50 Ways to Use Yarrow

Yarrow is an easy herb to find and something that many herbalists keep in their stockpile. It’s useful for its use in blocking bleeding, toning skin, treating cold and flu, reducing blood pressure, improving circulation, and reducing fevers, among other things. Let’s look at some of the ways to use it.

1. Treat Varicose Veins

Use the tea to soak a cloth and apply it to your varicose veins. The yarrow will help reduce the inflammation and ease the pain associated with these swollen veins.

2. Eliminate Tooth Pain

Do you have a sore molar? Chew on some yarrow root to help ease the pain. Traditionally, the root is peeled and stored in a jar, covered with rum or brandy. When pain hits, pull out a piece of the root to chew on for stopping the pain.

3. Stimulate Your Digestive Tract

Bitter herbs are good for helping your digestive tract work better. Drink some yarrow tea, or add it to your daily meals in powdered form. You can also sprinkle the powdered yarrow in your smoothies.

4. Brew Some Beer

You can actually use yarrow flowers in place of hops to make beer. The end result is just as good, with a nice bitter tang.

This beer is good for stimulating the appetite and gives you plenty of benefits that come from yarrow when you drink it.

5. Sweat Out a Cold

You may know that you can often get rid of a cold or flu faster by sweating it out. Yarrow is ideal for this since it brings the blood to the surface of the skin and stimulates sweating. Drink some tea to get the sweats going and keep it up for a period of two or three days, three cups a day.

6. Lower Blood Pressure

Anyone with high blood pressure knows that it can make you feel anxious and unpleasant. You may feel like your skin is crawling when the pressure rises rapidly. Take a cup of yarrow tea to help pull blood away from the heart and ease the discomfort. Yarrow can ease some of the symptoms of high blood pressure. It also thins the blood.

7. Break a Fever

A simple way to get a fever out of the way while avoiding over-the-counter medications is to drink yarrow tea as hot as you can make it. It’s best if you add peppermint and elderflower to the tea, as well.

Some people use this remedy while sitting in a sauna and adding yarrow leaves to the hot rocks.

8. Ease Nasal and Sinus Congestion

Boil yarrow in a pot of water and then drape a towel over your head and lean over it carefully. Inhale the steam and let it clear out your nasal passages.

You can also drink hot tea to help increase circulation and reduce congestion.

9. Stimulate Your Appetite

Having trouble finding the will to eat? Adding some yarrow tea to your morning routine will help your appetite and give you an increased interest in food.

10. Balance Your Chi

Chinese herbalists use a tea made from yarrow to rebalance the yin and yang in the body and create that balance that can be lacking.

11. Stop Bleeding

You can dry the herb, stem, and flowers, and grind them into a powder. This powder may be applied to stop excessive bleeding.

It helps the body produce a clot to prevent fresh bleeding from a deep wound. Alternatively, mash the fresh plant and apply it to a wound to slow bleeding and promote clotting.

12. Ease Arthritic Pain

A carrier oil steeped in yarrow can be useful to rub on areas where you have arthritis pain. Knees, knuckles, and other joints can benefit from the anti-inflammatory properties of the plant. You can also soak affected joints in yarrow tea if you prefer.

13. Ease Menopause Symptoms

If menopause is hitting hard, a daily cup of yarrow tea can be helpful in easing hormone shifts. While this means it’s particularly useful during menopause, it can be used long after, as well.

14. Protect Skin from Wind

A simple lotion infused with yarrow will help against windburn. It’s best to apply it before going outdoors in windy weather, but it can also be applied after the fact, to help soothe the reddened, irritated skin on your face or hands.

Related: All-Purpose (First Aid) Yarrow Salve

15. Eliminate Gingivitis

If you’re dealing with unpleasant gum disease, you can start rinsing with yarrow tea twice a day. Don’t swallow it, just rinse and spit. This should be in addition to regular brushing and flossing.

16. Ease Swelling with Tonsilitis

Again, yarrow tea comes to the rescue when you have tonsilitis. Gargling with warm tea can help reduce inflammation and prevent further infection. It may also reduce pain.

17. Limit Multiple Sclerosis Relapses

This area of using yarrow needs more research, but early studies indicate that taking yarrow every day in a capsule form may help reduce the amount of MS relapses you experience.

18. Help Prevent Alzheimer’s

Some studies show that yarrow could be helpful in preventing Alzheimer’s. The herb reduces inflammation in the brain and can ease some of the symptoms of diseases like this.

19. Ease Anxiety

For those suffering from anxiety, a yarrow tincture could be the key to staying calm. It’s been shown to improve anxiety when combined with physical and mental activity.

20. Increase Skin Hydration

Applying yarrow to your skin daily can help boost the hydration of your skin. Just rinse it each morning with yarrow tea and you’ll reap the benefits of having a natural astringent, as well as extra moisture.

21. Lower Stress Levels

During chronic stress, the human body tends to secrete a lot of corticosterone. Yarrow can inhibit that to some extent.

22. Protect Your Stomach From Ulcers

Yarrow extract or tincture can help protect your stomach from acid damage. While the herb does increase stomach acid somewhat, it also gives your stomach a protective coating to prevent ulcers.

23. Get a Good Night’s Sleep

A cup of warm tea made of yarrow can help you sleep better at night, particularly if you suffer from insomnia. Try adding some lavender to increase the soporific effect.

24. Ease IBS Symptoms

For those dealing with irritable bowel syndrome, yarrow may hold the key to comfort. Simply take 5-8 drops of tincture daily and you should experience relief from many of the symptoms.

25. Protect Your Face From the Sun

Applying tea made from yarrow to your skin before you leave the house may help prevent sun damage. It’s a natural sunblock and can also be infused into creams to hydrate and protect.

26. Repel Insects

To keep insects away from you, simply rub the flowers on your exposed skin. The smell isn’t wonderful, but it does keep you mosquito-free. You can also hang bunches of the flowers in your home or around the patio to keep bugs away.

27. Treat Sunburn

Too much time in the sun? Yarrow essential oil or infused carrier oil can be smoothed into your reddened skin. This helps ease the pain and also prevents permanent damage.

28. Ease Gas Pains

Take 5-8 drops of yarrow tincture on your tongue when you have excessive gas. This helps ease inflammation in the digestive tract and gets rid of the gas that builds up.

29. Jumpstart Your Period

When your period is late, but you’re not pregnant, you can use yarrow to help jumpstart things. This is particularly useful for women with irregular periods who are tired of dealing with the symptoms for longer than usual periods.

30. Ease Excessive Menstrual Flow

While yarrow is used to bring on your menses, it can also help ease a heavy flow. Simply take sitz baths or drink the tea daily, morning and evening. This helps with the hormonal imbalance that may be causing excessive bleeding.

31. Treat an Asthma Attack

A hot cup of yarrow tea or a few drops of yarrow tincture under the tongue can help ease an asthma attack. It works by thinning the blood and boosting blood flow to the lungs.

32. Clear Out Congested Pancreas

If your insulin levels tend to be high and your pancreas isn’t working optimally, you may find that yarrow helps. Add some of the powdered herbs to your morning smoothie, or your regular meals. Ingest about a tablespoon in total per day, dived between your foods.

33. Banish Infectious Diarrhea

Shigella and other types of bacteria can cause infections in the intestines that may be passed on to others. This type of diarrhea is difficult to treat since it is so infectious and it can dehydrate a person, particularly a child, very quickly. Treat with warm yarrow tea every few hours until diarrhea stops.

34. Speed Up Healing of Cuts and Wounds

Yarrow made into an ointment can help your small cuts and scratches heal faster by promoting healing and reducing inflammation. It’s also a natural antibiotic to help prevent infection in the same wounds.

35. Stop Post-Partum Bleeding

A sitz bath in yarrow tea is ideal for easing bleeding after a woman gives birth.

It is also useful for stopping hemorrhage after birth and helps the tissues to heal faster.

36. Tame Bronchitis

While you shouldn’t forgo medical treatment for bronchitis, yarrow tea can help open up the bronchial and make it easier to breathe. Take a cup of hot tea whenever you feel it getting hard to breathe.

37. Calm an Upset Stomach

Need some stomach-soothing? If your tummy is upset, just eat some yarrow. It’s usually best to mix it with something else, but the flowers can actually help settle an upset stomach.

38. Wash Your Hands

As a natural antiseptic, yarrow makes a great hand wash. You can use the strong tea to rinse your hands before tending wounds or doing any other sensitive activity.

39. Reduce the Appearance of Scars

Apply crushed yarrow or a balm made with the healing herb to any scars that you want to be less noticeable.

The twice-daily application can help reduce the appearance of any scars, particularly those on the face.

40. Calm Stomach Cramps

Yarrow can help with cramps by causing the muscles to relax. While this works particularly well in stomach cramps, since it also helps with digestion, the tincture taken under the tongue can help with craps in other areas of the body, too.

41. Lower Swelling Due to Edema

This herb can act as a natural diuretic, so if you’re suffering from swelling due to water retention, drinking some tea or adding the flower to your food may help. Just don’t use it if you’re pregnant.

42. Treat Mild Intestinal Infections

Yarrow in any of its forms will help clear the intestines of an infection. If you know that you have a mild one, you can take yarrow unless things get worse.

43. Soothe Itchy Skin

Mixing yarrow into a hydrating oil or salve is a good way to make it useful for skin. Apply to areas that are dry and itchy or irritated. The yarrow will calm the skin and help soothe any irritation and discomfort.

44. Stop PMS Symptoms

Drinking yarrow tea throughout the month on a daily basis can actually help with PMS symptoms.

Yarrow works well to treat hormonal imbalances and thus helps ease the changing hormones during your menstrual cycle.

45. Treat Acne

Since yarrow can be used as an antiseptic and astringent, it’s a great way to treat acne. Use the cooled tea to wash your face twice a day to help the skin heal and to prevent further infections. Yarrow tincture may also be dabbed on trouble spots.

46. Stop Constipation

While yarrow can help prevent diarrhea, it’s also handy for easing constipation. Drink two cups of yarrow tea each morning until you no longer have issues.

47. Ease Symptoms of Depression

Anyone dealing with depression knows how difficult it can be, but with the help of this natural herb, you may feel better.

Mild cases of depression can often be relieved by taking daily drops of tincture of yarrow.

48. Reduce Memory Loss

If you find that your memory is fading as you age, some yarrow tea may be helpful. It’s been shown to reduce the loss of memory that often comes with aging, so add a cup or two of the tea to your daily routine.

49. Possibly Treat Epilepsy

As a natural anti-inflammatory, it makes sense to take yarrow tinctures daily to help with something like epilepsy. While it’s not a cure, it can aid in preventing seizures in some people.

50. Aid Inflamed Liver

Livers can become inflamed for a number of reasons, but it can affect your overall health if one of the biggest filters in your body isn’t in peak condition. Drinking yarrow tea on a daily basis can help reduce inflammation.

Yarrow is considered a weed, but it’s really a very useful herb. Consider adding it to your herb garden.    

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