Anxiety, fatigue, irritability and insomnia, these are very common disorders that can have a great impact on everyday life, in personal relationships, on physical and mental health and at work. Also in this case nature comes to the aid with two seedlings, the Mentha Spicata, or spearmint, and the greater plantain, or plantago major. In fact, these two plants perform an anxiolytic and calming action, also able to promote sleep, as demonstrated by a scientific research of 2018 and published in the journal Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine by a team of the University of Cartagena, Colombia (Caro et al, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2018).
Teas prepared with leaves of spearmint and greater plantain are traditionally used by the Colombian population to treat stress and insomnia. Therefore, scientists have tried to give a scientific basis to this tradition. An infusion of leaves was prepared, then, this tea was filtered, frozen and freeze-dried for the purpose of the experiment. These extracts of spearmint and plantain contained, just like the plants from which they were obtained, active ingredients such as flavonoids, triterpenes, tannins and saponins. The extracts of spearmint and plantain were then given to mice, which were then subjected to tests to evaluate the state of anxiety. What emerged was that both preparations were able to prolong the duration of sleep. Not only that, the spearmint also showed an anxiolytic and calming action. The researchers explained that this effect is due precisely to the presence of substances such as flavonoids and tannins that prove to be active on the central nervous system with a powerful anxiolytic action, capable of modulating the function of neurotransmitters such as gamma aminobutyric acid or GABA, like many sedative drugs.
