Personal Experience with Lemon Balm

My first use of Lemon Balm started about 16 years ago. As an herbalist, due to teachings from childhood, most of my focus was on wild herbs and survival/ woods lore; so I had not had much experience with cultivated garden herbs. Lemon Balm got my attention by means of its scientific name, Melissa, as it was my given name also. I planted it and became pleased with my herbal namesake, and began to use it as a pleasant sipping tea treat. I can truly say that the attributes the ancient herbalist attributed to Lemon Balm were 100% correct.

When I drank the tea, I noticed a feeling of lightness to my spirit, an “opening up” so to speak. Lemon Balm really seemed to effect my heart but in more than a physical way. My mind was released from tension and a feeling of comfort and clear thinking would occur. It was almost as if a form of grace settled within me. It was wonderful.

As time went by people began coming to me for help with herbs for various maladies. I noticed some of them were nervous or distressed while I spoke with them so I started making a point of having a pot of lemon balm and catnip tea to share whenever I did a health consultation. It really helped to make the patient more comfortable and relaxed while I talked with them about their health problem.

Over the past 3 years I have seen many more people coming to me in serious states of health crisis. I have been using lemon balm, in combination with other herbs, to help in calming and healing these patient’s frazzled nerves. I have found my lemon balm and catnip combination to be very helpful to my cancer patient’s spouses, who are usually in a higher state of distress than the patient. This lemon balm blend helps them calm their minds so they can deal with their stress and thoughts in a more constructive manner. They have also found they are able to sleep better when they are taking lemon balm. My most recent application of lemon balm, actually over the past 3 months, has been in the treatment of bi-polar disorder and depression. I cannot emphasize enough how amazed I am at the effects of lemon balm in the treatment of these mental conditions. One of these patient’s psycho therapist actually called me to let me know she had never seen Prozac work as well as what she was seeing my lemon balm formula do for her bi-polar patient. Both she and I were gratefully amazed!

I am continually impressed by the healing abilities of lemon balm and plan to keep exploring its great potential for many health situations now that my research on lemon balm has opened up new possibilities for the herb’s usage.