Brenda This post originally appeared as a guest blog on The Aging Games.
Every winter the same pattern plays out. A cold sweeps through the house, the cough digs in and refuses to leave, and the medicine cabinet offers you the same old options: suppressants and syrups that quiet things down without addressing what’s going on underneath. Most of us grew up reaching for those bottles because that’s all we knew.
But a cough is your lungs trying to clear themselves. When you suppress that process with medication, the congestion often stays put or settles deeper. The cough gets quieter, but the problem lingers. If you’ve ever had a winter cough that dragged on for weeks, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
When I started studying herbalism, one of the first things that changed was how I understood coughs. Instead of asking “how do I stop this,” I started asking “what is my body trying to do, and how can I support it?” That one question opened up a world of plant medicine that has been helping people breathe easier for thousands of years.
Three respiratory herbs in particular have become central to my practice. I want to introduce them to you here because winter is when we need them most.
Horehound
White horehound (Marrubium vulgare) is one of the oldest respiratory herbs in Western herbalism and one of my personal favorites. Hippocrates valued it for asthma and respiratory complaints. Culpeper recommended a syrup made from it to clear thick mucus from the chest. Hildegard von Bingen praised it for coughs and sore throats, often mixed with wine and honey.
Horehound belongs to the mint family and has been used traditionally for wet, productive coughs where congestion feels heavy and stuck. It’s a plant I have a deep relationship with. I did my thesis on Marrubium vulgare, and it’s the herb that taught me the most about how plants find you when you need them. There’s a story behind that, one I’ll be sharing in my upcoming book.
You can make a simple tea with half a teaspoon of dried herb steeped in a cup of boiling water. It’s quite bitter, so a spoonful of honey goes a long way. Drink two to three cups a day during an active cough. Horehound should be avoided during pregnancy as it can stimulate menstrual flow.
Mullein
Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is one of the gentlest respiratory herbs you’ll encounter. Dioscorides described it for lung complaints, and in medieval Europe it was a trusted remedy often infused into oils for earaches. In Appalachian folk herbalism, it has a long history of use for chronic lung weakness.
If you’ve ever seen mullein growing wild, you’d recognize it by its large, soft, velvety grey-green leaves and the tall stalk of bright yellow flowers it sends up in its second year. Those fuzzy leaves have long been associated with the tiny cilia of the lungs through the Doctrine of Signatures, the idea that a plant’s appearance can reveal its medicinal purpose. I see both Verbascum thapsus and Verbascum olympicum growing here in Greece, and they share much the same herbal action.
Mullein has been used traditionally for dry, irritated coughs where the throat feels raw and scratchy. A tea made from one teaspoon of dried herb per cup of boiling water works beautifully, but strain it through a coffee filter or fine cloth because the tiny hairs on the leaves can irritate the throat if they make it into your cup. Two to four cups a day during an active cough is a common recommendation.
Thyme
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) is a plant most of us already have in the kitchen, but its medicinal history goes far deeper than seasoning a roast. Culpeper called it “a notable strengthener of the lungs” and said it “purges the body of phlegm.” Dioscorides used it with honey for asthma and to help expel mucus. In traditional Italian practice, thyme was combined with rosemary and hyssop as an expectorant for bronchitis.
I love this plant. The name thyme comes from the ancient Greek word for inner strength and force. In modern Greek, thymós means anger, temper, aggravation. Think about what anger does in the body: it heats you up, gets things moving, pushes energy outward. That’s what thyme does as a medicine, and I find it fascinating that the word and the plant carry the same energy.
Thyme has been used traditionally for damp, congested coughs and winter chest complaints. A simple tea of one teaspoon dried thyme steeped in a cup of boiling water (covered, to keep the aromatic oils from escaping) with honey is a time-tested preparation. Two to three cups a day during a cold can help open the airways and ease congestion. Thyme is safe as a culinary herb, but the concentrated essential oil should be used with caution and never taken internally.
When It’s More Than a Virus
Sometimes what shows up in the lungs has nothing to do with catching a cold. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the lungs are the organs most closely associated with grief, sadness, and the inability to let go. Unexpressed emotions, unprocessed loss, old beliefs we’ve been carrying for years; all of it can settle in the respiratory system and manifest as congestion, tightness, or a cough that comes out of nowhere.
I experienced this recently in my own body. After reconnecting with a family member I’d been estranged from for over two decades, I woke up with a sharp pain in my lung and a deep cough. I wasn’t sick. There was no virus. But my body had stored decades of grief, loss and unspoken things in my chest, and the moment I began releasing those emotions through conversation and reconnection, my lungs started clearing physically what I’d already begun to release emotionally.
The cough was productive. It brought things up. And it resolved in a couple of days with the help of thyme tea, horehound syrup, and the simple willingness to let my body do what it needed to do.
This is something I think about a lot as an herbalist. We tend to separate the physical from the emotional, but the body doesn’t make that distinction. When grief lives in the lungs, the lungs will eventually try to clear it, especially during times of emotional release or major life transitions. Menopause is often one of those times. Women who’ve spent decades suppressing their emotions, swallowing their truth, holding it all together, sometimes find that their lungs start speaking up when the rest of their life begins to change.
If you find yourself coughing and you know you’re not sick, it’s worth sitting quietly and asking what your body might be trying to release. Support the process with the herbs I’ve mentioned above. Let the cough be productive. Cry if the tears come. Breathe deeply when you can. Your lungs know what they’re doing.
Why These Three
What I find remarkable about horehound, mullein and thyme is how they complement each other. Each one has a different character and meets a different kind of cough. There’s a deeper framework behind choosing the right herb for the right situation, one rooted in understanding the energetics of both the plant and the person. That’s something I go into in much more detail in my upcoming book, The Mediterranean Herbalist: Stories and Remedies from Italy and Greece, coming fall 2026.
When to Seek More Support
These herbs are wonderful for the acute winter coughs and congestion that come with a cold and linger for a couple of weeks. If your cough persists beyond that, if you develop a high fever that won’t break, or if you’re dealing with chronic respiratory issues, please see a qualified practitioner. Herbs are powerful allies, but they work best when you know when to ask for more help.
If you’d like to go deeper into herbal medicine and learn how to support your family’s health with plants, I’m the resident herbalist in Lynn Hardy’s Inner Circle at The Aging Games. We talk about real herbal knowledge, practical preparations, and matching the right herb to what your body needs. I’d love to see you there. You can also book an appointment with my to go over your health history in detail and I can create a plan to address any health issues.
