Here's my little contribution to the Naturalmedicine Plant Based Medicine Challenge.
Tiny flowers of Orange Thyme
Thyme is one of the herbs that we immediately think of when thinking of cooking. It’s another of the amazing mint family (Lamiaceae) and is a close relative of Marjoram and Oregano.
Thyme gets its kitchen reputation from its wonderful taste and its traditional use as a meat preservative (many of our favorite kitchen herbs were used to preserve meat, long before refrigeration became the norm).
Thyme’s amazing properties can all be traced to an oil that it contains called Thymol. This oil has the ability to kill many infective organisms in any part of our body, how it works best for each case is more a feature of the method of preparation. Thymol can be rubbed externally, drunk, inhaled, taken in capsules, used in teas, ointments and creams.
Looking at it’s other properties, we can see that Thyme is a warming herb, useful in conditions that feature cold, chills, stagnation and decay that results from this lack of warmth and movement. That’s the key to it’s properties that help our digestion that’s also why it’s such a popular kitchen herb.
It is effective in moving fluids through tissues that are afflicted with cold and will open pores in the skin to allow this fluid to leave as perspiration.
This moving property helps to thin mucus that has been thickened by lack of movement and stagnation. If we add to this it’s ability to kill infective organisms, we can build the picture of Thyme being an excellent herb to reach for when we have respiratory issues caused by infections, especially those with thick phlegm and chills. The Thymol is easily inhaled into the respiratory tract as steam or an essential oil. Here it acts directly on the mucus membranes, killing infection and thinning mucus.
If you’ve read any of the other write ups I’ve done, you may be able to see that different herbs are useful for ailments often generically lumped together as ‘colds and flu’, but having subtle differences for which a specific herb can be more effective than another. Whether the cold has chills or not, the type of mucus, the type of cough, fever and sweat all point to different herbs.
This is where industrial herbalism and many of these ‘silver bullet’ articles that proclaim one herb as being good for all colds and flus can lead you to waste your time and money and, worse, lose faith in the effectiveness of herbs as remedies.
Most people can recoginse a mat of Thyme.
The psychological effects of Thyme are fascinating and worth a look too!
Thyme gets deep into our body and moves fluids and warms tissues, releasing many things that it helps our bodies dredge up. It acts similarly on our minds. It aids sleeplessness due to dreams that result from problems in our unconscious, it helps to release these energies from deep down and improves sleep by easing their passage.
One fascinating way that I’m using Thyme personally is to help with a post nasal drip and phlegm build up I have in my throat. This is worse on waking, after sleep and dreams and (here’s the give away) came on shortly after my Mother was diagnosed with terminal Mesothelioma. The picture is one of internalized crying caused by a deeper unresolved grief that is, still hanging on in my unconscious.
Aren’t herbs wonderful things. How many of us, seeing Thyme in someone’s kitchen, would have thought of it as being helpful with such deep issues?
This leads us to Thyme being a relaxant for our parasympathetic nervous system. This can be seen in its effects on dreams, an excess of which come from a tension in that system. As with some other herbs in the mint family, Thyme is useful for people who just can’t relax.
In the senses that we’ve looked at Thyme, we can see how it is a most wonderful herb for respiratory ailments, it kills bacteria, clears phlegm, eases breathing through its effects not only on the tissues but on the nervous system itself. It can aid in sleeplessness that comes from with the flu. I think that ticks most of the boxes.
This is #originalwork. The pics or videos were taken by yours truly.
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This is very informative well done post! It's very fascinating what you bring up about post nasel drip. I have been experiencing this as well. It's quite an issue. It started after a severe accident, which caused lots of injury and traumatic brain injury, which resulted in my husband at the time asking me to leave as he could not deal with the amount of care i needed. I have often wondered why i have cried so very little over this traumatic life changing event. Yet this nasal drip, which i did not have prior is such a constant issue. I am curious how you sort of came up with this correlation? I also suffer from extensive nerve damage including autonomic nerve response issues. I have been craving thyme to no end. This is very interesting 🌱💜
Most of the herbs that we use every day for cooking or just around the garden have deeper uses than we acknowledge.
I thought about post nasal drip being internalized crying after I started to get it almost on the day my Mum was diagnosed with mesothelioma. I already knew about Thyme being useful for post nasal drip but that was the connection. As for the craving... Follow your instincts, your body tells you what it needs
Wow I didn't know that about thyme and dreams! Amazing. I use it in hot water steambath with a towel over my head when I'm really phlegmy and it works well but I'm excited about its value in dreams and inspired to know more! A FABULOUS post, so glad you entered!
Thank you! A few of our common herbs can affect our dreams - mugwort, lavander and many more
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wow, what an amazingly powerful herb! Thanks for sharing all these benefits!
So many herbs have great powers
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At one time, I had 8 different thyme varieties growing here. I'm now down to 2 that will survive. Very interesting about dreams and internalized feelings! And love your photos!
8 varieties. That's a lot. Did you use them all?
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At the time, back in 1992 when my sister planted them, I didn't know anything about herbs. So nope, they were never used. Most were not hardy to where I am and died out within 5 years. The Mother of Thyme, Lemon thyme, and creeping thyme held out the longest. All that's left of those now is the creeping thyme and it's all over my yard!
Mother of Thyme. I've not seen that one
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It's got smaller leaves, and if I remember correctly, a stronger scent.
Thanks. I'll keep an eye out for it
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so much wonderful knowledge within this post @ligayagardener. I love thyme and it grows wild in the mountains all around me, it really is such a wonderful healer as you have highlighted so well in your post x
Thank you
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Good to know. Have some growing that overwintered in the greenhouse and is perking up with the warmer nights in anticipation of the move back outside. Thanks for the informative article.
Once it's established, it'll over winter quite well
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I use thyme often when I cook especially on chicken
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It's a must in chicken
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I remember thyme as a constant in my mother's chicken soup. It doesnt do well in Asia AT ALL & very occassionally I simply resort to buying some dried thyme for nostalgia's sake. I really like the way you're using it to unclog phlegm... do you make a tea from it or do you steam with it? Or chicken soup? 🤣
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I use it as a tea and an inhalant, but it's nicest on chicken!
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