Sadness and melancholy

Melancholy is a word from a time when sadness was not yet measured by questionnaire: a grey afternoon, no wish to do anything, tiredness without cause. The tradition did not treat it as an illness but as weather — something that passes once a person is warm, fed and rested.

The catalogue lists nine species here. Six of them — German chamomile, English lavender, small-leaved lime, lemon balm, rosemary, St John's wort — are the same European set as under mood swings and trauma (only sage is missing here); wild pansy has joined them, and two plants from other traditions, damiana and vanilla. With vanilla and damiana it is about scent and pleasant taste, not a folk 'cure for sadness'.

The line between melancholy and depression is clinical, not linguistic: depression is a state that lasts weeks, takes away the ability to enjoy anything and changes sleep and appetite. For it there are treatments with a documented effect — psychotherapy and antidepressants. For melancholy there is mainly time, light and people.

St John's wort has clinical trials in mild depression, but also the most documented drug interactions of any herb in the catalogue; that is why it is never taken alongside antidepressants, contraception or blood thinners without a doctor. The other species in the set rest on tradition and scent, not data.

Two weeks in which nothing gives pleasure, mornings are worst, sleep falls apart and a person withdraws from others — that is the time to see your GP or a psychologist, not to wait for better weather.

Thoughts that it would be better not to be here are a reason to call now: a crisis line, or emergency services when life is in danger. A herbal infusion can be part of the evening, but never the thing that postpones the decision.