Sweet Melissa

Hey Mimi! You are in fact sweet, but this post is about an herb: Melissa officinalis AKA lemon balm. The Slovenians at the pharmacy I worked in this summer sent me home with a few herbal teas, one of which was lemon balm. I had not yet tried it until last night. It was cold and icy outiside, so I decided to settle in for the evening with a good book. (More on that later, I plan to finish it tonight.)

So I was reading and sipping my yummy cup of tea. A little bit later I came to a good stopping point. I sat up, put the empty cup down, and noticed a strange feeling. I felt the nicest kind of sleepiness and a general sense of well-being. It was a nice little mellow. Lemon balm is my new favorite tea.

Some research taught me that lemon balm is used for all sorts of things including anxiety (big surprise!), insomnia, Alzheimer's, ADHD, and as an antiviral.

For the pharmacy geeks: compounds in lemon balm agonize both muscarinic and nicotinic acetycholine receptors in the CNS. That explains its use in Alzheimer's and its side effect of runny nose, but not its use as an anxiolytic. Maybe it hits the benzodiazepine receptor too.