Drinking lavender herbal tea twice a day may reduce the intense emotional and physical reactions experienced by people with misophonia. A recent clinical trial found that two weeks of habitual consumption of floral tea significantly reduced anxiety, depression, and anger among people suffering from this sound sensitivity. The results of this study were published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
Misophonia is a psychological condition in which mundane everyday sounds cause intense emotional and physical aversion. The most common triggers are noises made by other people, such as loud chewing, heavy breathing, lip smacking, and the clicking of pens. For people with misophonia, these are more than just minor annoyances. Exposure to such stimuli rapidly activates the sympathetic nervous system, the body’s network responsible for the human fight-or-flight response.
People with misophonia often experience muscle tension, increased heart rate, and sudden sweating when the condition is triggered. They may feel intense irritability, helplessness, and even sudden outbursts of aggression. The emotional strain can be severe, often straining relationships with family and co-workers. Patients sometimes avoid social gatherings altogether, preferring complete isolation to the severe pain of eating in public.
The sustained stress of anticipating and experiencing these auditory triggers often leads to secondary mental health problems. This condition is often accompanied by increased anxiety levels and deep depression. Management of this disorder is notoriously difficult, as standard medical approaches often rely on specialized psychotherapy to help reconstruct the patient’s responses. These treatment options can be expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to access for the average individual.
Your health care professional may prescribe medication to manage secondary mood symptoms associated with misophonia. These prescriptions often include antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, which change the chemical balance in the brain. However, these pharmaceutical options often cause undesirable side effects such as emotional dullness, drowsiness, difficulty concentrating, and physical dependence. In search of more accessible and tolerable alternatives, researchers are beginning to explore the potential of phytotherapy.
Sevgi Koroglu Gökber, a nurse researcher at Turkey’s Sakarya University, led a recent study investigating whether natural tea can reduce the mental burden of the disorder. Her research team focused on lavender, an herb that has long been associated with anxiolytic and anti-anxiety effects. Certain compounds in this plant, such as linalool and linalyl acetate, are known to interact with the brain’s major emotion regulation centers.
Previous research suggests that these botanicals may help increase levels of calming neurochemicals in the brain. For example, the aroma and ingestion of plants can affect the production of chemical messengers that block excitatory signals and cause a feeling of relaxation. The researchers hypothesized that by alleviating patients’ underlying anxiety and depression, they may be able to indirectly alleviate the severe day-to-day symptoms of misophonia.
To test this hypothesis, the research team recruited 60 adults with clinically diagnosed misophonia. The participants were mainly women in their early 20s. The researchers randomly assigned 30 people to the experimental group and the remaining 30 people to the control group.
Participants in the experimental group were given a strict tea-drinking protocol for 14 consecutive days. They received 28 sachets of dried lavender and were instructed to make tea every morning and evening. The protocol called for steeping the herb in boiling water for 10 to 15 minutes and intentionally inhaling the floral scent before taking a sip.
To ensure adherence to the routine, Gokbel communicated with the experimental group daily through text messages and phone calls. The control group, on the other hand, continued their normal lives without any intervention. Researchers told control group members that they would receive herbal tea at the end of the two-week study period.
All participants completed a series of standard psychometric questionnaires at the beginning and end of the study. These studies included specialized misophonia scales, anxiety rating scales, depression inventories, and anger measurement tools. Using a questionnaire, researchers were able to quantify changes in psychological distress and symptom severity over a two-week period.
The data collected revealed significant differences between the two groups by the end of the study. Overall misophonia symptom scores improved significantly in the experimental group. In the scoring system the researchers used, higher numerical scores indicated less severe disability. The average misophonia score for the tea drinking group increased significantly from a baseline of about 78 to over 91.
By breaking down misophonia scores into specific categories, researchers discovered areas for improvement. Participants who drank this tea reported a measurable improvement in their overall quality of life. They also reported having better personal strategies for dealing with unpleasant sounds when they occur.
The psychological benefits extended far beyond the specific symptoms of misophonia. The tea group had significantly lower baseline anxiety scores. Their depression scores showed a significant drop, dropping from an average of about 18 out of 63 to just over 6.
Self-reported anger levels also decreased significantly in the experimental group. In contrast, members of the control group showed no statistically significant improvement in any of the psychiatric categories measured. Their anxiety, depression, and anger scores remained virtually stagnant over 14 days.
However, the intervention did not eliminate all aspects of the disorder. The researchers noted that the tea did not produce a statistically significant change in participants’ initial responses to environmental trigger sounds. Baseline levels of self-control when suddenly exposed to annoying noises also did not change.
Although the trial results look promising, the researchers highlighted some limitations to the actual study design. Participants knew exactly which group they were assigned to and were aware of the supposed benefits of the herbal therapy. This lack of blinding creates a high risk of a placebo effect that can significantly influence the results.
Because the experimental subjects expected to feel calmer after drinking the tea, their subjective ratings of their symptoms may have been artificially improved. Measuring psychiatric outcomes entirely through self-report surveys always increases this particular risk. The researchers caution against considering phytotherapy as an independent treatment based solely on these initial findings.
Intensive monitoring of the experimental group also complicates interpretation of the final findings. Daily text messages and frequent phone calls from the principal investigator provided a high degree of daily social support. This extra consideration from medical professionals may have uniquely elevated participants’ moods, regardless of what they were drinking.
The physical and sensory act of brewing tea introduces yet another uncontrollable variable into the study. Taking 15 minutes to sit quietly, take deep breaths, and drink a warm drink during a busy day is a recognized relaxation technique in itself. The observed tranquility may have been caused by the ritualistic nature of the flower’s routine, rather than by any specific chemical properties found in the flower.
To validate these preliminary findings, future studies should incorporate active control groups into their methodology. Having control participants drink a completely different type of herbal tea or a placebo drink would help isolate the actual pharmacological effects of lavender. The study also followed participants for only two weeks, so it remains unclear whether mood improvements persist with long-term use.
Finally, the specific age and gender composition of the sample limits the scope of our overall conclusions. The human brain’s sensitivity to calming phytochemicals can decrease significantly with age. Future clinical trials will require a more diverse group of participants, including older people and men, to see if the treatment effects are universal.
The study, “Effect of lavender herbal tea on the mental health of misophonia patients: a randomized controlled trial,” was authored by Sevgi Koroglu Gokbel and Gulgun Durat.
