Coronavirus & COVID-19 Herbal Resources

Here are some free materials we’ve produced about the coronavirus pandemic:

Herbs for Coronavirus Preparedness

Learn herbs to help boost your immune function, strengthen respiratory health, and help you any time you have to go out where you might be exposed.
Video version here
Audio version with transcript here

Herbs for Managing Covid-19 at Home

If your symptoms are mild enough that you are managing the virus at home, here are herbal suggestions to make it easier.
Video version here
Audio version with transcript here

Herbs for COVID Anxiety

If you’re feeling like it’s a struggle to manage emotions in this weird time, herbs can help! Here are six herbs that we are working with to help us through.
Video version here
Audio version with transcript here

How to Stay Healthy in a Corona World

Some folks are heading back to work and eventually we will find some kind of new normal, sharing this world with Corona. Here are our tips on how to give your body the best chance at staying healthy, whatever comes.
Video version here
Audio version with transcript here

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Top Five Actions for Covid

The above is over three hours of audio/video, and maybe you’re in a hurry.
I’ve created a “Top 5” list for you!

1. Herbal Steams

Thyme, Oregano, Monarda, Rosemary, Sage, Lavender, Peppermint even. Also Pine/Spruce needles.

This is our #1 preventative if you think you’ve been exposed, and our #1 intervention if you actually get it.

For prevention, steam 2x/day for a few days after exposure. (or do it every day for the full two weeks – you can switch up the herbs from day to day.)

If you get sick, 2-3x/day, plus anytime you feel like your lungs hurt or you can’t breathe.

If i could only do one thing, this is what it would be.
It’s ok to do your second steam with all the plant matter from the first steam and then add half as much again: you don’t have to start over each time. You can drink the tea after you steam, as long as you didn’t drip any snot into it. If you steam with Pine/Spruce, bonus! We really liked Pine needle tea with Orange peels – delicious and helpful!

WHY IT HELPS 

1. The volatile component of these herbs (they’re all in the Mint family, except Pine/Spruce) has anti-microbial action, but only if you get it in contact with the microbes – so that’s why we breathe it in. It’s like washing your lungs!

2. The volatiles also stimulate your lungs’ own immune response actions.

3. The steam helps to moisten up your lungs – Covid is super dry and that moisture helps to keep everything able to move. 

4. The heat also helps make an unlivable environment for the virus – it’s like a manual fever. We get a fever because pathogens can’t survive in warmer environments. When you breathe in hot steam, you are raising the temperature of your lungs without having to build a fever yourself.

*note: if you are involved in the protests going on right now and you have been tear-gassed, this might not feel very good. Wait till you’re recovered from the tear gas, and then do the steams. A Chamomile or Lavender steam might feel good, but if the gas is still in your skin, the steam won’t feel great. It’s ok to wait a day or two – it’ll still help.
In the meantime, lots of Marshmallow cold infusion, see #5.

2. Garlic and Thyme Tea

In fact, it’s fine to put the Garlic into the steam and then drink the whole steam (as long as you don’t drip snot into it! But Covid is so dry, there won’t be much snot.)

Drink 2-4 cups a day, you can use grocery store Garlic for this.

WHY IT HELPS

1. All the parts of Thyme that aren’t carried in the steam now get into you – it’s warming to the whole body, stimulates blood movement (which means better transportation for your immune cells), and provides some anti-inflammatory actions (which provide a check on run-away inflammation/cytokines)

2. Garlic also has the volatile components that help your lungs – and in this case it moves very quickly through the blood stream to get to the lungs. (Not all volatile components of all plants do this, but Garlic does.) So it’s providing more of the same type of anti-microbial action in the lungs, plus stimulating blood movement and immune response, plus checking runaway inflammation. 
When you’re sick, you want “goldilocks inflammation” – you do want some, because it’s part of the immune response. But too much is dangerous – herbs that help keep inflammation balanced help keep you in the “goldilocks zone”

3. Elecampane

I prefer a decoction, and i mean a really good and muddy-tasting strong decoction – it’s not going to taste good, but if you take one shotglass per hour when you’re awake (you don’t have to wake up to do it), and then drink something (any herbal tea) in between, you’ll get it into your body without having to deal much with a flavor that doesn’t appeal. It’s ok to do tincture if you have to.

WHY IT HELPS

1. It’s got biofilm busting action, anti-bacterial action, and anti-microbial action. You don’t have Covid all by itself – any time you have an illness, it’s actually a party. There are lots of things going on, because pathogens are opportunistic – or in other words, when one gets in, they bring their friends. This is why sometimes an antibiotic helps with a viral infection, because it’s reducing the number of things your body is fighting.
Elecampane has effects against the full spectrum.

2. It stimulates the lungs to activate their own immune response.

3. It warms up the lungs by stimulating blood flow – which makes your fever more effective (which means it doesn’t have to get as hot), and makes sure all your white blood cells have good transportation to the lungs.

4. It also helps to manage run-away coughing: it doesn’t suppress all coughing, just reduces the coughing to when you really need to. 

4. Ginger Tea

You can make tea with Ginger fresh from the grocery store or dried. Mix with Chamomile if you like, half and half. Drink 2-4 cups a day (or more if you love it!).

WHY IT HELPS

1. Ginger and Chamomile are both anti-inflammatory, so they’re helping your body to regulate inflammation and keep it in that “goldilocks” zone.

2. Both are also anti-spasmodic: they can relax the urge to cough, relax muscle tension, relax headache due to pain and tension.

3. Ginger reduces vomiting – a lot of people get nauseous with Covid, or also cough hard enough to hit the gag reflex. Ginger relaxes that.

4. Ginger improves circulation, to make sure your immune response cells can all get where they’re needed.

5. Marshmallow Root

This is best as a cold infusion, 2-4 cups a day, or more.

WHY IT HELPS

1. Covid is super drying, and Marshmallow root helps to moisten things up again. A lot of the lung pain and restricted breathing comes because the lungs are dried out so much that they are not able to expand well. By keeping the mucous membranes healthy, you’re preventing that drying out that causes pain and restriction.

2. Marshmallow also supports kidney health – and your kidneys are working hard through all of this to do the clean up from all the immune response. They will appreciate the support!

3. Marshmallow supports all the mucous membranes – so if you have a sore throat, it will be soothing here too.

There are definitely plenty of other things you can do – and we recommend you do them all! Chicken soup with seaweed, buckets of every kind of tea that has inflammation-modulating action – until you feel like you’re going to float away on tea, lots of good foods with vitamin C – all the normal stuff you would do for a flu-like illness. But if i had to pick my top five things to do, based on our experience with Covid, these would be it.

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Elderberry and Cytokine Storms

Here is our take on the newly-circulating theoretical concern that elderberry may trigger or exacerbate cytokine storms in those infected with coronavirus.

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Here are some materials and resource compilations we also find valuable:

• North American Institute of Medical Herbalism COVID-19 Resources

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Want to learn more? Our Cold & Flu course is for you!

The Herbal Remedies for Cold & Flu course has over 12 hours of videos, printable quick guides, recipes, access to our twice-weekly live Q&A video conference sessions, and more! Learn how to support your body and care for illnesses at home by building up your immune resources as well as how to deal with the individual symptoms.

You can learn herbalism! Whether you’re just beginning or looking to start a career, we have video courses and complete programs that will get you where you’re going.