Care Plans People Can Actually Do

Where the medicine really begins

As herbalists, when we set out to help someone — a client, a loved one, or ourselves — it's natural to start with the obvious questions: What do I think is ailing this person, and what herbs would help in their situation? Besides herbs, what other supportive recommendations can I offer? Most herbal training focuses on these questions alone, and misses something crucial: even the best protocol will fail if the person on the receiving end can't apply it in their daily life.

Herbal consultations are different than acupuncture or massage sessions, because with herbalism the medicine really begins after the consultation — the person goes home with their herbs and their list of things to do, and then they have to do it, every day. Some herbal medicines, like teas, need to be prepared, and even when not, they need to be remembered. They need to be at hand when they're needed. Practices like breathwork take time and a bit of calm. And even small changes to food habits can be surprisingly hard.

So many things get in the way of good intentions. Friction shows up as logistics: time constraints, inconsistent schedules, conflicting habits and routines. It shows up as mental load: executive function challenges, overwork, other caregiving demands. And it shows up as shame from past experiences, perfectionism, lack of support, and especially, inflexible advice.

It's a humbling rite of passage for everyone who practices this art to deliver a lovingly-crafted formula or a detailed plan of care, and for those offerings not to take root in the cared-for person's life.

The answer is not to expect more willpower on the part of the person we're trying to help.

The answers — because there are many — include thoughtful design, collaboration, and iterative refinement over time. We can work with people to bring herbal and holistic medicine into their lives despite the challenges. "Meet people where they're at," we say. But how does that actually look?

Build on what you're doing already

One reason plans fail is a failure to consider the actual day-to-day life of the person that the plan is trying to help. That person might be yourself. It can be difficult to appreciate how challenging building new habits and routines can be, even when we're highly motivated.

One basic rule of thumb is to build on what you're already doing. If you already brush your teeth every night, then you can take your sleep tincture at the same time. You can even keep the sleep tincture with your toothbrush. Another example, from a recent client of mine: most nights she puts her kids to bed and then relaxes with her husband on the couch for a while — the perfect time to drink her nightly tea.

This very basic and common idea, called habit stacking, is so simple, but many of us don't stop to think about how to apply it. Practitioners can facilitate that thinking with the people we're helping. They obviously know their lives better than we do, but we can help them talk it through, and find opportunities. That way they don't just know what to do, but also how they're going to do it.

Another recent example of building on what already exists: a busy single mom with recent constipation. Seeing that fiber and vegetables in her diet were pretty scarce, we decided to lean into what she was already eating — microwave steam-in-bag vegetables. She kept a couple of kinds around, so I suggested she just buy more, and eat them more often.

I could tell that she was a little ashamed of this way of getting her vegetables — not that I saw any reason for her to be. And besides, she was already eating these. By simply increasing them, she didn't have to make a new plan, cook a new food, or shop any differently. It's a common pattern for us not to make a beneficial change because we're holding out for an idealized version — "I want to buy my vegetables at the farmer's market" — but we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. These veggies were already working for her. How about we just do more of that?

None of this is rocket science. It only takes intention, curiosity, and flexibility.

What's the "bad day" version of your protocol?

When embarking on a new plan of care, with new tools and new herbs, we might imagine how we'll execute the plan on a typical day. Maybe it's: sun in the morning, walk in the evening, bitters before meals, herbal tea after lunch. But how many days are truly typical?

We should design our plans for real conditions, not just ideal ones.

It helps to think this through in advance. What's the maximum version of the plan — the version you'd do if everything worked out and you had plenty of time, space, and energy? And then, what's the minimum viable version — the version you can do even on a bad day, a chaotic day, a busy day or a blah day — and still keep a meaningful thread of consistency running through it all?

Maybe on those days you can still take your bitters once or twice, and spend ten minutes outside even if it's not until 10pm. Great.

We always have flexibility around just how consistent we need to be, and how much of everything we need to do in order to see the results we want to see. We should take advantage of that flexibility, and imagine both the maximum and the minimum versions, expecting that we'll average somewhere in between.

If we design only for the ideal, and the ideal is frequently not possible, there's a risk of abandoning the plan entirely due to "failure" to live up to the goal. We prevent this unwanted outcome by building different-day versions from the start. It's a case where embracing imperfection is the actual road to success.

Below is a recording of a free class that Dave gave on this topic in August of 2026.