Herbal alternatives to psych meds can be wild foods.
This does not mean you should abruptly stop psych drugs when you start eating wild foods of course. Safe and slow tapering are still important. Wild foods, when taken properly and carefully can help nourish the body so deeply that the need for psych drugs may slowly subside. This should be done under the care of a qualified herbalist. In the meantime, there are some safe wild foods you can start to eat that will help to strengthen your constitution.
If you have considered psych drugs but haven’t started them yet, try nourishing with wild foods and herbs and see if you have more energy and feel more capacity to live without meds.
This can be a challenge or no challenge at all depending on where you live and how much knowledge you have about wild foods.
Yet, if you are seeking to live a life with lots of energy, inspiration, deliciousness and freedom, you have no way around it: you must learn about wild foods! You must learn to identify some berries, greens and herbs you can eat and where it is safe to pick them. These are the best and most nutritive herbal alternatives to psych meds.
For those of us who are committed to living free of dangerous pharmaceuticals, it is not enough to simply use store bought herbs and supplements. We must actually connect to the earth and the source of the medicine. We must taste the deliciousness of our medicine and become intimate with it. Our medicine was meant to be our lover, not our saboteur.
Here are some thimble berries to inspire you:
These delicate berries are super sweet and melt in your mouth. They look a bit like raspberries but are much softer and subtler. They dissolve in your mouth without any chewing…comfort food!
If you are in the U.S., you probably have some berries ripening around you at this time of year, and those are probably the easiest to identify. Raspberry leaves make a nutritious tea. Most wild foods are healthiest when they are…in the the wild, far from cars, city pollution and houses or buildings which can pollute the soil with chemicals from their paint.
If you live in a city, there are still plenty of options for foraging such as parks, gardens and abandoned lots. Taking a trip out to the country for a day can be more valuable if you come home with bags of foraged greens, berries and herbs.
Here’s another favorite. If you are lucky enough to find some nettle, this is an extremely nutritious herb/food and can be picked with gloves or a plastic bag to avoid getting stung.
There are infinite wild foods and herbs to learn about. I’ve learned mostly from friends and teachers in person, though there are also many books where you can fact check (here’s a list), and of course the good ol’ internet for looking things up.
Most people who work in gardens know which weeds are edible (so you can ask them) and there are soooo many.
You may already know of a lot of great ones but just forget to eat them because we are conditioned to think food must always be bought or cultivated ourselves. Some of the most energizing meals I have ever eaten and the most nutritious teas I’ve ever drank have been from “weeds”. They are herbal alternatives to psych meds because they nourish the body so deeply and ease depression and anxiety with nourishment and nutrients so profoundly.
Eating weeds is also a way of affirming what we know about ourselves: just because some people or some parts of ourselves are considered weeds, does not mean they are less valuable. In fact they may be more valuable given the right conditions.
Take one step today to find wild edibles near you and most importantly: EAT THEM!