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If I were stranded on a desert island one of the first plants I’d go looking for is lemon balm. It would help keep me calm, and considering I was stranded on a desert island I would be in need of a heaping helping of calm. It would also help me sleep which would be another plus.

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Lemon balm has also been shown to improve cognitive function and decrease agitation in dementia patients. The desert island comparison ends here because I’m going to hope I would be rescued before cognitive impairment set in.

IMG_5224For a lemon balm tincture, I cut a generous amount of lemon balm. A good time to harvest for tincture is in the early flower stage. You have to look pretty closely to see lemon balm flowers. Fittingly, they’re lemon yellow, albeit tiny.

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After stripping away the stems, I weighed the plant matter. This is done because a good proportion of plant to menstruum (the liquid used to extract the medicinal constituents from the plant, in this case Everclear, a type of pure grain alcohol) is 1:2. That is, one part plant to 2 parts menstruum.

I had 6 ounces of plant, so I combined the lemon balm with 12 ounces of Everclear in a food processor and processed until it was well chopped and I had a sort of coarse slurry.

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This takes several pulses.

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I used a canning funnel to help me get the mixture into a canning jar.

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Then I pressed the chopped lemon balm down to get it below the level of the alcohol because it was sort of fluffed up by the processing.

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To finish, screw on the lid and label the jar with the kind of plant, menstruum, and the date, shake daily for two weeks, then strain through a pressing cloth or a couple of layers of cheesecloth.

Store in a dark glass container in a cool place.

Dosage for adults: 1-2 droppersful, 3-5 times daily, seniors use the lesser amounts. (A dropper contains about 25 drops). It is typically taken in a small glass of water.

P.S. Lemon balm is also good for cold sores. To make a lemon balm ointment, follow the instructions for plantain-infused oil here, substituting lemon balm for the plantain, then make a salve with these instructions, again substituting lemon balm oil for the plantain oil.