Simple Ways to Use the Power of Herbalism in Your Daily Life with Rachelle Robinette [Episode #1026]

 

 

This Week’s Episode Special Guest: Rachelle Robinette 

Episode Summary

In this conversation, Kimberly interviews best selling author Rachelle Robinette and they discuss the transformative power of herbalism, exploring various herbs for sleep, emotional balance, and hormonal health. They emphasize the importance of food as medicine, the nuances of herb-drug interactions, and the significance of cycling herbs. Rachelle shares personal stories and insights on how herbalism can be integrated into modern life, highlighting the role of bitters in digestion and the holistic approach to health.

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Rachelle Robinette Resources: 

Website: rachellerobinett.com

Book: Naturally, The Herbalist’s Guide to Health and Transformation

Social: @rachellerobinett

 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Herbalism
02:43 Food as Medicine
05:58 Holistic Approach to Health
09:01 Efficacy of Herbal Remedies
12:03 Cycling and Dependency on Herbs
16:15 Exploring Safe Sleep Herbs
19:07 Herbs and Autoimmune Conditions
22:13 Addressing Brain Fog with Herbalism
25:14 The Power of Herbal Combinations
28:06 Daily Herbal Practices and Personal Preferences
31:11 Heart-Opening Herbs and Emotional Healing
34:14 Grounding Herbs for Modern Life
37:15 Herbs for Fertility and Hormonal Balance
40:18 Bitters and Digestive Health
43:08 The Role of the Liver in Hormonal Balance
46:09 The Importance of Enjoyable Herbalism

[RESOURCES / INFORMATION]

SOLLUNA PRODUCT LINKS

• Glowing Greens Powder™
• Feel Good SBO Probiotics
• Feel Good Detoxy
• Feel Good Digestive Enzymes
• Feel Good Starter Kit
• Feel Good Skincare

KIMBERLY’S BOOKS

• Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart
• The Beauty Detox Solution
• Beauty Detox Foods
• Beauty Detox Power
• Radical Beauty
• Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
• You Are More Than You Think You Are 

OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY!

• Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance [Episode 878]
• How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877
• How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger [Episode #873]
• How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo [Episode #867]

 

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Transcript: 

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (00:02.572)
Let me close this. Starting here. So I totally understand how certain things cannot be habit forming and can really benefit your body for the long term. But I know for sleep specifically, there’s a lot of products boasting melatonin, which I’ve always been a bit careful with because I know that if you’re taking melatonin all the time, your body may not produce its own natural

supply. Can you talk a little bit about safe sleep herbs? And I know these are general statements and people should consult herbalists, everybody’s body is different, but in general ones that can help with sleep that are obviously a little bit safer long term.

Rachelle (00:49.326)
Absolutely, yeah, there are so many wonderful herbs for sleep that really are safe long-term. Chamomile, since we’ve discussed that one, beautiful. Also, that’s a great herb for kids. It’s very gentle, it’s very effective.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (01:01.43)
Yeah.

Rachelle (01:03.276)
you know, wonderfully relaxing. It sits in two categories of herbs, and I know we’ll talk about categories shortly, but it’s both a nervine, so it’s working on the nervous system, and it’s also a gentle sedative. And generally, firstly, we want to work with sedatives. Rose petals are wonderful. Passion flower is the herb that we use for anybody who’s, you know, ruminating, has the monkey mind, is, you know, just…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (01:19.522)
Yeah.

Rachelle (01:32.886)
For me, it’s writing. I’m writing, you mentally instead of sleeping. Passionflower is the herb for that. Some of the slightly heavier sedatives include Valerian, California poppy, hops, and all of these are safe long-term. And the other thing that I would say is that all of these are ideal in combinations, in formulas, in blends that contain more than one herb.

And as I’m sure you know from, you know, Ayurveda and your communities probably heard, know, herbs historically and globally have been used in combinations, in formulas, as opposed to as singles, right? And it’s this mostly modern, mostly Western kind of invention that we want to take one herb.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (02:15.702)
Yes.

Yes.

Rachelle (02:25.602)
for something, but really the way that they’re used and the way that they’re the most effective is in combinations. So you could find a blend, like let’s add lavender into that, you know, into that sleep formula. Motherwort, there are so many, but you know, a combination of verbs is going to be much more effective than just one at a time. So, yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (02:45.61)
Right. I don’t know if I heard something about lucid dreaming or there was something with Valerian I heard to be a bit cautious about.

Rachelle (02:54.86)
So valerian’s interesting. Valerian is actually an herb that works well as a sedative when it’s combined with other herbs that are sedatives and nervines typically. If we’re using valerian on its own, it’s not as effective as a sedative. And I write about this in Naturally too, because this point is interesting with valerian. There’s a very small percentage of the population that valerian may

have the opposite effect for. And it may be a little bit energizing for them instead of sedating. And that tends to be, it tends to be and appears to be related to the state of that person’s nervous system already. it’s it’s a, and so, and so if you’re that small percentage of the population and you feel that stimulation instead, you’ll be, you know, lucid dreaming instead of actually dreaming. So, yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:26.858)
Hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:40.107)
Okay.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (03:52.62)
got it. Okay. That makes sense. And again, every herb, everybody’s body is different, just like food. be aware of, you know, specific effects on our bodies. Now, I’m sure you get this question a lot as well, when people have an actual condition, let’s say autoimmune conditions, which we know are really prevalent today.

Rachelle (03:54.678)
Yeah.

Rachelle (03:58.893)
Mm-hmm.

Rachelle (04:03.52)
Of course, of course. Yeah.

Rachelle (04:11.138)
Mm-hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (04:13.73)
What contraindications or any sort of precautions should people take if they’re interested in the tinctures, they’re interested in these herbs, which can be subtle, like you said, or more pronounced when they’re taking actual pharmaceutical drugs?

Rachelle (04:27.338)
Yeah, definitely. So always, always if you’re combining herbs with any kind of prescription medication, including birth control, that’s something to check with your health care provider about your doctor, your herbalist, both if possible, if you’re working with an herbalist. Herb drug interactions.

tend to be less kind of, they sound, it sounds very concerning, right? And it’s something that there’s a lot of fear around with good reason because so many people are using pharmaceuticals at this point. What tends to be most common with herb drug interactions is that the herbs are, for example, this is one very common example, the herbs are making our liver,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (04:58.283)
Yes.

Rachelle (05:14.104)
process things more effectively. Therefore, we’re processing that medication more quickly than it’s intended to be metabolized, and therefore that medication becomes less effective. That’s a very common herb-drug interaction. So it’s not so much that the two are kind of meeting in our body and causing some disastrous effect, but it’s that different systems are being affected in ways that that medication is not intended to sort of interact with.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:16.384)
Mmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:27.01)
Mm.

Rachelle (05:43.086)
So anyway, always check with healthcare provider if you’re mixing herbs and medications. Yeah, definitely.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:48.15)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (05:51.983)
A lot of people listening to this, I’m sure, like the everyday person, let’s say we don’t have a specific condition, but we want to feel good, right? Like the title of our show, we want to feel connected, we want to feel alive, we want to feel clear. So let’s take a general condition out there, brain fog, right? In the morning, going to caffeine, we want to alert, but not vigilant. We want to feel focused.

Rachelle (06:01.282)
Yeah.

Rachelle (06:07.181)
Yeah.

Rachelle (06:11.894)
Mm-hmm.

Rachelle (06:17.496)
Mm-hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (06:21.442)
and we don’t want to overdo caffeine. And it can be, you know, for the novice in herbalism, Rochelle, there’s tinctures, which are obviously more concentrated versus, you know, teas. What are some ways teas, tinctures, know, actual herbs you would recommend for this?

Rachelle (06:24.343)
Yeah.

Rachelle (06:38.912)
Yeah, definitely. There’s so much in that question. I mean, first, what I would say is, know, brain fog is such a common struggle these days. And I think we all understand why. There are so many reasons why. But, you know, this is why I organized my book.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (06:41.954)
A million questions.

Rachelle (07:01.292)
by categories, you each chapter focuses on one category of herbs and one sort of system in the body. So there’s a whole chapter on brain health, energy, focus, motivation, you know, everything sort of cognitive. And the reason that I did that is this structure, you know, is so helpful for somebody who’s new to herbalism.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (07:07.872)
Yes.

Rachelle (07:25.294)
It’s so helpful for them to navigate the world of herbs. So we say, want to focus on my brain health. We see then there’s a category of herbs. Let’s say there’s a couple dozen that are commonly used for cognitive health.

And all of a sudden we’re looking at a couple dozen herbs instead of thousands. And a lot of times people come to herbalism, they’re like, how do I even begin? There are thousands and thousands of ingredients, you know? But when we reduce it to the category that serves that specific body system, all of a sudden we have just a small handful of herbs and we can work with the ones that are best for us. And in terms of formats, know, tea, tincture, capsule, powder, essential oil, I always recommend that people work with

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (07:45.825)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (08:07.297)
Yeah.

Rachelle (08:11.408)
the format that they are most inclined to use on a regular basis. So if you’re a tea person, use tea. But if you do not enjoy tea, you don’t drink it, you don’t want to make it, you don’t have time for it, you don’t want to bother, totally fine. You can use a tincture or you can use a capsule. If you’re somebody who already takes products that come in capsule format, probiotics, any of your products, add a little herbal formula to that stash in your cabinet or on your counter.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (08:25.387)
Hmm.

Rachelle (08:40.758)
And that’s a very simple way to immediately start engaging with herbalism. And in terms of herbs for cognitive health, there are so many wonderful ones. know, some of my favorites include Bacopa. Bacopa is really beautiful. I’m sure you work with that. It’s really beautiful for focus. And a lot of people find great relief if they are diagnosed with ADHD or have ADHD type symptoms.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:01.579)
Yeah.

Rachelle (09:10.764)
So bacopa for focus. really like Mukuna prurian for motivation. That’s otherwise known as dopamine beam. Such a fascinating art. A lot of times, you know, we, we need the motivation, you know, aspect of the sort of cognitive performance or cognitive enhancement. Lion’s mane is a mushroom, great for focus. So it could go on and on, but yeah, there are many.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:16.396)
Mm-hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:30.06)
Mm-hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (09:34.534)
Yes. The one that I had worked with is Brahmi, if you’ve worked with that. Maybe all the students in NTL used it when they’re studying. It’d be a little earthy, but like you said, we’re combined in all these different ways. And it’s funny because, you know, when we get into this, we learn and we read. It’s like also, I think, a function of Western mentality. It’s like, I want this. It’s like you’re shopping at the candy store. And I know Dr. J would say, you

Rachelle (09:39.712)
Yes, of course.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rachelle (10:02.02)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (10:04.534)
there’s only six or seven maximum herbs he would put in a formula, which by the way, seven key plants in our glowing greens powder along that philosophy, we don’t need to put 80 plants and get dust sized amounts, you just want a few. When people clients come to you, Rachelle, and they’re like, this and this is their upper limit range of herbs, you would say, because there’s personalities, I’m sure that like, I’ll take all this for sleep. And then I want this for brain my brain fog and da da da.

Rachelle (10:08.611)
Mm-hmm.

Rachelle (10:32.259)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (10:33.056)
It ended up taking like a hundred herbs a day, which means, you know, not so great with each other, I imagine.

Rachelle (10:39.777)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a great question. I love that one. I actually haven’t been asked that before. Like, what’s the maximum? I mean, I personally use a lot of herbs, but you know, what I would say is I would go back to those foundations, you know, that we talked about in the beginning and say, let’s make sure that all of these are really well dialed, the diet, the

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (10:59.637)
Yeah.

Rachelle (10:59.745)
sleep, the water, the community, all the things like those pillars. Let’s make sure that those are first in great shape. Then we can consider, do you still need herbs for sleep? Do you still want herbs for sleep? How’s your digestion? How is your energy? How is your focus? And so many of those things might have, those symptoms might have evaporated by then, been treated by those pillars. Then we can look at how many herbs one wants to take in a day. And honestly, mean, I don’t think

I can set a number on an upper limit of herbs. There is one, but it’s a little bit arbitrary, would say, depending on the individual. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:33.793)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:39.392)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (11:43.468)
Well, think somewhere in the book I read that you do drink, you love to drink tea. I do as well. I’m curious to see how many cups of tea you may drink a day.

Rachelle (11:48.621)
Yeah.

Rachelle (11:53.327)
Well, let’s see. So when I had my cafe, you know, I would walk in in the morning and I would make myself just a giant pitcher of tea. And my favorite tea to drink at that point was nettle tea, Nettle, stinging nettle. And that’s essentially a green, you know? So that one is, for example, very hard to overdo. Of course, we can overdo everything and there will be people who will seek that upper limit.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (12:18.923)
Yes.

Rachelle (12:23.351)
I an entire pitcher of nettle tea every day, sort of in place of my general water intake. And I aim for at least my body weight in ounces of water every day. So in terms of cups…

a dozen cups of nettle tea, for example, and then I would drink tea in the evening as well. But for example, now, I spend most of my time in Costa Rica, I travel a lot. So most of my herbs are actually in capsules at this point. And each capsule has maybe three herbs in it, maybe…

two to four. I think your point earlier about not wanting to have a blend that contains 17 because then we’re getting just tiny, tiny amounts. That’s very important. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:13.022)
Yeah, not efficacious. Yes, I see. So you love capsules, you’ll use tea. Do you also consume caffeine?

Rachelle (13:25.675)
I consume a tiny bit of caffeine in the morning and I sort of, that’s something that I do cycle. So right now, for example, I’ll have about a half or a quarter, it’s about a quarter of a cup of coffee at this point. And I do, it’s like a quarter cup of coffee and then the rest of it is a blend of functional mushrooms and adaptogens that looks and tastes like a coffee. So I have kind of a.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (13:47.562)
Yes.

Does that have like, different bands on my end? Like, or that, or… Yeah. Like… Yes!

Rachelle (13:52.398)
Yes, of course. Yeah. Dan, Danilion, burdock, chicory. Yeah. A little bit of rhodiola, like those kinds of things. and often I don’t even finish that at this point. I find my energy is so stable. and honestly, like I would love to incorporate more green tea and matcha in my life, but I just don’t need the caffeine. And so I, I don’t, you know, so, you know,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (14:17.067)
Right.

Which one you because a few years ago, we bought a farm in Hawaii. So we’re there quite a bit of the time and we grow cacao. And we started just visiting some of the local farmers who gave us a lot of advice. We’re novice farmers and a lot of them also grew coffee. So wasn’t until we went to Hawaii and I just started to get a lot of respect for the actual plant of coffee. actually started to drink some coffee. So I do drink some coffee, but

Rachelle (14:37.22)
Mm-hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (14:49.75)
with great respect, as you said, it’s a very powerful plant. And I would not be able to just down huge amounts because I am pretty sensitive to it. But like you said, these are all incredible plants that come from nature and they have all these properties and all this power in them.

Rachelle (14:58.852)
Yeah.

Rachelle (15:07.375)
Absolutely. and cacao, what a beautiful alternative to many things, or just a beautiful plant in general. But that’s a great plant to include in some kind of blend. My blend with the mushrooms and the adaptions has cacao as well.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (15:11.112)
Ugh. I look like it’s hot.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (15:24.619)
Yes.

So Rochelle, personal interest of mine, and I would say a lot of people in the community is the heart. My last book was about the energetic heart, the spiritual heart, also the physical heart, which we now know is another brain. It works with the gut and the brain and the nervous system. we always hear, I always hear about Rose, right? It’s really great for opening the heart, but are there…

Rachelle (15:32.687)
Mmm.

Rachelle (15:48.163)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (15:51.518)
other herbs that you can suggest to us either in a tea form or tincture form if we’re interested in opening the physical and the energetic heart.

Rachelle (16:00.525)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It’s beautiful. Yeah, it’s special. yeah, I love that. And I love that the question includes the sort of functional I mean, not that energetic is not functional, but you know, the energetic as well as the you know, I’m gonna say functional as the other side of that. Yeah, I mean, let’s just go to cacao. So Rose and cacao. That’s it. How’s incredible.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:17.579)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:23.755)
Yes.

Rachelle (16:25.965)
you know, heart opener and also, you know, incredible medicine for the physical heart and the cardiovascular system. I love that we were just on that point. know, Hawthorne is a beautiful plant. We use the berries. So Hawthorne is is one of the best herbal medicines, herbal ingredients for physical heart health. Love that one.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:26.498)
Mm-hmm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (16:39.735)
Mm-hmm.

Rachelle (16:52.848)
you know, I think this, this reminds me that, you know, in naturally I write about pain, but I write about grief as well in the pain chapter. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:01.28)
Mm-hmm. I saw that. Yes.

Rachelle (17:04.641)
Yeah, you know, it’s because I mean, I think it’s obvious when I say that, right, you know, grief comes in so many different forms, and it can feel like physical pain, of course, but it’s also such an emotional experience and such an energetic experience. You know, that’s a that’s a time and a place and when we start to talk about the energetics of herbalism and plants and nature, it it can become so much more intuitive and even more personal, you know, so for example,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (17:26.539)
Yeah.

Rachelle (17:34.497)
in the grief section, I talk about how any plant that makes us feel better, we see it, it makes us feel better. Anything that is giving us any kind of support, any kind of reassurance, any kind of love or healing for any reason, that’s an energetic medicine for us. And that can be because we associate

know, lavender with the person that we lost or that’s because we associate, you know, sage with a certain time in our life where we felt a certain way. you know, when we start working with those energetics, what I’m saying here is that anything can be a medicine if it is serving us, making us feel better.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:21.728)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:27.434)
Well, you know, sometimes it’s not so direct. I’ve experienced like this for this and this for this. So I’ll give you an example. This just happened to me yesterday, Rochelle. My older son plays chess and there was this incident at the chess tournament a couple of days ago where, you know, it’s emotional game and one of the parents

Rachelle (18:30.893)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (18:49.12)
like their child lost a game and just had this huge emotional outburst and was taking it out on the refs and all the things. And I was just, you know, grounding myself and talking to my child like this, you know, adults get ungrounded as well and just like calming him. And, you know, it was fine. Like he was fine. And I was fine. The next day I was just, I found like, you know, just for that and other reasons, maybe starting the week, just really grounding plants helped.

Rachelle (19:15.531)
Mmm, yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:16.982)
So I was having, have like even, you I don’t know this is what you would specifically prescribe, but I was called to golden milk, for example, and like, really grounded. And this woman, like she was actually going around and she was asking us for the parents’ numbers. And so the coach was okay. said, sure. And so I just felt like I could hold space for her. She was mortified. She was crying. She was so apologetic that it happened. You know, back to the heart opening, I felt like me being really grounded allows us to be who we really are in our hearts and to be

Rachelle (19:23.734)
No, yes.

Rachelle (19:37.677)
Mmm, well.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (19:46.498)
forgiving and to be compassionate. like, hey, we’ve all done stuff like that versus like, you know, when we’re not grounded and then you can say the words, but people can feel like you can really hold space for them. Does that make sense? When I’m saying you can be in the heart even.

Rachelle (19:50.884)
Yeah.

Rachelle (19:54.563)
Yeah.

Rachelle (19:58.913)
Yeah, yeah, it does. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And it’s such a such a perfect example of how, you know, for you, the experience of being grounded is going to make you feel more open hearted.

And for someone else, something else is going to make them feel more open hearted and something else is going to make them feel more grounded. But of course, golden milk does make sense. It’s, you know, turmeric is a, you know, a root. You’re coming from the earth. Like, yes. So, yeah. So go ahead. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (20:15.328)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (20:23.01)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (20:31.468)
Do you feel, sorry, go ahead, Michelle. I gonna say, do you feel like a lot of people asking you, even if they may use a different language about grounding herbs, because the world we live in today is so fast paced, and there’s AI, and there’s social media, there’s screens, just to feel that presence in the body.

Rachelle (20:44.175)
Mmm.

Rachelle (20:49.325)
You know, I wish more people asked me about grounding nerves. I think, you know what, I think the parallel there is that people ask for support with focus.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (20:52.074)
Because that’s what I would go to

Rachelle (21:02.859)
And I think those are related. I think that’s how we interpret our lack of groundedness right now is the scattered mind, this sort of overstimulated to multitasking too much state of modern society. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:03.114)
Yeah, got it.

Right.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (21:23.564)
Yeah. So another question that I know is maybe a little bit sensitive and you have a section in the book that you don’t want to prescribe or necessarily for people that are pregnant. But since we get a lot of questions about this and there’s a lot of challenges today with fertility and we know there’s lots of reasons, microplastics and toxins and…

know, heavy metals and all sorts of things. In a general sense, if someone is saying, oh, you know, down the road, I’d like to conceive and maybe that’s related, I would think maybe to groundedness or just, you aspects of herbalism. Are there any herbs you might recommend? even the subtle gentle ones that could help prepare someone because you may not want to take herbs while you’re pregnant.

Rachelle (21:58.127)
Yeah.

Rachelle (22:08.663)
Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And I believe it may be the first or it’s probably the second story in Naturally as a client who I took through that journey of, you know, she, yeah. So.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (22:19.348)
Yeah, I that. I like how you do the stories. You can, you know, embody some of those recommendations instead of having like a section or pregnancy like you’re sharing about it naturally.

Rachelle (22:31.235)
Yes.

Rachelle (22:35.151)
Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I’ve learned so much from working with with my clients. And then of course, those stories really bring it to life for people. can see all of the specific ways in which we work together and you can see how, you know, back to so many of our previous points, you can see how holistic herbalism is and how much it can do for a life, not only just our health and fertility. mean, fertility is fascinating because once again, it can be so it is so

personal and there are so many different things that are going to affect

one person’s fertility versus another. So sometimes, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind for me is that I found it to be very common that we need to support and heal and kind of rehabilitate the nervous system in a lot of cases in order to help prepare the body to be sort of able and willing to conceive. know, we’re in such a, again, we’re in such a general

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (23:26.528)
Mmm.

Rachelle (23:40.513)
overstimulated state most of the time that that can inhibit fertility. know, our gut health is so important. I mean, for so many reasons, but, you know, in terms of this topic, I would say, you know, our ability to digest and absorb all of the nourishment that we need once again to be able to be ready for that.

process. And then of course, in terms of women’s health specifically, there are so many herbs that help with so many different things. You know, we can use red clover, which is a very, again, nourishing and nutrient rich ingredient to help to sort of overall sort of overall, I don’t want to overuse nourishment, but that’s really what it is. It’s such a such a rich plant, but it’s also

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:18.594)
Yeah.

Rachelle (24:30.945)
rich in phytoestrogens, which can help normalize hormone levels. Many, many plants help balance hormones, which also, of course, is very important for fertility. I personally love, you know, Vitex or chased tree berry. That’s something that I take every day. Black cohosh is phenomenal. Motherwort is one that’s like one.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:33.119)
Wow.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (24:54.166)
Do you? You take all that every day? The chaseberry, the Vitex? that just for, again, that was something I had heard for specific times, but that’s something, that hormones?

Rachelle (24:58.507)
I do take that every day.

Rachelle (25:06.327)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that one’s great. I’ve, that one can be used at specific times in the cycle and it can also be used just, just, you know, all the time. I find it to be frankly simpler for people to just take it all of the time. And for me to just take it all the time. It can be used, you know, again, it can be used just in luteal phase, for example, but

It’s not necessary to cycle that one. Yeah, I love that. Black cohosh. Licorice is amazing. Licorice is an adaptogen, but also really helpful for sort of improving the absorbability of herbal formulas. It’s used as a catalyst. here’s my favorite, favorite herb.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (25:34.251)
Yeah.

Rachelle (25:57.791)
for one in general, it’s one of my top fives across the board, but especially for hormone balance, milk thistle.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:05.77)
yeah.

Rachelle (26:06.243)
And because milk thistle is improving our liver health, yes, and our liver function, and our liver is so important for hormone balance, and it’s so overlooked. We might use red clover and Vitex and black cohosh. I guess there’s another one that I’m thinking of right now, or almost thinking of. We would be using all these herbs. Raspberry leaf is beautiful. That’s like a uterine tonic. It’s great, especially for crayons.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:11.542)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:32.224)
Yeah.

Rachelle (26:36.177)
or any kind of uterine issues. Yeah, it’s really like I got a toning action for the uterus also high in nutrients. But a lot of times again, you know, a lot of times we’re focused on the sort of the symptom, right? You know, and hormone balance and we’re taking a bunch of things for hormone balance or we might want to, but we might improve the liver function and the liver might provide that benefit to us by helping to normalize our hormones. So I love milk thistle for almost everyone at this stage.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (26:55.905)
Right.

Rachelle (27:06.126)
another one of the herbs that I take every day just for general health. don’t drink alcohol, but you know, I live in this world that is, as I say in the book, not non-toxic. And I love it for hormone balance and that’s, you know, sex, stress and sleep hormones. yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (27:23.882)
Right, right. I love that. I, you know, related how you mentioned gut health and we know how there’s the estrobalum, there’s a part of the gut health that can affect fertility and hormones. And you talk about bitters in the book, how bitter herbs can help with gut health. Can you call out a couple that you would recommend?

Rachelle (27:38.105)
Yes.

Rachelle (27:45.333)
Absolutely. Bitters are the unsung heroes. Years ago, I was wishing that bitters would be the next adaptogens in terms of popularity in the market. I don’t think that’s going to happen, partly because they are bitter. they literally don’t taste good.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (28:03.074)
Westerners are not used to that taste, whereas in India, we know the six tastes are, are you Vedic students would accept it more.

Rachelle (28:11.087)
Yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true. Yeah, I mean, the classic classic bitter is gentian. It’s one of the most bitter plants in the world. Dandelion leaf is another one. Artichoke is another one. A lot of citrus peel is used in bitters. And then, you know,

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (28:21.41)
Mm.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (28:28.053)
Yeah.

Rachelle (28:39.885)
like food like arugula or chicories, really anything that actually tastes bitter is going to serve that function of being a bitter in our body. And what that means is when we taste that flavor, of course we have taste receptors on our tongues, but we have bitter receptors all over our bodies.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (28:43.434)
Yeah.

Rachelle (29:05.135)
in very, very curious places, our body registers that we’ve ingested bitters and it helps to support the digestive processes. we, you know, say the best time to use bitters tends to be about 10 to 15 minutes before meals. Our digestion is prepared to receive that food.

to digest it helps us, helps encourage our body to produce natural, you know, our own digestive enzymes. So a lot of times I’ll use bitters with clients and not need to use digestive enzymes because the bitters help our body just do what it’s supposed to do naturally. And then bitters have a down and out, we’re talking about energetics, they have a down and out action in the body. So they’re helping to, you know, keep things moving down and out. So a lot of times they’re also used in detoxification formulas, you know, as we were talking

about earlier. So it’s a whole kind of… yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (29:56.608)
Well, would just pause there. sorry for a second, Rachelle, with the digestive enzymes, which has been such a focus in my work. We can stimulate, like, our uvata has these formulas as well, you chew. But I personally believe it’s always a good idea to take digestive enzymes before you eat, because then you’re still using up your own body’s energy. Since it’s such an energy intensive process, the enzymes still break down the food and do that heavy lifting.

Rachelle (30:03.705)
Yeah.

Rachelle (30:19.63)
Yeah.

Rachelle (30:24.675)
Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (30:24.746)
as well. I want to note that.

Rachelle (30:27.223)
Of course, I love that perspective, know, that like respecting the amount of energy that it takes to digest is so true.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (30:33.386)
Yes, I think the more you age less quickly, the less energy you’re taking from your body. And so we know that digestion is huge from mastication to elimination. So if you can just offload some of the energy, especially with enzymes, which I used to say, they help people not be bloated or absorb more nutrients. But this other aspect of, not only anti-aging, but slowing aging because they’re breaking down the food can be really powerful.

Rachelle (30:52.537)
Mm-hmm.

Rachelle (30:59.225)
Sure.

That’s brilliant. I haven’t heard that perspective or hadn’t heard that perspective before. love that. Yeah. Yeah, it’s so true. So bitters.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (31:10.71)
There’s so much, yeah, there’s so many plans in here as well. And I have to say, I also like that your book is really readable because sometimes there’s books that are more like a textbook. And so I really enjoyed your stories and the way that you sort of link all the different aspects together.

Rachelle (31:19.599)
Mm.

Rachelle (31:24.813)
Yeah.

Rachelle (31:33.113)
Thank you. That means a lot. really, really, really tried to make naturally a pleasurable read. I wanted people, of course, to learn, but I wanted it to be enjoyable. I wanted it to convey the life and the magic and also the science. There’s so much science in that book. You know, I wanted to convey this whole world that herbalism is and show it, you know, engaging with

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (31:54.806)
Yes.

Rachelle (32:03.057)
modern life and real stories of people. I I lived in New York for 15 years and worked as an herbalist. Like it can work there too, you know, you don’t have to be close to the ground, you know, to work with this practice. And I think in a lot of ways, herbalism…

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:08.564)
Moon

Rachelle (32:24.559)
kept me connected with nature despite the fact that I lived in New York City, you know, while I was practicing it. But in terms of the book, yeah, I appreciate that somebody said recently that it was like their beach read. Well, I guess it was a couple months ago because it’s now later, but they were like, this is my beach read. And I was like, that is perfect. Like that was my goal. You know, I wanted even somebody who’s not not necessarily interested in herbalism to enjoy reading the book.

I wanted it to be a literary experience as well as an educational one.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (32:53.098)
Yeah. Yeah.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (33:01.452)
Well, thank you so much, Rochelle, for sharing your heart, some of your wisdom and your knowledge about herbalism with us. And can you share where we can find your book, once again called Naturally, The Herbalist’s Guide to Health and Transformation.

Rachelle (33:18.731)
Of course, thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure. Naturally is available anywhere books are sold. There’s an audio book, of course, the hardback is out now was published just a couple of months ago. So it’s brand new making its way out into the world. I’m online at Rochelle Robinette.com. And of course, on Instagram, Rochelle Robinette.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (33:35.008)
Yes.

Solluna By Kimberly Snyder (33:43.166)
Amazing. Well, thank you again so much, Rochelle. This is really fascinating. And everyone we will link directly to Rochelle’s book and her links in our show notes at mysaloon.com where you can also find other articles and recipes and podcasts we think you would enjoy. Thank you so much for tuning in. We’ll be back here in just a few days. Also, I will see you online as well at underscore Kimberly Snyder. Till then take great care and sending you all so much love.