We've got another one, folks. We found another everyday kitchen herb that you can buy at any local supermarket and simply grow in your vegetable garden, and which, in a reasonable dose, makes your brain work better. According to a trial published in Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, rosemary supplementation improves your memory and mood.

Rosemary
Rosemary - Latin name: Rosmarinus officinalis - may not look like sage - Salvia officinalis - yet the plants are related. They both belong to the Salvia genus and therefore contain approximately the same bioactive compounds.

We have written about sage several times recently. Supplementation with not even such large quantities reverses mild dementia, allows young people to perform better mentally during stress, and also improves cholesterol levels.

If sage and rosemary are related, then it is quite possible that rosemary has such wonderful effects too. We thought. And lo and behold.

Click on the tables in this post for a larger version.

Study
In 2018, researchers from Kerman University of Medical Sciences in Iran published a trial in which 68 students served as subjects. The Iranians divided the students into a placebo group and an experimental group. The trial lasted a month.

The students in the experimental group took two capsules daily, each containing 500 milligrams of powdered dried rosemary leaves. Thus, the students ingested one gram of dried rosemary daily.

Just before the supplementation began and on the last day of the trial, the students completed questionnaires. The questionnaires concerned the functioning of their memory, depression, and anxiety.

Results
The students were cognitively and psychologically healthy, but supplementation improved their scores even further.

The students' memory functioned extremely reasonably, but as you can see below, rosemary improved their Prospective and Retrospective Memory Questionnaire [PRMQ] scores by 14 percent.

The students were not depressed or anxious. Their scores on questionnaires measuring depression or anxiety - the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scales - decreased by 36 and 27 percent, respectively, due to rosemary.

Moreover, the students in the experimental group reported that they slept better due to supplementation.

Conclusion
"Rosemary, as a traditional herb with a safe dose, could be used to boost prospective and retrospective memory, reduce anxiety and depression, and improve sleep quality in university students," the researchers summarize.

"As a result, rosemary may be a useful substitute for the nonmedical use of stimulant drugs by university students."