When a lot of people first study herbalism, they think about herbs a lot like a matching game: herb A is good for symptom B. Cough? Find that one herb for coughs. Indigestion? Find that one herb for stomachaches.
This works reasonably well until you notice that the same herb could be wonderful for one person and completely wrong for another. Why does ginger make one person’s cold, sluggish stomach feel fantastic, while someone else drinks a cup of ginger tea and gets their heartburn?
This is where energetics comes in.
This isn’t a new-age concept. Every school of holistic medicine has a version of an energetics system. Chinese Medicine has the 5 Elements, Ayurveda relies on the doshas (Vata, Pitta, Kapha), Unani Tibb energetics are quite sophisticated, and then there are coherent energetics systems across Traditional African Medicine, throughout Indigenous Traditional Medicine across cultures and continents, and everywhere else that people have developed intimate understanding of plant medicine.
The history of Western energetics traces back to the ancient Egyptians and Classical Greeks. The Greek philosopher Empedocles proposed the “Four Roots” (Fire, Air, Water, and Earth), which evolved into the Four Humors system used in traditional Western herbalism for centuries. As the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism beautifully states, “The four humors are the metabolic agents of the four elements in the human body.” Over time, the humors evolved into the Four Qualities: warm, cool, damp, and dry.
In modern Western herbalism, we primarily talk about energetics through the lens of the Six Tissue States, adapted from the historical context to the modern over the last 3 decades or so by herbalists like Matthew Wood. This takes the Four Qualities (warm/cool/damp/dry) and adds the concept of tissue tone. Don’t worry, it’s not as complicated as it sounds, stick with me.
What Are Herbal Energetics?
“Energetics” can sound woo-woo if you haven’t encountered the concept before. We’re not talking about reading the aura of a plant or waving our hands over a tincture. In traditional herbalism, herbal energetics is a way of describing the qualities and direction of an herb’s effects on the body: is it warming or cooling? Drying or moistening? Relaxing or stimulating? Does it tighten tissues or help them relax?
These qualities give us information that an herbal action alone doesn’t.
An herbal action tells us what a plant does; energetics tell us who it’s for, and when, so we can work to restore balance.
Ginger is a warming herb for digestion and the lungs. Marshmallow is soothing and moistening to mucous membranes. Astringent herbs tighten tissues and reduce excessive secretions. Those aren’t interchangeable qualities, even if they all might show up in formulas for digestive complaints.
This is why I find energetics so helpful in making medicine that really helps people: we’re not just addressing a general symptom. We’re considering the person experiencing the problem, and what that problem feels like in their body.
Overview of Basic Herbal Energetics: The Four Qualities & Six Tissue States
Understanding energetics is the secret to medicine-making and formulation. If you only know a plant is good for a cough, you might accidentally give a drying herb for a dry sore throat and irritate it even further. If we observe tissue states, we can select the plant ally that affirms a person’s body and gently supports its return to balance.
As always, the ultimate goal is to restore their natural balance, to get them back to their own healthy baseline. A naturally warm person with a warmer problem–say heartburn–will need a gentle cooling herb, but if they’ve got a cool problem like constipation they’ll need a warming herb to get them back to their warm baseline. A naturally cool person with a warm problem like heartburn will need a stronger cooling herb than the warm person, but for a cool problem like constipation they’ll need a warming herb, to avoid warming them up too much (…diarrhea).
These opposing characteristics exist on a spectrum: people are not warm OR cool and damp OR dry exclusively; instead, we’re all some mix of warm and cool, damp and dry–and so the plants that benefit you will address the ways that those energetics are showing up in your body for the problem at hand. In other words, it’s not an all-or-nothing thing, this is a continuous spectrum that changes for individual people as their body responds to the world around them.
1. Temperature: Warm and Cool
Temperature is one of the easiest energetics to understand because you can experience it directly. Imagine eating a little fresh ginger or cayenne, versus cucumber or melon. You don’t need a laboratory to tell you that something is happening; you can feel it.
Warming Herbs: Warming herbs increase activity. They increase circulation, stimulate digestion, support mental alertness, and bring warmth to tissues. Ginger, cayenne, cinnamon, black pepper, and bee balm are familiar examples.
- Warmth in People: People who are naturally warm may have faster metabolisms, be prone to high-activity symptoms like anxiety, insomnia, diarrhea, or cough (as opposed to low-activity or cool symptoms like constipation or congestion), and tend towards charisma, motivation, or a fiery temper.
- Warmth in Conditions: Conditions that we would consider warm can get a little confusing for people outside of circulation and digestion, when it’s easy to feel a temperature. Warming refers to an increase in activity. Increased mental activity like anxiety or stress is warmth. Insomnia is also warmth. A hacking cough that just won’t quit is warmth, as it’s increased lung activity. Inflammation is warmth too, because it’s increased immune activity.
- Putting it Together: Think about someone who is perpetually cold, has sluggish digestion, cold hands and feet, and moves through the world at a slower metabolic pace: a warming digestive herb might make sense. For someone with acid reflux, a rumbling stomach, a red face, and an already irritated digestive tract, that same ginger that felt fantastic to the first person may be entirely the wrong direction for the second. This is the point of energetics. “Good for digestion” isn’t enough information.
Cooling Herbs: Cooling herbs decrease activity, helping reduce inflammation, overactive digestion, anxiety, and irritation in other body systems. Bitter and sour plants are often associated with cooling qualities, but not exclusively. Some examples include lavender, violet, burdock, and skullcap.
- Cool in People: People who are naturally cool may have slower metabolisms, cool hands and feet, be prone to low-activity symptoms like depression, fatigue, oversleeping, or constipation, and tend towards focus, calm, and a slower motivational style.
- Cool in Conditions: Cool refers to a decrease in activity. Fatigue, feeling depleted, brain fog, burn out, nutrient deficiencies like anemia, and “the doldrums” or stuck, heavy depression are all cool. A stuck, heavy cough that won’t get going to clear secretions is cool, as it’s decreased lung activity. Frequent illness or slow recovery after illness is cool too, because it’s decreased or depleted immune activity.
- Putting it Together: That person from the previous example who is perpetually cold, has sluggish digestion, cold hands and feet, and moves through the world at a slower metabolic pace may not benefit from a cooling herb like, say, violet for a stuck cough; instead, they would benefit from a warming expectorant like elecampane.
2. Moisture: Dry and Moist
The next quality is moisture. Is the body dealing with too much fluid, dampness, or leakage? Or are the tissues dry, irritated, and lacking in moisture?
Drying Herbs: Drying herbs dry tissue. This is most obvious in the mucous membranes (the special skin that lines the inside of your hollow places) inside your mouth, but it happens throughout the body. This is extremely helpful for excess secretions like a runny nose, a wet cough, or diarrhea, but can irritate the problem if someone already has very dry mucous membranes, a dry hacking cough, or irritated, brittle tissues. Many drying herbs are astringents (see below under Toning), but not all. Examples include turmeric, sage, skullcap, and the astringents listed below.
- Dry in People: People who tend towards dryness in balance have dry skin, dry hair, creaky or cracking joints. They may feel temperature changes more significantly than their moister friends. They may eat sparingly but often, or flit from one activity to another, like a bird or the wind blowing through the room.
- Dry in Conditions: Dryness is a lack of lubrication where it should be, like skin, joints, the respiratory system, and the digestive tract. Of course dry skin and hair, but also wounds that don’t heal well, arthritis, dry nasal congestion, dry or painful stool, mineral deficiencies and slow recovery after illness (cool and dry, a lack of vitality).
- Putting it Together: A person who tends toward dryness in balance is more likely to benefit from very moistening demulcents, while a person who tends towards a moister state will benefit from only slightly moistening herbs, even if they both have a dry condition like a stuffy nose.
Moistening Herbs: Moistening herbs are typically demulcents, an herbal action that means “moistening to tissue.” Marshmallow root, borage, violet, flax, and other mucilage-rich plants are classic examples. Mucilage is generally water-soluble and produces that wonderfully slippery, soothing quality that makes these plants so helpful for dry, irritated tissues, from stuffy noses to sore throats and from ulcers and poorly healing wounds to joint pain.
- Moist in People: People who tend toward moisture in balance have moist, sweaty, or oily skin and hair, don’t struggle with dry lips or mouth, rarely feel thirsty, and tend to be more robust than their drier friends.
- Moist in Conditions: Excess moisture is congested or leaky fluid when it isn’t helpful: a wet cough, diarrhea, bleeding hemorrhoids, pus in a wound.
- Putting it Together: A person who tends toward moisture in balance is more likely to benefit from very drying herbs like astringents, while a person who tends towards a drier state will benefit from only slightly drying herbs, even if they both have a moist condition like a wet cough. For a dry condition like a scratchy throat, the tissue needs some lubrication and protection, so a moistening herb like marshmallow infusion will do the trick.
3. Tone: Tense and Relaxed
This is where the Four Qualities stop and the Six Tissue States start. Both systems include warm/cool and damp/dry, but the Six Tissue States add the idea of tension and laxity (or relaxation). This is the concept that tissues need to have a healthy amount of tension to do their work, like moving fluid and absorbing nutrients: too much tension is too tight for things to move easily, but too relaxed means things don’t have the support they need to move at all. Think of a riverbank in a big storm: if the bank is too tight because it’s built up with houses, the tension in the river builds until it rips apart the houses (too tense); but if the bank isn’t tight enough because it was worn away by erosion, the river floods all over the surrounding area (too relaxed). There needs to be a nice balance between tension and relaxation: a strong riverbank (enough tension), surrounded by a gentle wetland that can absorb excess water (enough relaxation).
Toning Herbs: Toning, tonifying, or tensing herbs tighten and strengthen tissues that are overly relaxed or leaky. These herbs are astringents, which is an herbal action that means it dries and tightens mucous membranes, reducing secretions and inflammation. Think about drinking a strong cup of black tea and feeling your mouth pucker and dry out (that sensation tells you something about the plant’s relationship with tissue, you can listen to it): tannins, in particular, have a strong astringent quality. Oak, witch hazel, goldenrod, and blackberry root have toning astringent effects.
Astringents are great when tissues are overly moist, excessively leaky, or secretions are gross–think sinus infection, chest congestion, weeping wound, diarrhea. This is typically an excess moisture picture, as above. Again, though, there is such a thing as too much; if someone already has very dry mucous membranes, astringent herbs will likely make the situation worse, in which case it would be excess dryness.
Relaxing Herbs: Lax tissues, laxity, or relaxed tissues are terms you’ll see to describe the energetic that balances tensing or toning herbs. I think this is the hardest category for most people to grasp, but it helps to think of it as decreasing the tension or tone in tissues. Of course herbs that relax mental tension fall into this category, like anxiolytics and hypnotics, as well as antispasmodic herbs that relax muscle tension. In other body systems, we can think about relaxing tension in the walls of vessels (peripheral vasodilators and rubefacients), in the lining of the gut or the urethra (smooth muscle antispasmodics), and relaxing stuck tension in the digestive tract (carminatives) or respiratory system (antitussives and bronchodilators). Herbs that are acrid are releasing to trapped tension, like blue vervain, as are many aromatic herbs, like pine, angelica, and catnip.
In balance, adequate relaxation in tissues allows for the free flow and absorption of fluids and nutrients, guided by adequate tension to where they need to go. Out of balance, though, again there is a such thing as too much relaxation, or too little tension, as if the river in our previous metaphor has no banks to hold it in when it floods. Swollen ankles, low blood pressure, incontinence, and lack of motivation are all examples of excess relaxation that benefits from increasing tone.
So How Do You Actually Use Energetics?
Imagine you’re making a digestive formula: you might reach for warming digestive herbs such as ginger or angelica if you’re working with someone who tends toward coldness and sluggish digestion. However, if that person has a hot, irritated stomach with reflux and burning, you might formulate very differently, and reach for violet and meadowsweet.
Paying attention to the clinical context to reach balance is the point of energetics: we’re not simply matching a plant to a problem, we’re considering the person experiencing that problem and the qualities of the tissue we’re trying to influence.
This is one of the places where herbal formulation gets really interesting. You’re not just collecting a pile of herbs that all have the same indication. You’re asking: What does this person need? What direction is their body already moving in? And what direction do I want the formula to gently encourage?
Herbal Energetics and Working Towards Balance
I don’t think of energetic formulation as trying to “correct” the body. It’s more about restoring balance by finding the right direction and then making small adjustments.
A formula can contain herbs with different qualities that complement one another. For example, a warming aromatic pairs well with a more cooling bitter or soothing demulcent. A drying herb might be combined with a moistening demulcent when you want its particular action without making the whole formula excessively drying.
This is part of the art of formulation. It’s not about asking what herb is good for a problem. Instead, you’re asking what qualities you want in the formula and how those qualities interact.
How Do You Learn to See Energetics?
Practice. That’s the whole answer.
Taste and smell your herbs, and pay attention to what happens in your mouth, your stomach, your skin, your circulation.
Notice where and when they grow. Is the plant growing beside a wet stream? Is it thriving in dry, exposed soil? Does it arrive in the hottest part of summer? Does it grow early in the cool spring?
These observations don’t give you a complete pharmacological profile of a plant, but they can develop your herbal intuition. Then compare that intuition with good herbal references, traditional usage, phytochemistry, clinical experience, and your own observations.
Energetics is not a replacement for science. It is a language for observation, and like any language, you become fluent by using it.
The Most Important Thing to Remember
Energetics aren’t rigid rules. A plant isn’t simply “hot” forever and a person isn’t permanently “cold.” Plants have complex chemistry. People have complex bodies. Preparation changes what we extract. Dose matters. Context matters.
The more I learn about herbalism, the less interested I am in the question, “What herb is good for this problem?” and the more interested I become in, “What is actually happening here?” That little shift in perspective can change the way you make medicine for the better. Herbalism isn’t just about knowing a thousand plants. It’s about learning how to match the plant, the preparation, and the person.
