People ask me this more than almost anything else: What do you actually take?
It's a fair question. I've spent over a decade formulating herbs for other people, and I should be able to answer it clearly. The honest answer is that my own routine has gotten simpler over the years, not more complicated. I spent a long time chasing optimization. What I have now is quieter — more intentional, more seasonal, more attuned to what my body is actually asking for rather than what I think it should need.
This isn't a prescription. Everyone's body is different, every season of life has different needs, and I'd gently push back on the idea of copying anyone else's protocol exactly. But I share this because there's something useful in seeing the full picture of how someone who makes their living knowing plants actually uses them — including what I've stopped taking, and why.
A Few Things That Shape How I Think About This
Less is usually better. I've watched too many people build 12-supplement morning routines that they maintain for two weeks and abandon. Sustainability matters more than comprehensiveness. My current routine is built around five to seven core things I take consistently.
Seasonality. I don't take the same things year-round. In late summer and fall, I lean harder on immune tonics — elderberry, astragalus, reishi. In winter, more warming adaptogens. In spring, bitters and liver support — dandelion root, burdock, schisandra. In summer, cooling herbs and hydration support. The seasons are a framework, not a rigid rule.
Attention over automaticity. I try to stay curious about what I'm taking. If I've been reaching for something for months without noticing what it's doing, I'll pause it and pay attention to the gap. That's how you know what's actually working.
Morning
Herbal coffee with maca
This is how almost every day starts for me, and it's become one of my favorite rituals. I've moved away from caffeine as my first morning drink — partly because I've noticed it makes me jumpier and more reactive when it's the first thing I reach for, and partly because I've discovered I don't actually need it as much as I thought.
Our Herbal Coffee with maca gives me the warmth and ritual of a morning drink, adaptogenic support, and maca's hypothalamic-pituitary nourishment — which I think of as supporting the very top of my hormonal cascade before the day starts. No cortisol spike. Just a grounded beginning.
I make it the same way every morning: a big mug, a few quiet minutes before the day picks up. The pause is as important as what's in the cup.
Ashwagandha
I've taken ashwagandha consistently for several years. Its effects are cumulative and subtle — I notice their absence more than their presence. What I can say is that my stress resilience, my sleep quality, and my baseline steadiness are genuinely different when I take it than when I don't. At this point in my life, with a lot on my plate and an intentional focus on not burning through myself, it earns its place every morning.
Schisandra
A newer addition to my morning routine that I've been really loving. Schisandra is a five-flavor berry used in traditional Chinese medicine as a liver tonic, adrenal adaptogen, and what I'd call a clarity herb. It supports the liver's ability to metabolize and clear excess hormones (which connects to hormonal balance), has adaptogenic effects on the HPA axis, and has a distinctly clarifying, focusing quality that I notice relatively quickly. A few drops of tincture in my herbal coffee.
Midday
Digestive bitters before lunch
If I'm at my desk about to eat in a hurried, distracted state, this is my reset. A dropperful of dandelion-gentian bitters in a little water, a few slow breaths, and then food. It signals my body: we're eating now, let's actually digest this. Over time, this has become less of a supplement and more of a ritual — a reminder to slow down and actually be present for what I'm putting in my body.
Daily oregano
I take a daily oregano capsule as ongoing polyphenol and immune support. It's background support — the kind of thing I trust even when I don't feel it, because I know what it's doing at the cellular level. On days when I'm around a lot of people or feel like my immune system has extra demand, I'll add a second.
Tulsi tea
Most afternoons around 3pm, when I might previously have reached for a second coffee. Holy basil clears the mental fog of a long morning without wiring me up, and it's simply lovely to make and drink. The ritual of it matters. I steep it strong and take five minutes away from the screen. That pause is its own medicine.
Evening
Evening is where my routine is most consistent, and where I think the leverage is greatest. What you do in the two hours before sleep shapes your sleep more than almost anything you do in the morning.
Magic Magnesium — always
This is the one thing I genuinely don't skip. One sachet in water, about an hour before I want to be asleep. It's not that it makes me sleepy — it doesn't feel like that. It's more that something releases. A background tension I didn't fully notice until it's gone. Sleep becomes available in a way it isn't without it, and the quality is noticeably different.
I've taken it for years. On the nights I accidentally skip it, I feel the difference.
Passionflower or skullcap on high-demand days
If I've had a day that ran hot — emotionally activating, high-output creative work, difficult conversations — I'll add a nervine to the evening. Passionflower is my first reach. Sometimes a blend with skullcap and lemon balm. These are herbs that help the parasympathetic nervous system actually activate — rest and digest — instead of lying in bed replaying the day on loop.
Skullcap in particular has a special place for me. It grows wild in the wooded hollows of Appalachia, and I have a long relationship with it — one of the first nervines I really learned, and still one of the ones I trust most for genuine nervous system depletion.
Reading something real before bed
Not herbs, but part of my evening practice: something physical to read, phone in another room. The nervous system regulation that happens in the last 30–60 minutes before sleep is worth more than almost any supplement. I've tried to protect this time increasingly fiercely, and it's made a real difference.
What I Don't Take (And Why)
I think this matters as much as the list of what I do take.
I don't take everything at once. When I'm formulating and testing new products, I'll cycle off my usual routine to give things a clean baseline. You can't evaluate herbs you're mixing with five other things.
I don't take things out of inertia. If I've been reaching for something for months without noticing its effect, I pause it and see what shifts. This is how I know what's actually working.
I don't take acute herbs daily. Echinacea, high-dose oregano oil, goldenseal — these are meant for acute situations. Daily use doesn't add more benefit, and for some herbs it's inappropriate or counterproductive.
A Note on Seasonality
This routine will shift when fall comes. I'll add elderberry back in daily. I'll probably increase the astragalus and reishi. I'll ease off some of the summer herbs. The rhythm of the seasons is part of the practice, and I find that paying attention to it — adjusting when the light changes, when the air shifts — keeps me more present in my own body.
Herbalism has always been seasonal. That's part of what makes it feel so alive.
