Mythbusting: Herbal Teas

My experience of Camomille tea is that it definitely works as a relaxant providing you don’t drink it while in a stressful situation.

For instance it’s quite good if you’ve had a hard day at work, uni or whatever and just need something to lighten up.

At then end of the day it’s not harmful so even it’s only psychosomatic effects, it can’t hurt to drink it. ;)

(Commenting without watching the whole video, cos my computer’s being uncooperative at video playback at the moment.)

I totally agree with the initial belief that all you’re getting is “a good cup of tea”. And then if it turns out you don’t like the taste of camomile/whatever, you’re not even getting that.

Personally, I recommend a mug of hot chocolate with half a shot of dark rum in it if you want to relax. Also a DVD and a blanket.

Sophie – that’s really interesting. Any tips for where to find the plants?

Jean-Loup – that’s about my experience with Camomile too. But I’m sure Alex will be on later to disagree!

Dougal – it has to be said, some of the teas taste really nice. Ginkgo is lovely, and I’m a fan of peppermint personally – although that really does have some medical effects, so I have to be a bit careful with it!

I use camomile and valerian a lot. I find that camomile is pretty good for settling the stomach—-but ginger is better for that. It only seems to work as a relaxant if you can’t get hold of any valerian.

@pajh Couldn’t agree more with your ginger vs. chamomile comment. Tastier and more effective.

Valerian is soothing, but for a truly impenetrable blanket of mellow relaxation, I’d have to argue that St. John’s Wort tea by Yogi Teas is the absolute best.

You could play hours of Halo with me on your team, watching me clumsily fall off of ramparts or accidentally getting stuck in a corner then mashing the pad frantically and blowing myself up with a grenade, ruining our team’s chances of glory by escalating our death count with my mindless, frustrating, totally unintentional game suicides, and yet still maintain a facade of perfect calm.

The only problem is, I don’t know if you can get the stuff in the UK; I think it might be illegal in Ireland, as it reacts poorly with pharmaceutical antidepressants, and it has a nasty reputation for undermining the good work done by birth control, which for ladies trying to have consequence-free pre-marital sex, really counteracts the whole “stress free” aspect of the tea.

Anyhow, if you’re not on Prozac or the pill, I recommend.

Something to keep in mind is the weight to consumption ration. The average Chinese person is very small and weighs about as much as a large grapefruit.

The other thing to consider is something Sophie hinted at. How much of the herb is in the tea bag, as well as does the potency rise or fall during the drying process. Some herbs are more potent dried, others not so much.

Anyways, wowinsider.com linked to this due to the wow reference so this is the first time seeing you guys, but as someone working to get their masters in food science at the end of the year… very very wicked!

Double-blind?

Give one person chamomile, another ginko, and a third valerian, see how their scores change.

If you’re feeling extra-cool, get one of those biofeedback thingees and repeat.

Chamomile helps my stomach when it’s oogy, I do know that. Yes, ginger and peppermint are better for that for some people, but sometimes they are a bit too pungent. When I had surgery I was not able to go home from it until I had chamomile tea, because the anaesthesia made my stomach do backflips. Thank goodness they had some.