Here is a link to the Mayo Clinics page on SAD.
Last year I made a tincture for SAD, and Chris swears up and down that it worked. Mostly because he said and I quote him "we had a lot of things to be upset and feeling bummed about but it didn't happen".
Most of those things were in reference to the fact that we had sent out a bunch of resumes to New Zealand and other states in the US and hadn't heard a thing from any of them, our kids tried to all kill each other in the fall, and we were stressed about putting the house up on the market.
We've just started taking it again and I have a new batch in the windowsill mixing up all nice. The recipe I used is from Rosemary Gladstar, kind of the mother of modern herbalism here in the US. We buy our herbs from Mountain Rose Herbs and off Amazon.
Here is the recipe, which I highly recommend, but I'd hurry because it takes a month to draw all the good stuff out of the herbs.
Seasonal Affective Disorder Tincture
- 2 parts St. John;s wort flower
- 1 part green oat tops
- 1 part hawthorn berries
- 80 proof alcohol
Don't let the "parts" measurement scare you. A part can be anything you want it to be, a tablespoon, a quarter of a cup, etc. It depends how much you are making. Whatever size jar you are using, you want the alcohol to be 3 inches higher than the herbs, and you want to pretty much fill the jar so oxidation doesn't happen.
For example, I just made a batch in a pint size jar. So I had 1/4 c. of St. John's wort and then and 1/8th a cup of the other two ingredients. You add all the ingredients together, add alcohol and then seal. Shake and set in the sun for 4 weeks, and shake occasionally. Strain out herbs and store in a dark bottle. Take 1/2 tsp. to 1 tsp. twice daily for 3 weeks, discontinue for 1 week and repeat. Or you can do what we do and take on weekdays but not on the weekends. We take it through the end of March.
It totally sounds crazy but that doesn't matter because it totally works.
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