Nervines, sedatives, and tonics have been used for anxiety for centuries, and some now have clinical trials behind them. Here are 18 herbs ranked by the strength of the evidence, what each trial actually found, and who should skip each one.

Herbs are the smallest part of a dog's health. Food quality, sardines over fish oil, four well-tolerated herbs, and the evidence behind the garlic and vaccine questions I get asked most.

Fire cupping uses heated glass cups to draw skin and tissue upward. Here is how a session works, where the practice comes from, and what controlled trials and meta-analyses have found for back pain, neck pain, and safety.

A loading dose shortens the wait for steady state, but only for compounds that clear slowly and build up in tissue. Creatine, vitamin D, iron, and omega-3s qualify. Most herbs do not, and the vitamin D trials show what happens when loading goes past its endpoint.

Four herbs come up in nearly every conversation about low mood. A clinical herbalist reviews the trial record for saffron, St. John's wort, rhodiola, and ginkgo, including how each was tested, which preparations were used, and the interactions that rule some of them out.

Gotu kola and bacopa have the longest traditional record and the most human trial data of any herb studied for brain injury support. Here is what the research shows for them, and for hyperbaric oxygen, nutrition, breathwork, and ginkgo, with the evidence graded for each.