Herbal Teas for Women

Best Herbal Teas For Women’s Health Issues

Women face a unique set of challenges with their hormonal cycles. Every 28 days (give or take a few) their body goes through immense hormone changes to allow for the release of an egg and the shedding of the uterine lining if a pregnancy has not occurred.

For some women, these hormonal cycles go on every month without any issue. For others, there can be immense difficulty in balancing hormones to achieve a properly working menstrual cycle. While any hormone issues should be discussed with your doctor, especially those causing you to stop menses or have prolonged menses, some may seek the aid of herbal therapies to help their body achieve balance.

There are many herbal teas that you can drink to help you feel relief from hormone induced irritation and get you back on track.

Multiple Ingredient Teas
Teas like the traditional medicinals, “Healthy Cycle” are designed to give your body a lot of help in a lot of different areas. These multiple herb teas can be helpful for general wellbeing and overall cycle support but may not be able to assist if you have a specific hormone deficiency.

The reason that these teas are considered overall teas is that of the low amounts they contain multiple herbs.

Healthy Cycle Contains:

  • Raspberry Leaf 165 mg
  • Licorice root 150 mg
  • Strawberry Leaf 105 mg
  • Stinging nettle leaf 60 mg
  • Angelica root 15 mg
  • Blessed thistle herb 15 mg
  • Cramp bark 15 mg
  • And unknown amounts of:
    o Spearmint leaf
    o Rose hip
    o Lemon verbena leaf
    o West Indian lemongrass leaf
    o Ginger rhizome
    o Chamomile

Let’s say that the only thing in this tea that is helping is Licorice root because you have an estrogen deficiency. Licorice has been shown to raise estrogen in women and has even been known to help eliminate menopausal symptoms.

However, there would be no way of knowing that this was the ingredient that was helping. Also, the amounts listed of the various herbs are typically too low to be considered treatment effective for women’s health issues.

While it is a great overall balance tea, the chamomile in it will help calm you, the mint can aid digestion, and the other herbs will help with their other parts as well, for specific hormone-related women’s health issues you will want to look for single-ingredient teas.

Single Ingredient Teas
Medicinal teas made from one ingredient are going to have a more potent effect than multiple ingredient teas. Typically, they will have longer preparation times and will require different steeping methods than herbal teas.

The best single herb teas to look for to help with women’s health issues are:

  • Licorice root
  • Black Cohosh
  • Chaste Berry (sometimes called Vitex)
  • Passionflower
  • Chamomile

The first three teas all affect the body’s production of hormones. Black cohosh and licorice root work directly on the body’s ability to produce estrogen. They are considered plant estrogens and will increase the levels of estrogen in your body.

Chaste Berry works on the reproductive hormone Progesterone. It will increase levels of progesterone in the body. Women who have had infertility issues because they miss their luteal phase have benefited from the use of chaste berry.

Healthy women who take chaste berry may find that it increases their progesterone levels to the point where they stop menstruation. The use of these teas at any therapeutic level should be discussed with your physician, ESPECIALLY if you are on any type of hormone therapy, including birth control.

The last two teas are Passionflower and Chamomile is less about hormone control and more about mood stabilization. Both teas produce a calming and sedating effect. Passionflower is as effective as some anti-anxiety medications. These can be used to help with the irritation and anxiety that is often associated with hormonal imbalance in women.

No matter which tea you decide to try, start slow, and make sure you document the effects. If you are taking any prescription medication talk to your doctor or pharmacologist before taking any herbal supplements as there can be serious interactions.