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What is it?

The leaves are the parts that are used in herbal medicine from Lemon Balm, a bushy, leafy herb that grows prolifically in diverse climates and is well known for its fresh, distinctive aroma.

How has it been used?

400 hundred years ago, the English herbal physician John Evelyn wrote “Lemon Balm is sovereign for the brain. It strengthens the memory and powerfully chases away melancholy”.

Lemon Balm has been extremely popular in all the old European traditional medicine systems. It has been seen to be equally beneficial to digestive disorders as it is helpful to conditions involving the nerves. Traditional uses include migraines, headaches, stomach cramps, urinary infections, feverishness in children, shingles, vaccine reactions and sleeplessness.

Children seem to respond particularly well to Lemon Balm tea when they are anxious, upset or they are experiencing internal pain.

Lemon Balm has been a traditional treatment for overactive thyroid conditions.

Lemon balm was the favourite herb of the mad genius Paracelsus. It was also the subject of some extraordinary visions of Saint Hildegard, who said that Lemon balm came to her in a vision and she saw that it had seven different ‘faces’ or personalities, with the centre of them at the heart.

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Personal experiences

I use a lot of Lemon balm in formulas of both dried herbs and liquid extract formulas. I use Lemon balm in a similar way to how I use Licorice root. I think that Lemon balm helps to harmonise the formula, to make it taste better and be better absorbed. Fresh Lemon Balm tea, made with a few leaves from the garden in a cup of hot water is calming and refreshing. Fresh Lemon Balm tincture (where you make the extract without drying the herb first) is vibrantly green and uplifting. Dried Lemon balm tea and dried Lemon balm tincture are nourishing, tonic, and well suited to longer term use.

Lemon Balm combines perfectly with Skullcap for anxiety, with Elder for childhood illness and with Hawthorn for irregular and stressed heart rhythms. .

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Excerpt from Felter & Lloyd's Kings Dispensatory from 1898

Lemon Balm is moderately stimulant, diaphoretic, and antispasmodic. A warm infusion, drank freely, has been serviceable as a diaphoretic in febrile diseases and painful menstruation, and to assist the operation of other diaphoretic medicines. It is also occasionally used to assist menstruation. The whole plant is medicinal, and should be collected previous to its flowering. In the recent state, it has a lemon like odor, which is nearly lost by drying. Boiling water extracts its virtues. The infusion may be taken ad libitum (freely and as required)

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