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I do want to maybe start on the thread of mood, and what herbs you found to be most impactful for mood

and maybe share with us some of the mechanisms of actions through which they

improve things like depression or anxiety or what have you. Absolutely. So the first herb that comes

to mind for mood is definitely St. John's Wort. I think this is one that many people are familiar with

and you might even be able to find in your local CBS,

unfortunately, through a brand like Nature Made who's probably not harvesting it correctly.

This is a plant that really blooms and starts to flower in a very short period around the summer solstice.

And it's this very special experience where this plant is storing so much energy in its roots and its leaves before it finally comes up to flower.

And then it expresses through this really beautiful solar, yellow, happy flower.

And that's kind of what we talk about in traditional herbalism as the doctrine of signatures, where part of the plant's actual physical presentation can give

us clues as to how this plant may work. This plant blooms at essentially the maximum solar

part of the year where we have the most sun and light energy in the environment. As we harvest that

plant and create tinctures for the winter months, we're able to

kind of save and later impart some of that solar energy within to our psyche when it comes

time for seasonal affective disorder. What that looks like in an actual scientific Western lens

is that we know that St. John's work may actually modulate and improve serotonin, for example.

It may modulate gaber receptors and dopamine levels. It may help to lower inflammation, actually,

that's coming from our gut, our digestive system, in order to modulate neuroinflammation

via the gut brain axis. It may also help to upregulate certain

...