Elemental Force

Sep 3, 2020

Oatstraw was one of my first herbal loves. In 2009 I spent a year getting acquainted with plant spirit medicine under the tutelage of Sage Maurer at the Gaia School of Healing.  Every class we would sip strong infusions in a circle, sit quietly, and notice where we felt the herbs move in our bodies, how they spoke to our insides.  When I did this with oatstaw, I remember feeling swaddled in a meadow of sunshine. I wrote in my plant journal, “childlike sweetness, I will make you whole, repair you.” 

 This class, and during the more intensive parts of my herbal education, were probably my peak tea drinking moments to date, and no doubt when I also reaped the most physical benefit from plant relationship, where I could feel it so acutely changing my body. Eleven years later, I’m still mountaineering up the learning curve of self care routines, and don’t drink tea with the same vigor—but I should. Now immersed in a parallel world studying pieces of a whole with a sharper eye, I understand a bit more of why oatstraw rang a bell in my body so true. 

 Oatstraw infusion is thick, almost creamy, sweet, and oh so soothing. A mild sedative and anti-inflammatory, this herb was pitched to me by Sage (and my first herb teacher Chris Marano) as nervous system food. Drinking oatstraw infusion on the regular pampers any frayed, frazzled, nerve frizzies with a milky bath of calm.  Oatstraw will chill out the anxious, brighten the depressed, and revive the burnt out. One of the major ways oatstraw can work her magic is via nutritive prowess. She’s endowed with copious magnesium, up to 400mg/1oz dried herb. And while oatstraw is so much more than her magnesium content, the contributions of the element in nourishing our nervous system cannot be understated. 

 Magnesium is the universal fairy dust that makes it all work, linking plant to sun, and animal to earth and sea. The eighth most common element from the earth’s crust and fourth most abundant mineral in the body, we need a constant presence of this element on the insides of our cells. Sea water is particularly lush with magnesium, the third ranking element just after fellow electrolytes, sodium and chloride, in abundance. Chlorophyll, the molecules that make plants green, have a ring structure much like the heme group in hemoglobin (the molecule that carries oxygen in our blood). Magnesium sits right in the center of chlorophyll’s ring. Plants require  proper amounts of magnesium to facilitate efficient conversion of sunlight into plant energy. No magnesium, no life. Again, the fairy dust. 

 As far as humans go, magnesium is an essential key needed to unlock and support many processes in the body, including 300+ enzymatic reactions and counting (many of which are nervous system related).  Magnesium stabilizes our DNA and helps preserve the fidelity of its message in replication. It helps synthesize the body’s most important internally produced antioxidants, glutathione. Most notably magnesium soothes reactivity, regulating nerve firing by blocking calcium from entering cells, and relaxing contractions. This list from Alan Gaby’s Nutritional Medicine, one of my newest, most prized, humongous textbooks, shows clearly the vast reach of magnesium in the body and potential consequences of not enough. 
Gaby says that in his clinical practice,

Magnesium deficiency was one of the most frequently encountered nutritional problems. Many patients who were suffering from one or more of the symptoms described above observed improvements that were directly attributable to magnesium supplementation. p.143

This sentiment is easy to find echoed amongst other doctors with a nutrition education. Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Aviva Romm both have great articles on magnesium for further reading from a clinical perspective.  I recommend these articles especially if you want to try supplements. The bottom line is, most people just simply aren’t eating enough magnesium in their diets.  

 Hunter and gatherer societies are said to have consumed an average of 600mg of magnesium per day, while the average American according to a USDA estimate, take in only about half that, with women consuming 228mg/day and men 323mg/day.  These intakes don’t even meet the 320mg RDA, and 75% of women do not achieve this benchmark through diet. Some argue that the RDA is too low, and really only avoids frank magnesium deficiency. 
 Furthermore, stress depletes magnesium and low stores of magnesium makes us feel more stressed out. Excess alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and phosphorus (found in meat, cheese, soda pop) can also mess with our magnesium supply. Prescription drugs such as diuretics, proton pump inhibitors, oral contraceptives, allergy and asthma medications may interfere with magnesium absorption and retention.  Essentially, most of us are set up for magnesium failure. We’re not eating enough of it and the amounts that we do have are constantly pillaged by common, beloved vices of western civilization.
 

 After having some success treating my teeth grinding with magnesium supplements (magnesium glycinate), I started experimenting. Since then I’ve treated my exertion headaches with magnesium and no longer have spontaneous eye twitches (a sign of low Mg). I also feel more even keeled, less anxious, more whole. These successes have brought me back home, to the kitchen and garden to discover how to multiply this mineral ally in my life with a bit more subtlety than a pill (though supplements definitely have a place here and I still use them as needed).  

 I compiled a short list of herb/wild food sources here. As you can see a certain amount of diligence and attention is needed to go this route. Keep in mind too, the magnesium content is variable with the soil these plants are grown in/how they are grown, thus these aren’t rock solid numbers. 

 I’ve started to rekindle a daily oatstraw infusion routine (for the 90th time?!) and encourage you to do the same or seek out this calming mineral in any way that’ll set you up for success.  Here’s a tutorial on making nourishing herbal infusions from the master.  

Herbal Vinegars can help here too. Excellent at extracting minerals from plants, you can make your own strong bones/calm body vinegar infused with calcium rich/magnesium rich herbs. Here’s another article from Susun Weed on this easy preparation. Our strong bones vinegar is sold out currently as I work on securing more apple cider vinegar, but it will be back soon! 

 Wild & Herbal Sources of Magnesium:  
Wild Rice: 52.5mg/cooked cup Oatstraw: 400mg/1oz dried herb*
Seaweed Kelp 121mg/100g, Wakame 107mg/100g, 
Burdock Root: 48.8mg/1 cup boiled and drained 
Dandelion Greens: 25.2 mg/1 cup boiled and drained
Purslane: 68 mg/100 g 
Amaranth: 160mg/1 cup grain cooked; 73mg/1 cup leaves cooked 
Nettles : 51 mg/1 cup blanched leaves
Lamb’s Quarters: 41.4mg/1 cup cooked greens) 
Mint: 169mg/1oz dried 

*Source: Nutritional Herbology 
 
Seed Sources: 
Pumpkin seeds: 738mg/cup 
Hemp seeds:  179mg/30g 
Sunflower Seeds: 150mg/1 cup
Buckwheat: 85.7mg/1cup cooked groats
Oats: 276mg/1 cup cooked 

Recent Posts

wind of my soul

Snapping Turtles

Snail v. bobcat

knobby, earthy, and my inner most desire…

I am a rainbow!