Is Bach's flower remedy 'rescue' effective?

Question

I hear that it actually helps people to fall asleep and feel less stress.

My question is specifically for the sleep 'rescue' remedy which has the following ingredients according to their site:

• White Chestnut: To help ease restless mind.
• Star of Bethlehem: For trauma and shock.
• Clematis: For the tendency to “pass out”, and unconsciousness, being ‘far away’ and not present mentally.

• Cherry Plum: Fear of mind giving way, verge of breakdown, anger.

• Impatiens: For irritability, tension and fidgety.

• Rock Rose: For frozen terror and panic.

They don't state the potency or concentration of each ingredient which makes me suspicious.

The wiki article and linked papers don't go to a specific remedy or ingredient and have minimal evidence.

What does the evidence say?

Answer 1

Bach's flower remedies, were once sourced by shaking sun-drenched dew from the blossoms of the plants that had psychically responded to negative emotions Dr.Bach had, and saving the dew in Brandy. These negative emotions (avarice, greed, lack of self-love, doubt,...) are then mapped to bodily phenomena (including, but not limited to, headache, anxiety, cancer, AIDS), and the solution is mixed. So the theoretical mechanism of effectiveness is off to a pretty rocky start.

Ernst published a review on the effectiveness of these flower remedies for (in separate studies) alleviating stress, helping with birth, blunting ADHD in 2010 - result: as powerful as a drop of water.

The participants in most studies were given Bach Rescue, which 'contains' (barring the usual caveats re: dilution) five flowers' extracts: Rock Rose, Impatiens, Clematis, Star of Bethlehem und Cherry Plum (aside: funnily, even the german pages give the english names(?)) this concoction is only missing the White Chestnut ('for circling thoughts') regarding your Q.