Nervous System
The brain, spinal cord, and nerves — governing mood, sleep, cognition, pain, and the body’s response to stress.
General herbal approach
Herbalists reach first for nervines to feed and steady the nervous system: relaxing nervines (skullcap, passionflower, lemon balm) calm an over-stimulated state, while nervine tonics (oats, St John’s wort) restore depleted nerves over time. Adaptogens buffer the stress response upstream, anxiolytics and hypnotics ease acute anxiety and sleeplessness, and antispasmodics relieve the muscular tension that so often travels with nervous strain. Matching the herb to whether the picture is one of excess (tension, racing thoughts) or deficiency (exhaustion, burnout) is the central skill.
Key herbal actions
The actions most often called on for the nervous system: Nervine, Anxiolytic, Sedative, Hypnotic, Adaptogen, Analgesic. Each links through to the herbs that carry it.