Herbs for Wildfire Smoke: Supporting Your Whole Body, Lungs, Liver, Nerves and Heart

Seems like wildfires are everywhere these days. And, the most common thing people will ask an herbalist is, “what herbs do I need for the inhalation of wildfire smoke?” And, they’re thinking it’s always something to do with the lungs and respiratory health.
Which, yes, that’s a great start. But, these fires, and their smoke affect so much more than that in our bodies. And, that’s what we’re digging into with this episode.

We’re talking about things like:

• Why thinking of the body as a whole, instead of just one system at a time is important.
• Using herbs for nervous system support
• Supporting the liver, so it can help detoxify our systems
• And yes, supporting the lungs too.
• Herbs you’ll hear about in this episode are: Hawthorn, Mullein, Licorice, Fennel, Anise Seed, Linden, Milk Thistle, and probably a few more, you’ll just have to listen to find out.
  
  
  

The thing that a skilled herbalist will do in almost all situations is look beyond the initial issue most folks think you’re facing. Because we are beautiful, intricate, complex, and whole beings. And, what may affect one body system, is surely to be having an impact on other systems as well. And, when you learn to think of using herbs in ways like this, you’re thinking like an herbalist, and you will have much greater success with herbal remedies.

Want to start thinking more like an herbalist, instead of a band-aid fixer? Check out the Community Herbalist Mentorship here! 

https://www.theherbalistspath.com/community-herbalist-certification

If you've been learning herbs for a while, but still feel like you don't know enough, this free live class was made for you! We're going to cover the 3 essential steps to help you go from "dabbling" to feeling confident as an herbalist.

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Transcript

Wildfire Grief And Gratitude

SPEAKER_00 2:02

I think about when times like these are happening, when people are struggling, when our precious earth is struggling, when these sweet little precious animals can't make it out of wildfires and seeing our ecosystem doing some pretty devastating things. Scares me. It makes me sad. And I am so grateful for the plants. And I will continue to be grateful for the plants and the ways that we can use them to support us and the ways that we can support them as well. Welcome to the Herbalist Path. If you love learning about the power of plant medicine and how to use it in your life, this show is for you. I'm Mel Mutterspot, clinical herbalist, herbal educator, and your host. In each episode, you're going to hear me sharing herbal insights and knowledge from my 25 plus years of working with and learning from the plants. Plus, I'm going to share interviews with some of the most amazing herbalists, educators, farmers, and healers out there, all bringing their herbal wisdom here for you. Really, this show is all about continuing this movement to put an herbalist in every home and a healer in every community. Again. Thank you so much for listening and welcome to the Herbalist Path. Enjoy the show. Hello, hello, and welcome

Welcome And Why This Matters

SPEAKER_00 3:38

back for another episode here on the Herbalist Path. It's been summer. I've been busy, so it's been a bit since I've had a new episode out. But I can assure you, I sure hope that your summer has been loads of fun so far. I'm here in the foothills of Mount Hood, yet in another super active wildfire season. We actually have the grasshopper fire raging about 12 miles to the east of me. And it's now 55,000 uh acres that it is burning. And I laugh. It's not funny by any means, but um it is sad. It is really, really sad and upsetting. And before I like have you worrying or anything, we are safe. I don't believe that we are at any risk for the fires burning down our home or our community at this point in time. But we definitely had a

Smoke Season Reality And Home Basics

SPEAKER_00 4:36

lot of smoke for a few days. And right now I'm in the clearing part of the smoke. The winds have shifted directions, and that feels really good. Um, but really, I wanted to come on and talk about the bigger picture of it all and talk about ways that we can support ourselves during wildfire season when we're dealing with so much smoke and breathing in all kinds of nasty toxins and fumes. And when we're dealing with the heartache of realizing that our planet is really not in its best shape. Like I think about life when my daughter was young. We used to have backyard campfires all of the time until she was about four. And then we'd start seeing like this fire ban kind of thing creeping up on the regular. Um, and now it's like a real big thing. We had her birthday party in early July, and it was already like campfire ban. And things like this crushed my heart. Hearing about what's happening in Spokane, Washington, hearing about the wildfires in places like Ireland and the heat waves over in Europe, and just knowing that this is a regular thing. We now have fire season. And that wasn't a thing not long ago. And if that's not a sign of this beautiful planet being like, yo, y'all quit messing with me and being so rude and dumping all kinds of crap everywhere. I don't know what is. I don't know why folks that are the powers that be don't give a damn, why they don't want to do anything to protect our planet. In fact, they're happy to do anything that does not protect our planet and still instead, like, you know, stuffs their pockets. This stuff chops my head in in a really big way. And again, it breaks my heart. And if you are dealing with wildfires or ever have, my heart goes out to you. I know how frightening, um, how tragic and devastating it really, really is on so many fronts at this point in time. Knock on wood, I have not lost a home, but I have had to evacuate. I have had friends who have lost homes and businesses and whatnot. And it's just it's really scary. But I I did want to come on and talk about herbs too. So don't worry. Uh, big part of today's episode. But I just wanted to preface it a little bit with like what's going on in the world and um how that feels. So yeah, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the herbs that I've been turning to to support me, especially when the smoke-filled skies were so thick, it was just disgusting. We kept our homes closed up, we have an air purifier, we didn't go outside. All of those kinds of basic things for sure happened. We did have a couple of times where we had to go outside. And just the thought of like being stuck inside all of the time, it really um really upsets my nervous system.

Respiratory Herbs That Soothe And Coat

SPEAKER_00 7:49

So when it comes to wildfire smoke, obviously we want to do a lot to protect the respiratory tract and to protect our lungs. So, of course, the first herb that most of us are gonna turn to would be molen or molin leaf, which is fantastic. Just so happens that my favorite places for harvesting mullen in the wild are currently on fire in that grasshopper fire just to the east of me. I do believe that they are going to grow back in great abundance, so that is lovely, but um, it's still kind of hard to think about. But we turned to mulin because it's rich in mucilage and it's got these sapinins in there that create this ability to just soothe and coat the dry respiratory tract, which is really going to happen when we're breathing in wildfire smoke, right? And you can put it in a tea. It's very, very simple. I will say mullen is a very fuzzy leafed plant. Like it's really, really soft. But the fuzzy little hairs can get like caught and trapped in your skin, and definitely caught and trapped in the respiratory tract, which can cause a lot of irritation. So consider filtering your tea if you want to do that. Maybe make an iced tea if it's really hot where you are, that would be a good idea. Um, but yeah, usually a pretty easy herb to find. It grows in the wild, it will take over spaces. So if you are considering growing it yourself, I would certainly be mindful of the spread of seeds later on because you will soon have a mullen filled yard, which is really pretty and a lot of good medicine. And of course, mullen is good for so much more than our respiratory health. It's the roots can be fantastic for urinary conditions. We know that the flowers can be really great for ear infections, especially for our littles. So cool that it grows so wildly abundant. And maybe you want to regulate it a little bit. So, yes, melon is the first thing going in my tea when I am thinking about my respiratory tract. The other thing that I am always going to be using in my respiratory teas is licorice root. And licorice root I really, really love because it's really powerful medicine in so many different ways. But I really love it here because it's sweet. So it's going to make whatever tea I'm making taste absolutely delicious. And it is very coating and soothing and mucilaginous to those dry mucosal tissues, like the respiratory tract. So it can be a nice addition in the tea. The other benefit, which I'll talk about here in a little bit, is that it also provides a lot of support for the liver. And we'll talk about why that's important here, as I just said, momentarily. Um, if you don't have access to licorice root, another common herb that you likely have in your kitchen cabinet or can even find in your local grocery store, would be fennel. Fennel seeds, also very sweet and delicious. They are mucilaginous. They will coat and soothe the dry respiratory tract in lovely ways. You could also turn to aniseed for this, not like the beautiful, like starry-shaped ones that you see at Christmas time, but uh pimp pimpan pimpanum? Anisum pimpanella? Pimpanella? I'm saying that name wrong. Pimpanella anisum, I believe, is what it is. And it has a phenomenal affinity for the respiratory tract, for opening up the bronchioles, and definitely for that cooling, soothing mucilaginousness that you're going to be looking for when you're breathing in wildfire smoke. Okay. Um, sorry for murdering Pimpanella's name. I don't know what was going on right there, but it happens. Um, Latin is great and really important to understand and to know your Latin names of your plants, and sometimes you're gonna get them messed up, apparently. Um, but yeah, that's definitely one I would put into a respiratory blend. And then another one that I am fortunate to have an extreme abundance of around me. A lot of it's getting burned right now. Um it is lungwort. And this is a lichen, and it is it kind of only grows in very healthy, dense forests, and it will drop to the ground when branches are fallen to the ground after a storm. So I will pick up some of the lungwort lichen when I find it on the ground in the fall and the winter during my cold, dark, dreary hikes in that time of year. Um, it's not something that's as what readily available. It's not something that people can grow intentionally. So if you don't have an abundance around you, maybe it's probably not the earth for you. You could grow the lung wort plant, though I don't work with that very much myself. Um, doesn't mean it's that great. I'm just fortunate to have the lichen. So I work with it primarily. So yeah. Those are just gonna provide the support we are going to need when our tissues are dry and scratchy and irritated and not feeling good.

Liver Support For Smoke Toxin Load

SPEAKER_00 13:29

And I think that it's really important to also address liver health and function, because when we are breathing in all of those particulates in the air, we are breathing in toxins, right? And our liver's main job in the body is to help the body to detoxify. It's got over 500 different jobs, though, that definitely being a primary one. And so if we can choose herbs that are also going to support the liver, we are winning in many, many different ways. So licorice root comes to mind right here. Licorice actually has uh an affinity for improving liver function, helping the liver to do its job of the filtration process. So that is a lovely addition to your tea, not only for the respiratory tract, but for the liver function as well. Yay, winning. Um, and then another one is that I love to take on the daily is milk thistle. So the milk thistle seed, the outer coating of milk thistle seed is uh rich with this compound of constituents called silimarin. Silicrystin, silidianin, and silibinin are the three compounds in silimarin. And there are there's so much research on the incredible benefits. It's uh trophorestorative for the liver, so helping the liver to do its amazing regenerative process, among so many other things. It helps to protect the liver and improves the functionality of it overall. But the siliverin is not water-soluble, so you do want to take those in capsules. And I like companies like Oregon's Wild Harvest or Eclectic Herb. They all make some really high-quality milk thistle supplements if you are interested in something along those lines. I also like to buy them in bulk. Sometimes I'll get them from Mountain Rose Herbs and just crack them over, like in a pepper grinder, and crack it over a salad and have them on the regular that way. Really easy way to get some liver loven into your body and help your body to process all the toxins that are coming into the body through smoke. Sometimes you can't stay inside, right? Some people can't afford an air filter. Some people don't have that option. So, how can we support the liver? And then the other thing I want to talk about that I feel is really important is addressing the nerves and the mood and how these fires make us feel.

Breath, Anxiety, And Nervous System

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Um I get really down when these fires come or when I have smoky skies. It makes me really upset. It makes my heart literally crushed. And if you think about it, it makes total sense because the respiratory tract, the ability to breathe, has a direct impact on our mood. Right? That's why so many yoga practitioners or nervous system practitioners are really focused on the breath. And we could do an example exercise if you want, right here. Like just take a moment, close your eyes if you want, don't close your eyes, and breathe normal. But on your exhale, I want you to only exhale halfway. So do that for 30 seconds. I'm gonna try to hold 30 seconds here, and then tell me how you feel. Reach out on social media or email and tell me how that feels for you when you are holding your breath back. What comes up for you? So regular old breath, half exhale. Regular old breath, half exhale. Regular old breath, half exhale. And do that for 30 seconds and yeah, get back to me on that. For me, it creates like extreme anxiety right away. Like, oh my god, panic, panic, panic. And that's really the feeling that somebody with emphysema feels on a regular. Which is a darn shame. Can you imagine feeling that all of the time? Now do yourself a favor and open up your shoulders, open up your chest, open up your arms if you want to, and take in that deep inhale. And exhale with a sigh. And do that one, two, three times. Tell me how that feels. Feels relaxing, feels calming, makes me feel a bit elated, right? So I just wanted to share that exercise with you because it is proof of like how our breath is directly correlated to our moods and our nervous system, right? So yes, when we are dealing with wildfire smoke, we do want to address the nervous system via the respiratory tract. So one herb that I love, love, love in this case is linden. Linden leaf and flower is also quite mucilaginous and lovely in a tea, adds a little touch of sweetness to a nice blend. And if you've heard this podcast ever, you know that I am deeply in love with Linden and the way that it feels so supportive for me and my nerves when I am stressed. It's like it is holding me, loving me, caring for me, squeezing away any of the stress. And now we're also getting that support to the respiratory system as well. So this is definitely a big win. And as you start to dive more into the world of herbs, I think it is so important to take the time to get to know herbs on a deeper level so that you can think of the multitude of ways in which they can impact the body, because rarely are we ever going to be just thinking, oh, you have a respiratory issue, that's all. We're not looking at anything else, right? Because we are whole beings. We our nervous system works with the respiratory system, works with the immune system, works with the lymphatic system, works with the circulatory system. And when you start to see the incredibly beautiful ways that the body's organs and systems work together, you start to be able to see much more opportunity for herbs to work within the body. It's really empowering, it's really exciting, it's really, really cool. That's a lot of what we talk about in the community herbalist certification and mentorship because you need to understand how the body works in order to fully connect how the herbs are working with the body, and the body is working with the herbs to really be good at like formulation and that thought process of like, what can I use to support this being right here, right now? How can I formulate something that's yummy? All of those kinds of things

Linden Calm And Whole-Body Herbalism

SPEAKER_00 20:36

kind of come together. So the other herb that I chose to support my nerves, as well as my literal, like my heart crushing. Maybe that's not literal, that's spiritual hard crushing my soul. Like I the whole reason I ever became an herbalist is because I love this planet. And I've always wanted to encourage more people to go towards natural things so that we can do things to take better care of our planet so that we can really understand the symbiotic relationship between us as humans and these plants and this planet, and how when we care about the collective, the collective cares back to us.

unknown 21:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

I can get pretty mushy and passionate about that topic. But the herb that I was also turning to in this particular instance is hawthorn. And I love to use hawthorn leaf, berry, and flower. You can use it in a tea. I really do love tincturing it. It's delicious and so supportive for the heart, so protective for the heart. The hawthorns have thorns on them, which is a nice sign of the protectivity that it may provide for one. And it's got an incredible affinity for the heart. Whether that's physically supporting the heart and cardiovascular system and strengthening the heart muscle, tonifying the heart muscle, it is also amazing for the grieving heart, for the broken heart, while simultaneously being a gentle nervine. So it's kind of coming all around full circle to be like, hey, I got you, babe. We're in this together, and let me support you and help you stay strong, yet also you know, feel good through this process or heal what does not feel good in a better way. So those are some of the things I think about when times like these are happening, when people are struggling, when our precious earth is struggling, when these sweet little precious animals can't make it out of wildfires and seeing our ecosystem doing some pretty devastating things. Um scares me. It makes me sad. And I am so grateful for the plants, and I will continue to be grateful for the plants and the ways that we can use them to support us and the ways that we can support them as well. So hopefully this is helpful. I just did like, you know, I had all these herbs as separates, and I would just pop them into my tea. Of course, the milk thistle didn't go in the tea because it's not water soluble. Um, I do take those as capsules on the regular. I also have

Hawthorn For Heartbreak And Strength

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Hawthorn as a tincture. I've definitely been using milky oats to support my nerves, but I've been doing that for a while as well. And um yeah, I hope that this is helpful for you. And if you are that herbalist and you're exploring and learning and feeling great about what can be done with plant medicine and how it's helped you, but you're still a little stuck, maybe feeling like you don't know enough, but you do want to know enough, then I definitely invite you to chat with me about the community herbalist certification and mentorship. I will certainly post a link within the show notes. But my whole mission in that program is to give you the knowledge where you do feel confident enough to use these herbs and share them with people in your community, maybe teach classes. If you aspire to run an herbal product line, this is definitely a place for you where you can feel so good about the formulations that you're creating. And if you're just somebody who wants to feel empowered to uh advocate for yourself within the Western medical system, this is also a great one. You'll learn a lot of the language that is being used there and be able to understand how the body works. So when you're talking with your healthcare provider, you can be like, oh, I see what you're getting to. I understand that. You can also be like, hey, I know what you're talking about and I don't agree with what you're saying. All very empowering things. Anyways, that's kind of the step that we go over in the mentorship. Um, and then supportive live weekly calls together, because it's not just about learning and stuffing information in your brain, but sometimes you want to ask questions. Sometimes you want to like really get some feedback or have those aha moments. And I see that those happen a lot in our live sessions. Anyways, if this is helpful for you, do me a favor and please share it with others. I know I'm uh slightly rambly today. I just got back from the river and I was just feeling really called to share this podcast with you. So I do hope that it helps you. I do hope that you're safe and well and you're doing uh whatever it is you can to enjoy life today and your part in making this world a better place. So thanks again for listening

How Mel Uses These Remedies

SPEAKER_00 25:43

to me here on the Herbalist Path and have a great day. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the Herbalist Path. If you're loving this journey into herbal medicine, please follow and review the show. It helps more people find their own path with the plants. And if you know someone who could use this kind of support, please share this episode with them. So that way we can keep making herbalism spread like wildflowers. Also, a gentle reminder: nothing shared on this podcast is intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease. This is all for educational purposes. Yeah, I will entertainment too. But it is not a substitute for personalized care from a qualified health practitioner. Always do your own research, listen to your body. And when added, partner with a trusted professional who honors both your intuition and your unique health journal. Until next time, take care, stay curious, and keep walking the herbalist path.