PLANT LORE STUDY GROUP: JUNE 2025: COOLING BOTANICALS: BEATING THE SUMMER HEAT: PART I

What are cooling herbs? Medicinal herbs, seasons, conditions, and people are categorized by herbalists according to their energetics such as hot, cold, dry, and damp. The energetics of a season can affect the energetics of a person and/or condition if they have a similar energetic profile. The summer heat is especially brutal for those experiencing hormonal changes such as those that occur during pregnancy and menopause. As the heat of summer builds up outside, it cultivates within the body, and if it is not properly kept in balance, heat related issues can show up in many forms, both physically and emotionally. These imbalances can cause skin disorders, rashes, redness, flushing, inflammation, sunburn, hay fever, canker sores, heat stroke, headaches, heartburn, acid reflux, loose stool, excess sweating, ulcers, irritability, anger, frustration, and insomnia.

Herbalism considers plants to be heating, cooling, or neutral, and taste can help indicate whether a plant will have a heating or cooling effect. Sweet, bitter, sour, and astringent tastes indicate that a plant has a cooling action which has a deeper and longer lasting effect on the body.

Many cooling herbs such as blueberries, hibiscus petals, lemons, lemon balm, limes, and rosehips have the sour flavor. Eating seasonal foods that are cooling and hydrating such as fresh salad greens, cucumbers, and watermelon help move heat out of the body and maintain a balanced overall temperature.

Cooling herbs work in several ways:

• Astringents: although astringent herbs typically dry, tighten, and tone the tissues, some also have a cooling effect and preserve the water found in those tissues. These astringent herbs such as linden bracts and flowers, raspberry leaf, and rose petals can help offset heat by keeping the body hydrated. Astringents also draw excess water from the tissues and increase urination and help to reduce body heat.

• Demulcents: contain mucilage such as hibiscus petals, marshmallow root, and oat seed have a moistening action that wards off dehydration and can be served when it is hot and dry as a cold infusion lightly sweetened for a refreshing drink.

• Diaphoretics: stimulate the pores to open and increase sweating so that heat can be released and the body can cool down. Herbs that have a diaphoretic action include cayenne pepper, chamomile, elderflower, apple mint, spearmint, and yarrow. Peppermint has a warming action and is not suitable to use for cooling.

• Greenery: chickweed, crispy and mild lettuce, miner’s lettuce, nettles, which should be cooked, pureed, and frozen into ice cubes, parsley, and violet leaf.

• Melon-like Taste: meadowsweet, salad burnet, violets, cantaloupe, cucumber slices, and watermelon have just a hint of sweetness thanks to their low levels of wintergreen flavor which makes them amazing when infused into cold water.