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Polygala tenuifolia 20:1

Push.

Became interested in this herb, at least I keep reading very positive reviews and negative ones are pretty much lacking so let's hope it's a bit stronger than good old St. John's which only does nausea and phototoxicity. Triple reuptake inhibitor & NMDA antagonist, a bit MAOI sounds promising yet on paper many things sound good and these reports tend to be from users who just started taking the polygala.

Any new experiences or info? :)
 
In the meantime I've acquired a bottle of 20:1 extract and tried anything from one to six capsules, alone or together with a SSRI, and it was a complete disappointment, I feel no difference at all. Latest trial was today, one month without any SSRI, but nothing.
 
Me again, dumped like 10 of the remaining capsules. Finally something, inner tension is a bit lower and my mood a tiny bit elevated. Dopamine or serotonin at work. The relief of tension is equal to 150mg tramadol maybe, so still of low intensity but not placebo.
 
I still feel it, weak but definitely there. More mental clarity and better mood than usual (which sets quite a low bar). I couldn't distinguish this from tramadol in this dosage but would say it's a tad more stimulating. A bit sad that there are only 5 left and were pretty expensive, I'd like to experiment more with this material. No side effects to speak of even on this amount.

We need a 100:1 extract, then we're talking.
 
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I have practiced licensed Chinese medicine professionally since 2011. The Chinese name for that herb is yuan zhi and we use it all the time in formulas for people that have "spirit disturbance", which is their way of saying an unbalanced mind. In the old world, they used to believe that when somebody was disturbed, it was because the orifices of the heart were being clouded by an invisible substance. The heart became energetically blocked and the spirit could not conduct itself properly into the body. Anyway... yuan zhi was said to open and clear all of the heart orifices, clearing and calming the mind.

It's interesting that many people believe depression is a spiritual disease. In the ancient world that's how it was treated... as though the spirit was not being housed in the heart properly, or it was in there but somehow not channeling outwardly in a clear and stable way.

I used to take yuan zhi, along with other herbs in the same category, back when my drug use was heavy. It helped. I used to mix it with hawthorn berries and another Chinese heart herb called he huan hua (flos albizziae), and it made for a wonderful heart opening, mind soothing tea.
 
Interesting @extranjero! Would you say one should take these two plants together then? Is the pure herb used in TCM or an extract?

I do think that many mental disorders are what in other times was called a spiritual disease. Like magic is just technology we don't understand yet. Terms change, stuff remains.
 
plumbus-nine said:
Interesting @extranjero! Would you say one should take these two plants together then? Is the pure herb used in TCM or an extract?

I do think that many mental disorders are what in other times was called a spiritual disease. Like magic is just technology we don't understand yet. Terms change, stuff remains.
Click to expand...

I still agree with the old world assessment of what we now call depression.
 
Reviving an old thread here only to add my two cents. I've taken this extract a number of times and I concur, it is a pretty good adaptogenic type of feeling like you get from a goodly dose of ginseng, ashwagandha, gotu kola, etc. Take it combined with others and you're good to go. How does it work? I have no idea. But I would think that if it isn't necessarily MAOI properties by itself then it's also working the way adaptogens are, each of which is unique and are not quite simple, with effects stemming from a variety of different compounds. What's weird to hear is that the raw herb has produced different effects than the extract has.
 
I would honestly buy some Polygala when able to do it (pretty broke atm),
I've been thinking about the properties for a long time and it seems very interesting pharmacologically. Tenuifolins are very strange compounds, with a lot of different activities. The molecules are terpenoids, not alkaloids, so in that sense is normal that @plumbus-nine is not getting "euphoria" until very large doses, normally terpenoids are not very active in terms of euphoria or big drug-like effects, except for some exception like Salvinorin A which is fairly similar in structure (not quite).

It seems to be very good for people with dementia and depression due to dementia.
 
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