There are certain plants that really help when it comes to reducing the impact of stress on the body from both a prevention aspect to an in the moment acute situation aspect. Then there are plants that can really make life a lot easier when stress can feel overwhelming. Skullcap is both of these.
What Is Skullcap Used For?
Skullcap, Scutellaria lateriflora, is a plant in the mint family and it can be grown fairly easy in the home garden. The trickiest part is getting it to germinate but once it does it takes off and proliferates like most mints. The plant itself doesn’t stand out as the leaves can look thin and straggly at times, but the flowers are a beautiful bluish purple and have an appearance of little caps. The parts used for medicine are the leaves and flowers. The name Skullcap actually refers to the appearance of the flowers and it’s main use which is to put a cap on the excessive stressful thoughts in your head and its a very amazingly useful plant for that reason.
Skullcap is an amazing nervine, which is an herbal action that means calming and supporting to the nervous system… basically helping with stress and tension. It’s amazing for taking the edge off and really keys in for tension and excessive thoughts. It helps you relax, chill out, and allows tension to open up and release. When you’re dealing with stress often tension occurs as a result in the body. Tension is a tightening within the body and it can occur anywhere with a clamping down effect that becomes uncomfortable and create further tension. Skullcap and nervines in general work really well to help ease that tightness and create a shift allowing not just the mind to relax but also the body itself.
Just as it’s nice for relaxing tension, it’s also nice for tension headaches, especially when stress is the reason for the headache. It’s helpful with pain in general helping it not feel so loud and constantly on your mind.
Skullcap also helps you wind down and supports times in which you may feel nervous, overstimulated, and generally on edge. It’s really nice for helping with anxiety, especially in the moment when you need help allowing it to release.
So with Skullcap think of it for when the mind is constantly chattering and you need to put a cap on your thoughts or when there might be an imaginary cap on your head putting too much pressure on you. Taking skullcap allows that cap of pressure to lift off.
It has a history of use with seizures and is helpful for tremors, twitches, shaking and involuntary movements in general. Think of eye twitches or any form of muscle spasms. Those can all benefit from Skullcap.
Skullcap is also nice for withdrawal and weaning off from drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals and works nice with Oats for this purpose. Skullcap has a direct effect on the Central Nervous System and helps smooth the signals making the emotional toll withdrawal can have feel less turbulent.
Like other relaxing nervines it’s helpful for sleep issues and it’s also useful in memory, focus, and ADD formulas.
How To Use Skullcap
Skullcap can be drunk as a tea and has some of the aromatic pleasant aroma of a typical mint, but has a surprisingly grassy flavor that is pleasant (to me at least). It’s not strongly bitter which is unusual for many of the strong herbal nervines so it’s nice to enjoy it as a tea.
It can also be taken as a tincture either as an alcohol based tincture or by using glycerin, what’s known as a glycerite. It tends to be stronger in tincture forms as most plants are.
Contraindications
Generally Skullcap is a safe herb without any contraindications. It would be a plant to avoid in large amounts during pregnancy, especially the first trimester, and to use cautiously with any pharmaceuticals that have the same action.
It’s an amazing plant to get to know and you can find dried Skullcap here from one of my favorite sources if you want to get to know the plant better. Make sure to subscribe to our newsletters to stay updated on new postings and receive more herbal goodness.
