|
Tea is healing! As a natural health nerd and Chinese medicine herbalist, I know that herbs are healing and tea is one great way to bring more herbs into your life. I first really realized this firsthand as a teenager when I was studying abroad in France. Every night or most nights my host mom would offer me tisane. Tea helps us have a ritual, an evening routine. It helps us slide into the calmness of sleep and in general, herbs are a healing way to get more natural earth medicines into your body, but there is some serious dangers about herbal tea that you need to be aware of. I want to tell you about some things about herbal tea that you might not know. One is that herbal tea is actually a big source of pesticides, so it's really important that your tea be organic. I first heard about this years ago when I was a student in Chinese medicine school and I was also taking a course in applied kinesiology or muscle testing and that instructor had said, "Oh yeah, yeah, don't drink herbal tea. It's huge amount of pesticides." I started adapting to that and I was already mostly organic for many things so it made sense. Here's the reason why. I think explaining the process of how tea cultivation works will really open your eyes to just how big of a deal this is. Even some of the brand names on your grocery store shelves of nice greenwashed tea, if it's not organic, it contains high levels of pesticides. When you go and tour a tea herbal factory, you'll notice that in the processing room where all the bulk herbs are gathered they're sifted and cleaned by a process that usually involves bursts of air to push out the debris. The twigs and the heavier material are all strained. The reason for this is that you can't wash tea so most of leaves or herbal material. When it's mixed with water, it starts to release its active component. That's why we're drinking it as tea. You can't put it in water and wash it beforehand, like do your salad greens at the market, because the tea would lose its healing instead as it's processed. Tea leaves and herbal material is usually processed with some kind of compressed air. Well, you can't blow the pesticides off of your tea. This is why tea is kind of a dangerous area that we don't normally think about as a high level source of pesticides. Anything that that tea came in contact with is still going to be on the herbal material and you really can't wash it off. It's ending up in your tea cup. This is why it's important to buy organic. I also recommend that you avoid the fangled tea bags that look really cute and triangular and kind of upscale but actually are a type of plastic material that is potentially going into your tea. Now I'm sure it's approved by the FDA. I'm sure the FDA thinks that this is totally fine. Nothing in this video is meant to cure, heal or treat any diseases and has definitely not been approved by the FDA, but I want you to think about it's always good in your life to avoid your exposure to plastic and chemicals and pouring hot water over something that is potentially bringing into your system and influence even in a small way that you don't want. Here's one of my favorite Herbal Calming Blends:
Get organic herbs and teas online. Here's one of our favorite online sources for herbs. Drink your tea organic. Enjoy herbs as a healing part of life and your health routine. You are a soul with a body. I am wishing you great things!  Disclaimer: This program is not intended to be a substitute for professional mental health or counseling services. No practitioner-patient relationship is established and the training content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and nothing here is intended to diagnose, cure or treat any disorders.
I'm always recommending to people to make a fresh ginger tea so I thought I should make a blog about it. This is a common remedy for all sorts of digestive complaints and ginger is one of the strongest home remedies in Chinese medicine that can really help regulate the digestive system and also what we call "warms up digestion" because it's quite a warmer. If you are noticing that you've got a chronic digestive situation, these kinds of issues are important to look at in your life and this is one of my specialties. I help women and men who get it—people who are seekers and empathic and sensitive folks who really make breakthroughs by tapping into what I call the Subtle Body or the way that your mind body system works in a technical way. Often, even though people are making strides maybe with their naturopath or their acupuncturist on digestive things on the outside, what they're not getting to is that deeper emotional inner block in the Subtle Body really makes all the difference in healing. So to start making your own ginger tea at home, use fresh organic ginger root.  Use probably about an inch and a half of ginger and remove some of the skin. Sometimes you can just take the back, non sharp side of the knife and scrape off the light parts. I find that this helps take the skin off without removing too much. I usually do that while it's all together. I don't cut it and then take it off just because it's easier to hold on to the root to get into the little crevices.  Now cut them into little medallions enough for one person for a small pot.  Put those guys in the sauce pan and cover them with water usually it's about this finger lengths (show in the photo) above where the water line is and it doesn't have to be perfect, but you want to make sure to put enough in there so that the pot is not boiled down and ruin your pot. Be generous with the amount of water and you get extra bonus points if you leave this overnight. Because ginger is a root, it takes a little more oomph to get its medicine out of there compared to an herb that is a flower or a leaf. Those types of plant material give up their medicine a little bit easier. You can see that when you pour boiling water over peppermint, a lot of those phytochemicals and the properties of peppermint are very easily coming out. That's why you get that strong smell. With ginger, it's a root. We need to usually boil it or soak it for a little bit longer to get the medicinal properties.  Put it on the stove and put it on high. What we're going to do is we're going to let it come to a boil and then once it comes to a boil, we're going to cover and simmer for 20 minutes. So it's pretty simple.  Turn it down to just below the middle. My stove just has a low to high and middle, so it's going to be just below the middle and I'm just going to watch that it goes to simmer. And then important step for me, I'm going to set my timer to about 20 minutes. You could do 25 also to make it a little bit stronger and we'll come back and check.  So now the tea is boiled. I think these little strainers are nice and it's really good when you're making other tea or loose herbs but you can probably also manage to drink around them or just pour it off there. But I use this little guy.  I like it pretty straight, but if you like, you can add some raw honey. Honey is one of those things that you want to make sure you get from a quality source. There's been some reports over the past couple of years that if it's coming in a squeezy plastic bear, it's probably not a high quality honey. Not to be biased against that cute little bear but in general you want raw honey and ideally local from the area where you are. This can actually help with allergies and things like that. One of the things that I will often do, especially in winter times or if I'm going through something that I feel like my digestion needs a boost, I will soak the ginger overnight and then put it in a thermos so I can drink a little bit throughout the day. I think a little bit of ginger tea sip throughout the day is easier for your body to take in rather than going to down a whole mug right away, but however you do it, just get it in you. That's how it does its job.  If you're really hurting digestive-wise, like if you're in a place where all of a sudden you've got terrible stomach upset or you feel like you ate something funny, you can actually just take a little nub of ginger and just start chewing on that. It's pretty strong, but that's also a good remedy in a pinch! I find that the best way to eat fresh ginger is slowly. Gently touch it with your teeth over time and eat it over the course of like 15 to 20 minutes and then the heat is a little more bearable.  And that my friends is how you make a lovely digestive boosting cup of ginger tea!  Disclaimer: This program is not intended to be a substitute for professional mental health or counseling services. No practitioner-patient relationship is established and the training content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and nothing here is intended to diagnose, cure or treat any disorders.
I'm at home today nursing day two of a sore throat and thought you might like a peek at my favorite sore throat remedies.
As a Chinese medicine doctor, you may have guessed that I have a large home pharmacy. This is definitely true, but I have a special section of just "getting sick" remedies all grouped together. Then, when I'm feeling a cold starting to come on, I ask my body, via muscle testing, which remedies feel most appropriate from that collection and use those. (If you'd like an intro into how to do this procedure for yourself - you can learn it forfree with my Video Training - Making Soul Aligned Decisions. There, I'll teach you the procedure for not only making better life decisions, but there's a section of the training that explains how to choose appropriate remedies and foods as well.) A few years ago on winter break, Jay and I went on a mountain retreat at a yoga center and both proceeded to come down with the worst flu either of us had had in memorable history. We spent our entire week sick in bed in our room, dragging ourselves to the dining hall and back, restless with body aches and congestion all night, and not too much meditation or yoga to speak of. Why was it so bad? I realized that I'd forgotten how most people go through a cold process - without any herbal support or remedies. I'd actually taken for granted that for the past 15 or even 20 years, I've always had some kind of herb, homeopathy, other supplement or acupuncture around to help my body weather a cold effectively. When I start something as soon as the symptoms begin, my colds are mild and last only a day or two at their worst. When we were away on retreat, we had no resources (until day 5 when we dragged ourselves to the nearby mountain town health food store and bought $60 worth of remedies to match the ones we had at home) and so the symptoms were super severe and dragged on for days and days. Here's what I've been doing these past two days:
Like I said, these are by far not the only remedies in my arsenal, but are the ones I've been using these past few days and great go-to options for sore throat issues. It's actually surprising to me, writing all of these out that on paper it seems like I'm doing a lot. To me, it seems like a few simple things as I've developed these life habits over many many years.
If you're just starting out on your mind-body, natural health journey, don't worry about trying to get it all correct or implement everything at one. Just choose one or two things and start allowing those to work for you. You can always add in additional things over time. If you're needing more support, you can check out my online mind-body-soul centered health classes as well as my Healing Circle Membership where you get live bi-monthly access to me personally for the fraction of the cost of a regular doctor's visit. What are your favorite go-to remedies? Please tell me in the comments below. xo Leslie Huddart L.Ac. If you'd like an intro into how to do the body testing procedure I mention in this post for yourself - you can learn it for free with my Video Training - Making Soul Aligned Decisions. There, I'll teach you the procedure for not only making better life decisions, but there's a section of the training that explains how to choose appropriate remedies and foods as well.)  RSS Feed
Disclaimer: This program is not intended to be a substitute for professional mental health or counseling services. No practitioner-patient relationship is established and the training content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and nothing here is intended to diagnose, cure or treat any disorders.
|
AuthorLeslie Huddart L.Ac. is a Healer and Spiritual Guide with over two decades of experience in natural medicine, yoga and spiritual practice. Leslie helps women on a healing path achieve their Heart's Desires and to live the life they're called to. Categories
All
|
