, shake it, and gargle.

You can do an herbal gargle every day or a couple of times a week. If you feel like something’s brewing, you can gargle. You can find your own rhythm. This is a great autumn self-care technique in preparation for flu season and for winter when we’re a little more susceptible to illness.

 

#2 Herbal Eye Compress: Self-Care for Stress

The next one of our underused herbal self-care techniques is what I call a “tag on technique.” If you’re already making herbal tea, you can tag this on to it. This simple treatment can change your brain waves and it’s as good as any meditation technique. I call it “meditation for herbal people.”

This is the herbal forehead and eye compress. What you do is make a compress for your forehead and then roll it down on to your eyes. For many people, stress affects their eyes. They have bloodshot eyes, red eyes, achy eyes, headaches. If you have eye issues, you’re going to really love this one.

Even if you don’t feel tension and stress in your eyes, sometimes fatigue, at the end of the day, can be from eye strain. The eyes work so hard. They’re fed by microscopic capillaries and nerves that are super affected by stress and tension hormones. We spend a lot of daily energy processing visual input. We just take it for granted.

This is why one of my teachers, Dr. Lad, says that if you’re not feeling well, you want to close your eyes and fast from input into your eyes. Don’t give your eyes anything visual to process. Close them. The energy that was going to your eyes can be used toward your healing. Giving the eyes a break is amazing.

How Make an Herbal Eye Compress

This is so simple. You’re making a cup of herbal tea. You get the tea that you’re going to drink, put some tea into a washcloth, and then put it on your eyes.

Make sure that you strain your tea out really well because you don’t want any little bits of plants getting into your eyes. Get some nice, newer washcloths that you like the color of and that don’t have old smells and keep them nearby.

You might be thinking, “I don’t have time.” This is a three- to five-minute remedy. If you make tea in the afternoon or in the early evening, you can just tag this on. Sit down to drink your tea and do an herbal eye compress. Get it on your forehead. Feel the aroma and then pull it down over the eyes.

I have been doing this herbal eye compress technique with all kinds of classes for the last 25 years. People fall asleep in five minutes. Seriously! People go into an altered state.

Herbs for forehead and eye compresses include:

• Calendula (Calendula officinalis)
• Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla)
• Elderflower (Sambucus nigra)
• Fennel seed (Foeniculum vulgare)
• Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
• Rose petal (Rosa spp.)
• Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

These herbs reduce any kind of spasm and open up the capillaries, so that you can feel the nutrition coming into your eyes again.

Your herbal eye compress can be warm or cool, whatever feels good to you.

Increase Your Alpha Brain Waves

Again, I call this simple technique “meditation for herbalists.” It will help you get to know your brain waves. This is not just an herbal application technique—it really teaches us body literacy and helps us tap into our self-healing capacity.

You don’t have to be a meditator. The herbs help you get there with their aroma, antispasmodic quality, and calming effect. For people that say, “I can’t sit. I can’t stop my mind from chattering. I can never meditate,” this is for you. This is everyday stress reduction, ten minutes here and there, instead of waiting until the end of the day and just being crispy.

This is a general graph of brain waves. It varies a lot from situation to situation and person to person, but here are the basics. These are the amount of waves that the brain emits per second (again, this is a general guideline).

• Delta is when the brain waves are between 1 and 3 per second. It would be 3 waves when you’re asleep.
• Theta is when the brain waves are between 4 and 8 per second. You’re not really aware; it’s almost sleep.
• Alpha is when the brain waves are between 9 and 13 per second. Alpha is much lower than beta.
• Beta is when the brain waves are between 14 and 30 per second. We mostly operate at beta and higher. We run around. We compress. We get on overdrive.

Instead of going beta or higher all day long, you want to have alpha breaks. It’s more of a relaxed, meditative state. If you can learn how to consciously get to alpha at least once a day, it is a huge reset. I do a 20-minute alpha break every day, sometimes twice a day if I have a lot more going on.

When you’re at beta and higher, you run more adrenal stress hormones that are hot and crunchy. They fry. They eat up all your minerals and nutrition. You’ve heard of these stress hormones: adrenaline, cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine.

Basically, these hormones tell your body to take your energy nutrition and put it into your muscles, so you can fight. They take energy from the brain and the capillaries that go to your teeth, your gums, and your eyes.

Herbal Eye Compress Benefits

This level of stress is very hard on the eyes. It closes down the nutrition and the blood to the eyes and causes a lot more stress. If you can take an alpha break and get your brain waves down even once a day for 15 minutes, it is so amazing.

An herbal eye compress really helps you get there because your eyes are closed. You feel the temperature of the cloth, the aroma of the plants, the action of the plants on your eyes. It’s much easier than meditation. Please try it.

A lot of times we’re like, “I need a break,” “I need a day off,” “I need to get to the spa,” “I need a vacation.” It’s not about that. I mean, that’s all really nice, but it’s about the 5-, 10-, 15-minute vacation that you take every day learning about your brain waves.

We don’t have a lot of cultural teachings about how to decompress or awareness of different brain wave states, so at the end of the day, we often turn to screen time, drinking a beer or vegging out.

If you can reset and go alpha a couple more times a day, you have more vitality to do what you love at the end of the day. You’re less susceptible to getting sick because that alpha break allows your body’s energy to go work on that illness instead of just going, going, going.

 

#3 Herbal Foot Bath: Self-Care for Immunity and Relaxation

The third of our underused herbal self-care techniques is an herbal foot bath. I know you’ve heard of herbal foot baths and you’ve probably even done it, but how much do you do it? It’s one of those techniques that’s just so profound for immunity and relaxation.

To make an herbal foot bath, just make a big pot of tea, at least 6 cups. You can use any pot and you can use fresh or dried herbs or teabags.

Herbs for foot bath include:

• Calendula (Calendula officinalis)
• Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla)
• Ginger (Zingiber officinale) – use fresh because dried ginger is a bit too heating
• Hops (Humulus lupulus)
• Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
• Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis)
• Peppermint (Mentha x piperita)
• Pine needle (Pinus spp.)
• Rose petal (Rosa spp.)
• Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)

These herbs help to relax your muscles and are a great way to end your day. An herbal foot bath is also really nice to do together with other people in your household.

I have a really good story around this. One of my students said, “I’m going to take this whole herbal foot bath thing to another level.” She got the idea to do an herbal foot bath during family holidays like Thanksgiving, where there was always a lot of stress and bickering.

At first, she just got her sister and niece involved. They were into it, and then the next year, the other girls got into it. After awhile, even the guys joined. This bonding and relaxation totally transformed her family gatherings. She thought not in a million years would her family be into something like this, but she just found the right time and place. People were calmer. They were nicer.

I have seen this so many times. Start with yourself and one other loved one, and things happen. Just think of who you could do an herbal foot bath with at the end of the day. They’re great to do for a birthday gift.

Herbal Foot Bath Benefits

You can access the whole body through your feet. If you don’t believe me, get some raw garlic and rub it on the bottom of your foot. In a few minutes, you are going to have garlic breath because oils enter into your body through the feet!

We can have a profound effect on the entire body just with an herbal foot bath. Your feet are full of nerves. You can access all the organs through your feet. Soaking in warm or hot tea activates the blood and energy. The skin absorbs the herbal benefits into the body. It travels through the energy channels and you can access the entire body in 10 to 20 minutes.

I don’t do an herbal foot bath and then go out into the world. I do it when it’s time to rest because it can be powerful. You also don’t do it before or after eating because you want to mobilize your energy for healing rather than digesting.

If you can get into a habit of doing an herbal foot bath at the end of the day, even a few times a week, it’s just so healing. You get to slow down and listen to your body, and that’s really part of herbal medicine—becoming more body literate.

 

Herbal Kitchen Remedy Solutions

Before I get to the fourth of our herbal self-care techniques, I want to tell you that I have a course on sale for $100 off right now.

In this article, I’m sharing four techniques. In the Herbal Kitchen Remedy Solutions course, I cover 23 herbal medicine techniques and go much more in-depth. I really wanted to get these to you now, as I know a lot of people are suffering right now.

I’m grateful to have helped so many people through this course, from beginners to people that have been dabbling with herbs and even people that feel pretty confident with their medicine making. A lot of students that have studied with me for years love this course because they can get a refresher on the herbal techniques. There are many pieces to herbal medicine, and knowing your herbal medicine making techniques is really a big part of it.

Herbal Kitchen Remedy Solutions is steeped in 23 herbal medicine making techniques including the most family-friendly ones.

This is not just rehashing what’s already been out there. I’ve been teaching for 30 years and have been really tracking what my students and their families will and won’t do, and that’s what you get from me.

Herbal Kitchen Remedy Solutions helps you build your confidence step-by-step with 23 techniques and all kinds of herbal projects. It’s all downloadable and you have lifetime access.

There are lots of families in the course right now. People are working with their kids on their herbal techniques. I wish this class would have been available when I was first starting out.

Click here to learn more about Herbal Kitchen Remedy Solutions

 

#4 Herbal Salt Glow: Self-Care for Stress and Immunity

There’s a lot of stress and uncertainty these days, and the body keeps recalibrating to handle whatever stress we give it. The nervous system keeps going a little bit more, a little bit more in overdrive. So even if you’re feeling pretty good, it’s important to try to connect with at least one of these herbal self-care techniques.

Here’s my favorite technique: an herbal salt glow. This simple technique helps with tension, stress and nervousness, and it heals the skin. A lot of people use this premenstrually for agitation, irritation and muscle tension. You can do an herbal salt scrub on your whole body or just your hands or feet.

How to Do an Herbal Salt Glow

The herbal salt glow recipe is very easy. It’s 1 cup of salt, ¼ cup of dried and powdered herb, and ¼ cup of oil. That’s it. You mix it well and apply it.

Herbs for salt scrubs include:

• Calendula (Calendula officinalis)
• Ginger (Zingiber officinale)
• Marshmallow leaf (Althaea officinalis)
• Orange peel (Citrus x sinensis)
• Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus)
• Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Your herbs need to be dry. It’s best to powder them because when you’re scrubbing, you don’t want bits and pieces to scratch your skin. You can purchase powdered herbs at Mountain Rose Herbs or you can powder them in your blender.

I make a couple of cups at a time. I keep the herbal salt glow in a plastic container in my bathtub and it’s just there ready for me. (Plastic is so no one hurts themselves.) I make a new batch every couple of weeks.

I scrub it on for 2 to 5 minutes, 10 minutes max. This can be very healing and the salt can really start to draw. Some people get dizzy or dehydrated, so you want to stay hydrated. Make sure you wash all the salt off.

Herbal Salt Scrub Benefits

Underneath your skin are the nerves and the lymph, which is your immunity. Any time you use an herbal oil or herbal salt scrub, you help the skin, but you’re also helping your immune system and nervous system.

We don’t think of using an herbal salt glow to work with anxiety, stress and tension, but it is amazing for that. Are you feeling any stress or tension right now in your life? Herbal salt glow.

Your skin is an organ of elimination. From your digestive system to your liver, your bowels and your lungs, these are all organs of elimination. They’re all interconnected. For example, if you’re having headaches, the toxicity is the liver that’s being overloaded.

If you want to support your lungs during flu season, people think, “I’m going to drink a tea” or “I’m going to take elderberry syrup.” But when you stimulate the skin, scrub it, get off the dead cells, and bring circulation, you’re actually decreasing the load on the liver and the lungs. An herbal salt glow really supports your overall immune and lymph health, and also helps other organs of elimination.

When do you an herbal salt glow, you’re also putting on the herbal oil. The oil moisturizes the nerves, stimulating your immune system. You’re calming the nerves and increasing circulation.

Notes on How to Use a Salt Scrub

Salt is very drawing. If you feel uncomfortable at all, just wash the salt off. At the beginning, just leave it on for five minutes and make sure you drink a lot of fluids because the salt draws. Fluids follow salt. It will start to pull things out, and then after you do your herbal salt glow, a half hour later, you’ll be like, “Wow! I feel things are really moving.”

I leave an herbal salt glow on for 5 to 10 minutes. You can do this once a week or three times a week. This is a really good herbal self-care technique for seasonal transition or for when you feel like there’s a virus. This technique is as important as any other immune-boosting herbs that you are taking.

 

Herbal Self-Care and Your Home Apothecary

These techniques really help take the edge off, and I’ve seen a lot of people have some amazing success with them. They’re also very family-friendly. It teaches your children and young ones that they can do something to make themselves feel better, so they don’t have to start from scratch like so many of us did learning about home herbalism.

Now is the time. There’s a massive influx of people learning about herbal medicine for a reason. The herbs are here. They support us. There’s so much that we can do for ourselves and for our loved ones.

If you want to learn more about the four techniques in this article, and if you’d like to learn my most family-friendly 23 herbal techniques, I would love for you to join me in the Herbal Kitchen Remedy Solutions course. You can do the course on any device, and you have lifetime access.

Click here to join Herbal Kitchen Remedy Solutions

Herbal self-care techniques have really made a difference in my life and the thousands of students that I’ve worked with. These techniques are key for your home herbalism, your home apothecary, and family-friendly herbal medicine, and I’d love to have you in the course.

 

Herbal Self-Care Webinar and Recipes

From the herbal gargle to the herbal eye compress, herbal foot bath, and herbal salt glow, I also cover these four techniques in my Herbal Self-Care webinar. You can watch the recording and download the recipes below.

Click Here to Download Recipes