Use Herbs to Alleviate Anger

Aug 20 / Matthew Wood, MS
This article was written about 1995; Dianna Gross passed away some years ago.

I parked my car. I was on my way to the Men's Center in South Minneapolis to give a talk on herbalism. Volunteered for the assignment some months ago. When the evening arrived, I managed to remember where I was supposed to be and got myself there with a few minutes to spare. As I walked down the street, I ran into an old friend. Dianna Gross is one of the best acupuncturists I know. She has an office in the same building.

"What are you doing in this neighborhood?" she asked.

"I'm on my way to the Men's Center to give a little class on herbal medicine," I replied.

"Well, I guess I passed a member of your audience on the stairs," she said. "Big guy with a shaved head. He looked pretty angry. Better watch out."

A few minutes later, I was in a room at the Center with a bunch of guys slowly collecting for the evening. Two of them were talking about dogs.

Seemed like a male sort of thing to talk about.

Nobody seemed to be there to introduce me. A few minutes after the meeting was supposed to start, I chimed in, "Well, I'm Matthew Wood, and I'm here to talk about herbs. I suppose a few more people will arrive over the next few minutes, but I guess we can get started."

A half dozen guys looked at me with apparent interest, then one of them said, "We're the group on anger, you must be meeting in the next room."

Yes, there was another room across the hall. Since nobody was in it, I had assumed that this was the room where I was going to teach. Oh, ah, thank you, I mumbled and got up to leave. At the door, one of them asked, "Hey, do you know any remedies for anger?"

"Yeah, well," I answered. "There are a lot of good remedies for anger." So I gave a minute or two talk. It was a legitimate topic. One that deserved more time for an answer. I gave them a few pointers before I headed across the hallway to the other room.

I sat there for a few more minutes. Nobody was there. Was I angry? No. I'll tell you, I was so tired, so relieved to have the evening free. I put my feet up on a chair. I'd been speaking all across the country on herbalism. A trip a month for the last four months. And this year, there had been more requests for little talks around town than I could keep up with. I was grateful for the rest. "Remedies for anger," I thought to myself. "That would make a good article." Then I left.

The average person wants to just mindlessly swallow a pill to cure a problem, but in herbalism, we recognize that each person, each case, is different. We have to "individualize the case." Ask questions, find out what kind of anger. All the advertising hype about herbs in the commercial marketplace is mostly nonsense. There are no easy solutions. We have to think and consider and ask questions in order to bring out the individual lines of each case. That's the way it is with sore throats, headaches, allergies, and anger. 

Remedies For Anger
Agrimony is the remedy for anger that is hidden behind a facade. These people are jovial and outgoing, but underneath, they seethe with frustration and anger that they themselves are not always aware they possess. They feel "caught in a bind," often about work-related issues. "Torturedly cheerful," I like to say. These are the characteristics we learn from Dr. Edward Bach, who introduced the flower essence remedies. Agrimony was one of his remedies. It can be used as an herb as well as an "essence." 

Chamomile is an old "gramma" remedy from Europe. It's the one they give babies to calm them down. It's especially suited for whining, peevish, complaining, and temper tantrums.

"That must be for the passive-aggressive types," quipped one of the men in the anger group.

I always say, "Chamomile is the remedy for babies...babies of any age." Everybody understands that. I have a friend who is a practicing herbalist in New York City, the capital of whining. He says, "If the patient whines on the first visit, I give him Chamomile and have him come back next week."

Chamomile can be used as an herb tea, a tincture, or even in homeopathic form. The fresh plant and the tincture made fresh have the most rich flavor and strongest medicine power. You don't get that in the supermarket tea bag.

Nux vomica is a homeopathic remedy, especially for people who have "foul moods." They not only get angry, but they like being angry; they like to indulge themselves in anger. Most of the time, they aren't a very happy camper, with complaints about this or that, outbursts of anger. This is probably the boss who is telling the Agrimony how to do the job the wrong way and yelling at him at the same time. And a long line of physical discomforts that accompany such moods. Indigestion, gas, bloating, constipation alternating with diarrhea, colic, irritable bowel syndrome. There is a great variety of symptoms. I heard of one doctor in California who had a clientele of abused wives. She finally got sick of treating the women, who were all ready enough for change, and had them slip their husbands Nux vomica on the sly. That took care of more than half her cases.

That reminds me of another woman doctor who said, "If a man complains that he can't get along with his wife...give him a dose of Chamomile."

At any rate, if you are experimenting with a homeopathic remedy like Nux vomica, use the low potencies (6-30x or 6-30c).

Another extremely valuable homeopathic remedy for anger is Staphysagria. That is for people who feel violated or put upon and can't express their anger. One of my cousins waited all day for the plumber, who said he was going to come in the morning. By the time he arrived, it was almost dinner time, and my cousin was fuming, but he was afraid that if he said anything, the man would leave. (This was in Philadelphia. Everybody has bad manners on the East Coast, so the plumber probably would just have left. A few hours later, my cousin got a bladder infection. Staphysagria is the remedy for being "pissed off." It is often used for bladder infections following unexpressed anger. My cousin knows his homeopathy. He took Staphysagria, and the next day he was fine.

Guess what. There is even a remedy for RAGE! That would be another homeopathic, Hepar sulph. This kind of person just feels that old rage boil up and just can't keep a lid on it, and they might explode. It's also a remedy for boils, so we see how the physical body mirrors the inner self. A good lesson indeed.

Twenty years later, I stand by what I wrote, but I would add that my major remedies for rage are scarlet pimpernel (hard to get) and burdock root. The former may be available as a flower essence. I haven’t used hepar sulph much—except for boils. It’s funny, burdock is a great boil remedy too. I guess boils are evidence of anger. Remember when George W. Bush and Al Gore were duking it out in court after the 2000 election (those were the good old days). Bush got boils on his face—I could feel the rage.

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The information provided in this digital content is not medical advice, nor should it be taken or applied as a replacement for medical advice. Matthew Wood, the Matthew Wood Institute of Herbalism, ETS Productions, and their employees, guests, and affiliates assume no liability for the application of the information discussed.