Sedation with Medicinal Plants: A Review of Medicinal Plants with Sedative Properties in Iranian Ethnoblotanical Documents

The complexity of today’s modern society, increasing problems and changes in lifestyles can lead all to stress and anxiety. To control stress and anxiety, sedative drugs that have anxiolytic and sedative effects and temporarily calm the person and lead to a pleasant sleep are used. However, it must also be kept in mind that each of these drugs have their own side effects. The information in this review study was obtained from scientific publications indexed in databases such as the Information Sciences Institute, PubMed, Scopus, Scientific Information Database, Magiran, and Google Scholar that were retrieved by using relevant search terms including sedative, ethnobotany, herbal drug, Iran, medicinal plants, extracts, and essential oils. A total of 46 articles were retrieved by our initial search. The articles were reviewed. Forty three articles were further reviewed, 16 of which were finally used to review the sedative effects in ethnobotany. Being sedative is one of the reported properties of some herbal drugs. The use of these materials can be beneficial and will not cause side effects like those of conventional sedative drugs. The use of oral herbal drugs is one of the ancient methods that have been used to control anxiety, stress and pain. Besides, numerous side effects of chemical drugs have caused a renewed tendency to use herbal medicine. Therefore, this study is aimed to introduce some of the most effective medicinal plants with sedative properties based on Iranian ethnobotanical documents.