Treat Your Brain with Lion’s Mane
In herbalism there is a principle called the doctrine of signatures.
The doctrine of signatures is the term for when a plant or a part of the plant (leaf, root, fruit, or flower) resembles the part of our human bodies that it is known to particularly benefit. A common household example of this is the walnut, famous for its brain-health qualities and coincidentally looks a lot like a small brown brain. Lesser known examples include the horsetail (Equisetum arvense), medicinal for bone health, whose long stem’s hollow sections separated by rings, so very much recollects the vertebrae of a spine. Bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos), the herb for grief. The herb for the weary-hearted, the tired and true, as my teacher always said “the herb for when you are stuck at a red light”. She flowers every year around Valentine’s day her delicate dripping blooms that appear identical to their name, little fuchsia bleeding hearts.
One of my favorite examples of encountering the doctrine of signatures in my plant-medicine journey was on a camping trip with my herbalism school to the Ochoco national forest. We went to visit the junipers. We also sought to come across Burberry, Peony root, Hawthorn, and maybe just maybe some other special flora or fungi friend awaiting us in the dense ponderosa forest. In the last hours of our stay we walked trails until we located several mushroom species we were looking for, specifically Reishi and Turkey Tail. Our teacher helped us learn to identify them, explained the ecological details of where they are typically found and their medicinal properties. We were pleased to have located all of the plants we sought to meet and happily began our trek de regreso.
A few bends later down the path, I saw what from a distance resembled a puffy white cloud stuck to the side of a fallen tree trunk. When I got closer, the intricate white folds of the formation told me what I struggled to believe from the size of the thing: It was a perfectly formed in-tact lion’s mane mushroom the size of my head. We harvested it respectfully, first gathering around to appreciate and discuss this precious surprise. We weighed it at 2 pounds and upon departing, we split it into equal pieces for each of us to take home to tincture, decoct, or sauté as we fancied.
The delicious and medicinal mushroom highly resembles the mane of a lion, or a white coral formation you might find underwater. Like walnuts, Lion’s Mane mushroom looks very much like a brain. It is an exceptional example of the doctrine of signatures because it’s primary recognized medicinal properties pertain brain-health, being specifically known to improve cognition, concentration, memory and stimulate brain cell growth. It is also an anti-inflammatory commonly experienced to aid in treating stress and anxiety. My earliest memories of meeting Lion’s Mane are during my last year of University when a fellow student of mine began cultivating and tincturing Lions Mane in his home. He would sell 1oz tinctures of it around campus and these little blue crystalline bottles would suddenly appear on desks across lecture halls when it came time for an exam. Since living in Mexico the past four years, I have not encountered Lion’s mane hardly at all until this past summer at a farmer’s market while in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. I saw a man displaying a gorgeous variety of edible and medicinal mushrooms and immediately felt a flush of excitement at recognizing some of my old favorites from when I used to live in the region, specifically Reishi and Lion’s mane. The man was named Arthur and the beautiful variety of mushrooms he had for sale became suddenly more impressive as he shared to a small crowd gathered round his table that he cultivated each variety himself and in fact all of the products he was selling were homegrown. Upon looking closer, I saw there was something else special about his products: a portion of his sales on certain items were being donated to research efforts to provide veterans with medicinal (psychedelic) mushroom therapy to aid in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. I had heard about this off and on amidst the herbalism and mycology communities I had known, but I had yet to come across an individual dedicating part of their own unique work to this cause. I also liked that Arthur kept it simple, with 5-6 varieties of whole mushrooms for sale, all grown in his own greenhouses, and two high-concentration tinctures available, our dear old friends Lion’s Mane and Reishi.
As soon as I tried his tinctures, there was a clear difference between his small-batch homestyle preparation methods and the mass-scale industrial herb farm tinctures one finds online or at a chain health food store. Arthur’s tinctures did not have an overwhelming taste of alcohol, and they visibly contained small substrates of plant material. His recipe actually included a higher portion of alkaloids than traditional, mass-produced mushroom tinctures, which in a reduced sense of the matter could be understood as “more bang for your buck”. Of course, the overarching and underlying difference between his tinctures of those you might find on a whole food’s shelf was something that carries quite the weight in the practice of plant medicine: the intention. Arthur cultivates his mushrooms and crafts his tinctures from a sincere desire to provide healthy and medicinal foods to his community, while giving back to causes that advance underfunded research such as giving shrooms to vets to help them improve their mental health and work through their trauma.
For the last few months, Arthur’s tinctures have been constant companions of mine- the cognitive and clarity-giving qualities of Lion’s Mane in tandem with the immune-boosting, deeply grounding Reishi medicine helping me navigate a season riddled with change, movement, adaptation, and being somehow more busy but less stressed than ever before. I keep them on my desk, carry them in my purse, and offer them to friends who cross my path complaining of lack of focus, brain-fog, or low-energy. Not only have they made quite the difference for me in the work that my daily life requires, but they have brought me back in the fold with fungi that have been near and dear to my heart for years passed.
The emerging accessibility to these mushrooms and dissipating taboos surrounding medicinal mushroom consumption are hopeful points in our world’s somewhat chaotic present state. It is becoming easier to find a larger variety of plants and mushrooms that can help us be well, through healing but also through prevention. For anyone looking to treat their brain to a bit of support in navigating the ups and downs of daily life as a human being in the modern world, seeking a source of grounded focus and sustained clarity, you have nothing to lose by trying out Lion’s Mane in it’s whole, powdered, or tinctured form. You can let go of the questions and doubts of how to know you are getting the right product or how you can be sure that something that has been crafted with your wellness in mind by buying from smaller plant-medicine producers local to your community, making them yourself, or better yet- by buying directly from Arthur. You can visit his website, which is easy to explore and pleasing to the eye, here to learn more about his products and CSA offerings. His tincture shop is the most straight forward, offering year-round the exact Lion’s Mane and Reishi tinctures that have come to be an integral part of my wellness practices. You’ll rest easy knowing you are on the path to holistic brain health while supporting a worthy cause.
It is recommended to being tinctures in small doses while your body adapts to consuming a new plant-based medicine. Over time, you could work your way up to taking a full dropper of the tincture (1mL), either directly under your tongue, down the throat, or added to your cup of coffee or tea. It is recommended to refrain from consuming the tinctures every day, or to at least take days off between consuming them daily, so as to keep your body from building a tolerance that would reduce the visceral effects of the plant or fungi’s medicinal qualities. Although tinctures are not known for always having the best tastes, taking them directly the tongue every now and then or for your first dose, does help to get to know better the plants you are consuming and engage with them in a slightly more intimate fashion. It is not recommended to consume more than 1-2ml of Lion’s Mane or Reishi tincture daily. As you advance in your wellness journey and relationships with plant-medicines, it is good to do your research and talk with people in your communities (online included) who have more experience and knowledge or are simply farther along down the path. Over time it becomes more natural to rely on intuition to guide you in personal details of the relationship with the plant medicines such as quantity of dosis, when to take something, when to not, and what plant medicines should not be used in tandem. A tincture is an extract of plant material dissolved in alcohol and water. It is best that a tincture steeps for six weeks or at least a full moon cycle before being pressed and bottled. The extracting process makes readily available the plant’s medicinal qualities and alkaloids.
Above all, it is important to always keep in mind that these recommendations and reflections are for informational and educational purposes only. They are not intended to treat, diagnose, cure, or prevent any disease. Tinctures are not recommended if you are pregnant or abstaining from alcohol for any reason. They are considered herbal supplements and are not intended to replace medications or treatment regiments prescribed to you by a medical doctor, nutritionist, of pharmacist. It is recommended to consult a physician before beginning any kind of herbal supplement, especially if you are nursing. Building a better world begins with taking good care of ourselves first.