Lavender Materia Medica

Genus and Species: Lavandula spp. (latifolia, angustifolia, stoechas, intermedia)

Family: Lamiaceae

Common Names: Lavender, English Lavender (L. angustifolia, formerly L. vera and L. spica), French or Spanish Lavender (L. stoechas), Mediterranean Lavender (L. latifolia) (Examine.com, 2017)

Energetics: Relaxing, warming

Properties: Analgesic (anodyne), antifungal, aromatic, relaxant, anxiolytic

Taste: Bitter, aromatic, astringent

Degree of Action: 3rd

Tissue State: Tense, cold, moist

APPEARANCE

Flower and Fruit: The flowers are in false whorls of 6 to 10 blossoms forming interrupted terminal spikes. The pedicles are 10 to 15 cm long downy stems. The bracts are 5 mm long, ovate to broadly triangular, often brown and brown-violet or violet-tinged. The tubular calyx has 5 uneven tips, it is amethyst-colored, tomentose and after flowering it is closed by a lidlike appendage of its upper tip. The corolla is longer with a cylindrically fused base, the lips are flat, and the upper lip is larger with 2 lobes. The lower lip is 3-lobed with even tips. The stamens are enclosed in the tube. The ovary consists of 4 carpels and has a nectary below it. The fruit is a glossy brown nutlet.

HABITAT

Lavender is reported by most sources to be native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, tropical areas of Africa, southern India, and the area around modern day Iraq. Today lavender is grown in herb gardens throughout the world and is commercially grown in Europe, Australia, Russia, and America. It can even be grown right here in Boulder, Colorado.

Easy to grow, Lavender likes warm weather, a sunny location and moderate water. In cold climates it may not survive the winter. Lavenders flourish best in dry, well-drained, sandy or gravelly soils in full sun. All types need little or no fertilizer and good air circulation; in areas of high humidity, root rot due to fungus infection can be a problem.

COLLECTING/PREPARATIONS

Flower stalks are harvested in full bloom and during the hottest part of the day. The parts of the plant that are collected and used for medical application include the essential oil extracted from the fresh flowers and/or the inflorescences, the fresh flowers and the dried flowers.

The essential oil, which is the most commonly used medicinal form of lavender, is distilled from the flower stalks and flowers. The best quality oil is distilled from the flowers (without the stalks) which are distilled immediately, with no drying or fermentation since fresh lavender yields more esters.

In herbal medicine, the fresh or dried flowers are used in infusions, tinctures, or macerated oils. An infusion is prepared by adding 5 to 10 ml of lavender per cup of hot water (150 ml), drawing for 10 minutes, and straining. For external use as bam additive, 100 g of lavender is scalded or boiled with 2 liters of water and added to the bath.

The fresh or dried flowers are also used in cooking and impart a delicious, distinctive flavor to cookies, sauces, and other dishes. Combinations with other sedative and/or carminative herbs are generally considered to be beneficial.

Actions:

• Nootropic (enhances cognitive ability)

• Carminative

• Spasmolytic

• Anti-depressant

• Sedative/ anxiolytic

• Volatile oils – antiseptic, vulnerary, sedative, rubefacient

Indications:

• Restlessness, insomnia

• Depression and anxiety

• Depressive headaches, migraines, neuralgias.

• Digestive dysfunction: flatulent dyspepsia, colic, abdominal bloating

• As a bath for circulatory disorders.

• Rheumatic pain- Topically

• Topically to relieve insect bites, burns, cuts and bruises, acne, eczema, varicose ulcers

OTHER USES:

• INFUSION: Give a weak infusion (25% normal strength) to babies for colic, irritability and excitement

• MOUTHWASH: Use for halitosis

• ESSENTIAL OIL CREAM: Add a few drops of oil to chamomile cream for eczema

• ESSENTIAL OIL LOTION: Add a few drops of oil to a little water for sunburn or scalds

• CHEST RUB: Add 1 ml oil and 5 drops chamomile oil to 10ml almond oil for asthmatic and bronchial spasm

• HAIR RINSE: Dilute 5-10 drops of oil in water for lice or use a few drops of neat oil on a fine comb for nits

• MASSAGE OIL: Dilute 1ml lavender oil in 25ml carrier oil and massage into painful muscles. Dilute 10 drops in 25ml carrier oil and massage into temples and nape of neck for tension headaches or at first hint of migraine

• OIL: Apply neat oil to insect bites and stings.

Key Uses: Lavender is a nerve sedative for “headaches, anxiety, insomnia, and depression that comes from constant worry and stress.

Lavender tincture is a powerful digestive bitter and carminative, and is a mild analgesic that “can ease headaches and migraines when taken soon after onset.” Lavender essential oil is a topical analgesic. Indications for lavender include when the head droops from fatigue, nervous exhaustion, picky, detailed oriented people with insomnia or IBS, nervous high strung people who are too much “up in their heads,” and for asthma where nervousness is a factor. The tincture is different than the essential oil (as it includes bitter properties) and combines well with rosemary and Holy Basil for stagnant depression from trauma or subclinical PTSD where a person is fixated on an event or trauma where the person is in fog and has difficulty thinking. The essential oil can be used as a sleep aid inhaled before bed, or added to baths an hour before bed.

History: Lavender essential oil was used as a perfume for cloth cleaning, as an ingredient in a jelly for “sun-burn, tan, chap, (and) chafe,” in lip salve, perfume, and the dried flowers were put in pillows as a sleep aid and as a part of a “vulnerary spirit”.

Matthew Wood says that lavender is a burn remedy and Deer medicine, and is used for dogs that get bitten by asps, grows the capillary bed, spreads the blood out and sooths, and that the higher in the mountain it grows, the higher quality the plant medicine.

Lavender was an Unani Exhilarant which “arouses the vitality in the spiritual heart and inclines the spirit toward joy.”

Externally, Lavendula angustifolia used as a “soothing lotion for the headache of debility and in fevers” and was added to smelling salts for headaches and tendency to faint. It was a stimulant and carminative, used to “allay gastric uneasiness and nausea, in flatulent colic, hysteria, nervous debility, general languor and tendency to fainting.” “For nervous and weak individuals, who faint easily and are prone to hysterical seizures.” It was used as a corrigent and adjuvant for “less agreeable medicines,” and used in Cypripedium by Scudder.

Lavender essential oil was used for “nervous languor and headache,” and used for “conditions of nervous debility” and as an adjuvant for other medicines.

“Lavender is the child’s stimulant, and nothing, so far as I am aware, exercises so kind an influence upon the digestive apparatus and the nervous system.”

Clinical Uses: The following studies confirm lavender essential oil’s historical use as an anxiolytic, and also to improve some measurements of cognition elderly with cognitive decline. Aromatherapy with lavender essential oil has been shown to reduce heart rate, blood pressure, measures of anxiety, and elevate measurements of mood and relaxation without sedation. Time and proximity to olfactory organs appear to play a role in the effectiveness of aromatherapy; the further from the nose, the lesser the effect, and exposure times below 20 minutes were less effective than exposure times over. However, some studies did show that essential oil diffusers in rooms were effective as long as ventilation did not interfere with patient exposure to the essential oil.

Internal use of standardized encapsulated lavender essential oil (Silexan) has also been found to have an effect on generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, neurasthenia anxiety-related restlessness and disturbed sleep, and other anxiety related disorders comparable to benzodiazepines and SSRIs without many of the side effects associated with these drugs. There were some events of GI distress though not at rates higher than comparable drugs.

Smelling lavender essential oil soon after the onset of headache or migraine has been shown to decrease duration and severity of the headache or migraine.

Lavender essential oil works as an antifungal mixed with cajeput and thyme and diluted in a fixed oil