What are the effects of lemon balm?
The essential oil of lemon balm (lemon balm) contains a complex mixture of healing ingredients. The main active ingredients are citral and citronellal. Other ingredients are tannins and flavonoids.
The totality of these ingredients has sedative, sleep-inducing (due to the hydroalcoholic extract), flatulence-inducing, antiviral, and bile flow-promoting (choleretic) effects.
Medically recognized applications
- for mild stress symptoms
- as a sleep aid
- @ for mild cramp-like gastrointestinal complaints (such as flatulence)
Other possible uses
In addition, there are indications from individual studies that lemon balm could help against other complaints – for example, against nausea, headaches and toothaches, menstrual cramps and supportive for high blood pressure.
What side effects can lemon balm cause?
Some people have an allergic reaction to lemon balm. In addition, the use of the medicinal plant has caused the following side effects in isolated cases:
- headache
- Stomach pain @
- Nausea and vomiting
- Dizziness
- Skin irritation
It may help if you take lemon balm preparations along with food.
How is lemon balm used?
Whether used internally as a tea or externally as a cream, lemon balm can be used in a variety of ways.
Melissa as a home remedy
Melissa tea is good for restlessness and difficulty falling asleep. It may also be helpful for menstrual cramps.
To prepare tea from the loose leaves, pour a cup of hot water over one teaspoon of finely chopped lemon balm leaves (about 1 gram), cover and steep the infusion for about seven minutes, then strain.
- under one year: 0.2 to 0.5 grams
- one to three years: 0.5 to 1.5 grams
- four to nine years: 1.5 to 3 grams
Melissa can also be combined with other medicinal plants and prepared as a tea – for example with valerian root or passionflower for nervous restlessness and sleep problems, or with anise and fennel for gastrointestinal complaints.
Full baths are generally not advisable in some cases, such as unstable circulation, shivering, freezing, skin injuries and immediately after a meal. If you are unsure whether you are allowed to take a full bath, first ask your doctor or pharmacist.
Melissa in aromatherapy
For example, the following mixture is recommended for rubbing in cases of heart complaints caused by nervousness (such as heart stuttering or palpitations in the evening):
- Add four drops each of bergamot and rosewood as well as one drop each of litsea and pure lemon balm oil (100 percent) to 30 milliliters of sweet almond oil (as a fatty base oil).
- You can rub the heart area with this so-called heart oil three times a day until the symptoms have subsided.
- For the essential oil mixture you need four drops each of lemon balm and caraway, two drops of lavender and one drop of nard. Add them to 50 milliliters of almond oil.
- You can rub this mixture on your abdomen several times a day. This can help the treatment of Roemheld’s syndrome.
Pure lemon balm oil is one of the most expensive essential oils, because its extraction requires a large amount of lemon balm leaves. In return, it is very valuable due to its effectiveness. Cheaper and still well effective is “Melissa oil 30 percent” – consisting of 30 percent lemon balm oil and 70 percent lavender oil. These two essential oils can support each other in their effects. When buying essential oils, look for organic quality!
Ready-to-use preparations with lemon balm
There are also ready-made preparations with lemon balm for internal use, such as alcoholic extracts as drops or dry extracts in the form of tablets or dragées. Very well known is the “Melissengeist” – an alcoholic liquid preparation which, in addition to lemon balm leaves, contains for example orange peel, ginger root, cloves, cinnamon bark and angelica root.
Regarding the use and dosage of ready-made preparations, read the respective package insert or ask your doctor or pharmacist.
What you should bear in mind when using lemon balm
- Those who are allergic to lemon balm should avoid preparations containing this plant.
- Especially women during pregnancy and breastfeeding as well as children should drink lemon balm tea only in moderation.
- For babies and toddlers, the tea should only be slightly dosed or diluted.
Be careful if you are taking medication. It may interact with:
- thyroid medicines
- sedatives
- medicines that affect the hormone serotonin
- barbiturates
- Glaucoma medications
Before using lemon balm oil and other essential oils, you should also always check the compatibility with the arm bend test: Put a drop of the essential oil in the crook of your arm and gently rub it in. If the affected skin area becomes red, begins to itch and perhaps even forms pustules in the following hours, you cannot tolerate the oil. You should not use it then!
How to get the lemon balm products
The essential oil and finished drug preparations such as tea, liquid preparations, fresh plant press juice, ointments, tablets, dragées and combination preparations can be found in pharmacies and sometimes also in drugstores.
For instructions on the type and duration of use as well as dosage, refer to the respective package insert or ask your doctor or pharmacist.
Lemon balm: What is it?
Lemon balm is a popular bee food, as indicated by its Latin name (Greek: melissa = bee, meli = honey).
The perennial plant, up to 90 centimeters high, has an erect, square and branched stem. The leaves (Melissae folium) sit in pairs on the stem opposite each other and are similar in shape to those of the stinging nettle Unlike the latter, however, the lemon balm leaves do not cause pain when touched.
In summer, yellowish-white labiate flowers grow from the axils of the leaves, arranged in false whorls. They have a smaller upper lip and a lower lip composed of a large central lobe and two smaller lateral lobes.
The essential oil extracted from lemon balm (lemon balm oil) is one of the most expensive essential oils of all, because the plant contains very little of it.
