An Herbal Survival Guide for Family Feasts
Plants to Soothe, Stimulate, and Savor Your Way Through the Holiday Chaos
Hello Higher-Minded Humans,
Every year, families and friends gather to embrace togetherness in what will either become a day of gratitude or a day aggression, both passive and active. With the holiday many refer to as Thanksgiving, or Friendsgiving, quickly approaching, it is nice to have some help with getting through. On this day, here are some plants that you can truly be thankful for.
Pre-Meal
Showing up to your destination can sometimes be the most difficult moment of the holiday. Maybe you are meeting the family of a partner for the first time. Maybe you have some major news you plan on delivering to your family. Maybe you don’t agree with your family on politics, or religion, or just the fundamental aspects of who they are as a person.
Maybe the world is burning down, and you are having a difficult enough time keeping a smile on your face without your “patriotic” teenage family member telling you the best way to handle immigration, which he (let’s face it, it is most likely he) has learned from zero of his high school classes. In any case, you are going to need something that is going to help calm you down.
Sure, you could drink alcohol, but not only can that bring out aggression if you find yourself in a hot topic of conversation, but it can also make you verbally clumsy, and it can allow you to say something you didn’t wish to say to someone you could be meeting for the first time. You could also rely on cannabis to help you, but that could make things worse depending on your own tolerance and brain chemistry, and there are still many states that have failed to legalize the plant. This is why kava would be a great companion to your pre-meal festivities.
(Catch our episode on kava here)
Kava is known for its calming and relaxing properties. Not only does it relax the body, allowing you to relax those shoulders and breathe, but it can also relax the mind. What makes this so great for an event like a stressful gathering is that it allows you to maintain complete focal and cognitive clarity. You don’t have to worry about saying something you will regret, because you still have full control of your mind and your intentions.
You are still you, not just on a fundamental level, but a fully realized level. You just don’t have all the stress on top of you. Kava is also a community building beverage, so this could actually be a great time to connect with friends, family, and those you are possibly meeting for the first time. Though, one must warn, do not consume kava and alcohol together. Not only will it make you sick, but it can cause damage to your liver as it becomes taxing to filter both substances at the same time.
Mealtime!
The meal itself can deliver its own problems. The first thing to think about is appetite itself. Whether it is caused by stress, medications, ailment, or the fact that some people are expected to jump to multiple households and eat an equal amount at each one, it can be difficult for some people to gather the appetite to take on the meal sitting before them. And while many people would just quickly think of cannabis again, it is important to note that the legal status of that plant ranges state-to-state and isn’t fully accessible to many still. For this reason, let me introduce you to another kind of weed… dandelion.
If you think cannabis is the magical weed, well, that is because you are still looking at dandelion like it is something bothering the appearance of your lawn. Not only does it house a variety of healing properties flowing through every part of the plant, but it is also an appetite stimulant. Dandelion root tinctures have been used traditionally for morning sickness to help alleviate nausea and stimulate the appetite. But it doesn’t just end there.
Eating a meal doesn’t simply involve getting hungry and eating food. Sure, that is the easiest understanding of eating, we all know that, but what about everything happening inside of your body? Dandelion may help control blood sugar and lower cholesterol.
Now, you may be wondering when the benefits of dandelion will stop. They won’t. Dandelion will be with you until the end of the line when it is concerning your meal, as it also helps with digestion, and acts as a diuretic to keep you from holding in too much fluid and salt.
Post-Meal
After the meal is generally when things calm down. While turkey does contain tryptophan, which helps the body produce melatonin, it doesn’t actually have enough to create the sedative effect people feel after eating Thanksgiving dinner. It actually has less tryptophan than some other forms of poultry. Most often, it is two other factors that come into play when causing the fatigue. One factor is the heavy consumption of carbohydrates often found in traditional Thanksgiving dinners. The other one is actually a very serious condition that is called, “I don’t want to help clean up after the meal that someone else made for me.” For these reasons, especially if you are someone that is applicable to the next section, you need to find something that is going to help keep you alert.
Peppermint is something that is often associated with the conclusion of a meal. It is often given at the end of a meal at a restaurant, either in a fancy jar with a spoon, or thrown onto the table wrapped in the beautifully musical plastic that crinkles with pure delight. It is mostly given to aid in digestion and fight off indigestion. Peppermint can relax the stomach muscles, improve the flow of bile needed for digestion, and help relieve gas. That is all very beneficial, but you may be asking what that has to do with staying awake.
Peppermint can also help make you more alert and focused, while also helping you with memory retention. The scent itself can be enough to invigorate your senses and make you feel more awake, having been shown to fight fatigue and help improve exorcise performance. It can help activate your hippocampus, which is the part of your brain in charge of mental clarity and memory, to help alleviate the head fog that is often associated with the end of a large meal with multiple members of your family speaking over each other. Having a cup of peppermint tea after your meal is a great way to not just help you digest your meal but also stay active in the gathering.
The Night One Stands on the Threshold of Gratitude and Material Lust
The holiday isn’t over yet. What better way to fully embrace the building of community and friendship than to wrestle a toy from a crying child’s hands the following day to save $12.99 before tax. While waking up extra early to fight a crowd of people for a discounted tv that the store deliberately under-stocked, knowing that one of us must fall in order to make sacrifice to the god of late-stage-capitalism, isn’t my cup of tea, some people may find themselves in this position out of obligation or their own desire (no judgement). If this is something you foresee in your future, you are going to want to get to bed at a reasonable hour. This is why you don’t want to waste all that sleepy time on the sofa after you had your meal.
Some people want to take melatonin, thinking of how their turkey helped them release some just earlier that day. Here’s the thing, if your body naturally produces melatonin, you don’t want to start adding more from an external source just for good measure. Taking melatonin when your body already produces enough of it can actually create a counter effect where it becomes harder to not just fall asleep but also stay asleep. Furthermore, taking melatonin supplements long term can inhibit your body from producing it on its own.
Depending on how excited you are to enter the Thunderdome the following day, you may want to be selective with what you decide to consume. If you are anxious about what you are about to witness the next day, something like ashwagandha may be best for you, as it will help quiet your racing thoughts and lower your blood pressure while it gently guides you to your slumber. If you are pretty indifferent towards the following day’s activities, but know you just need to get to sleep early, chamomile may be your go-to. If you have yourself in a frenzy thinking about the mayhem you are about to create in order to get half-off of that complete in-home yoga kit, then you are going to need something like valerian root to really bring upon the sedation you will need to find your early slumber.
On Friday evening you can sit back and relax. You made it. You survived. You can relax now, but not for long. For, in the distance, a new threat approaches… Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa. But don’t worry, we will have a continuing survival kit to help you with some Ho-Ho-Horticulture.
Disclaimer: Consult a doctor prior to consuming anything that could possibly counteract with your medications or ailments. I am not a doctor. I am just some guy named James writing a post on Substack.