Natural Health Coaching

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My blogging friend in France is offering her natural health coaching services online now! She is English so speaks both French and English fluently, and her philosophy is very balanced with there is a time for modern medicine (vaccines, antibiotics, etc), and a time for self-advocacy and getting to the root (naturally!) of problems instead of accepting the pharmaceutical band aids that are generally offered in doctors’ offices. I can tell you she’s brilliant and also has a great sense of humor with a sound perspective on all things health related. Check out her site and let me know if you end up working with her! Her blog post is below and you can find more info on contacting her and what to expect here: https://thehealthyepicurean.eu/natural-health-coaching/.

Natural health coaching

Just under 20 years ago, I visited an endocrinologist because I was suffering terrible palpitations. He did some blood tests and, seeing that my thyroid, iron levels, etc were normal, prescribed beta blockers. He seemed extremely taken aback when I wanted to know the cause of the palpitations, instead of just accepting his ‘bandaid’. The beta blockers worked well, but I was concerned that it seemed as though I might be beta blockered for life; there had to be a reason – my heart hadn’t just made a unilateral decision to ‘rave’ 24/7.

After some research, and a visit to a naturopathic doctor, it turned out I was very deficient in magnesium. This also explained the terrible muscle and joint pain I had been having. It sometimes really is that simple. I happily replaced my beta blockers, muscle relaxants and ibuprofen with magnesium-rich food, and a good magnesium supplement and haven’t looked back.

From birth to eight months, my son, Léo, slept in stretches of about an hour, when he would wake up screaming. The local doctor said he was ‘capricious’, and was doing his best ironing board impression at hourly intervals throughout the night for fun. After numerous pitiful attempts, I eventually found a wonderfully understanding pediatrician, with a forensic attention to detail and a sympathetic ear, who immediately diagnosed silent reflux. She prescribed the necessary medication, as well as changes to his eating and sleeping arrangements. That night my ‘capricious’ baby slept for 12 hours straight.

The other doctors had missed this diagnosis because it was ‘silent’ (he wasn’t vomiting or even regurgitating). I returned to see the local doctor because I thought she might be interested to hear the conclusion, perhaps for other patients. She flat-out refused to believe he had silent reflux on the basis that if you can’t see it, touch it, or test it, it doesn’t exist. She had made her helpful diagnosis of ‘capricious’ and she was sticking to it.

We still visit the doctor from time-to-time and, as you will read here, I am eternally grateful for many aspects of modern medicine. We are mostly vaccinated, and take things like antibiotics or cortisone when necessary. But there is a time and place for everything, and these two experiences turned out to be salutary: I learnt that in order to stay healthy, I had to advocate, sometimes forcefully, for my family’s health.

I started to study naturopathy 15 years ago, and I am a certified Natural Health Consultant and Educator. A number of people have contacted me to ask whether I provide online consultations. Over the years I have been consulting on an informal basis, but I would now like to offer this to everyone that might be interested. Please see this page for further information.

Anti-Germ Room Spray

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This past week has been one of adjustment as one of my sons and I both returned to our schools in-person. My youngest son opted to finish out the year remotely so he’s holding down the fort with our dog while my older son and I are navigating the new routines of our old worlds. It’s been draining, to be honest, and the adjustment had us both in bed early on Friday night from sheer exhaustion. Between the new rules and norms due to covid and the anxiety that just seems inevitable now in larger groups, and trying to figure out all the little things that the pdfs of new protocols somehow haven’t covered much less remembering all that is covered on those pdfs…it’s a lot. I realized by the end of the week that I hadn’t made a room spray yet for my main classroom where I spend most days which is something I used daily last year to keep the germs down and spirits up. This weekend I’m making two versions of an anti-germ room spray and thought I’d share the recipes here.

I have a blog post/YouTube video on making room sprays which I made before I realized that adding a bit of an alcohol to the distilled water really helps the essential oils mix into the spray. Essential oils tend to sit on top of water, which you will notice if you put essential oils directly into your bath without using an oil carrier, so shaking before spraying helps but not as much as adding an alcohol, such as vodka which has very little to no scent, into the bottle along with the distilled water. Follow the same guidelines in my book, All Natural Perfume Making, when deciding which essential oils to include and in what proportion. For my classroom, I’m going to include thyme which is a strong scent that tends to overpower all other scents it combines with, but I’m using it because it is powerfully antibacterial and antiviral. Aim for about 30 drops of essential oils per ounce of liquid, and for the liquid aim for half of it being alcohol and 1/2 distilled water.

This is the view from my classroom window

Anti-germ Room Spray:

2 oz bottle

1 oz distilled water

1 oz vodka

10 drops thyme

20 drops lavender + 10 more drops in one bottle

20 drops rosemary + 10 more drops in the other bottle

The reason I’m making two versions is that the one with more lavender will be for calming anxiety, either mine or the students’ in the room. (Trust me I can tell when the room is tense with anxiety!) The one with more rosemary will be for when fatigue is a problem and the brains in the room need to wake up and focus.

Always shake the bottle before spraying and keep it away from your face and especially your eyes. Don’t forget to label it too and write down what you put into yours so you can track what works well for you and what you’d like to change for next time.

Good luck to all of you who are also navigating changing routines right now!

How-to Posts and Recipes Related to Perfume Making Book

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Here are some of the former posts and videos I’ve made that relate to my book, All-Natural Perfume Making. If you are looking for a step by step process from the book that isn’t here, let me know by contacting me!

How to Make Vanilla Extract
How to Make an Herbal Oil Part 1
How to Make an Herbal Oil Part 2
DIY Herbal Oil Quick Method
How to Make an Herbal Tincture Part 1
How to Make an Herbal Tincture Part 2
Rose Water DIY
Spray Perfume DIY
Body Spray for Guys
Herbal Perfume Base DIY
Herbal Perfume Base DIY Part 2
Vanilla Oil DIY
The Art and Craft of Herbalism
Bay Rum Aftershave and Toner
Fragrance vs. Essential Oils

The Slow Movement in a Quickening World

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spring field

Here we go again. The world is opening up and I for one can feel the frenzy building. I’ve heard and read that many people are as anxious about returning to the modern lifestyle of the ‘before times’ as they were about the unexpected mandatory pause. I feel like this is prime time to truly evaluate what works for us, each of us, and take steps to create the life that feels right to us. The pace, the connections, the responsibilities…if we don’t decide for ourselves how many plates we can spin, then others will decide for us.

For those experiencing anxiety related to the state of the world and all of its turbulence and unknowns (who isn’t??) then I hope you add some herbal additions to your daily life might help. Adaptogens and nervines specifically are the herbal categories to consider. Adaptogens help the body to adapt to stress of all sorts and nervines work on balancing our nervous systems. I’ve linked to places where I’ve written about both, but if you use the search bar you’ll find more articles addressing these two categories of herbs and also other natural anxiety relieving options such as GABA, CBD, and L-theanine.

But I think we need to remember to think holistically about where extra stress and anxiety build and flourish in our lives. We can take all the herbs and spray all the essential oils, but if our life is out of whack on a daily basis, it’s like putting a band aide on a gushing wound. Those natural aides might help you adapt to a pace of life that is uncomfortable, but it’s still an uncomfortable pace of life. It’s worth thinking about how to adapt your life to you. We can’t all spend every moment doing exactly what feels right to us in that moment, but we can make it a priority to move our lives in that direction so we can feel in charge of our lives instead of stuck in reaction mode.

This brings me to the Slow Movement which came out of Slow Foods. If you are not aware of Slow Foods, it is an international organization that promotes good, clean, and fair food for all people and the planet. It was named as a reaction to fast food and has grown into a multidimensional organization with themes including slow wine, slow meat, slow cheese, and promotes food fairness awareness from seed to plate. One of my favorite projects of theirs involves school gardens and they just are an organization I greatly admire. Just check out the website and join a local chapter if you feel moved to do so. The Slow Movement takes these concepts of good, clean, and fair, and extends them beyond food to encompass all areas of life. This is not an organization to join, it’s more of a philosophy to employ, which is why I linked to the Wikipedia page instead of an official page. This concept really resonates with me. I love the idea of quality over quantity and doing things better instead of faster. Our world keeps speeding up, and since the invention of the printing press, there’s been collective unease about technological advances outpacing human ability to adapt. Below is an interesting less than 10 minute Ted Talk that gives more insight into this.

If this resonates for you, I hope you act on it.

Publication and Release Day

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Thank you so much to all of you who preordered my book! If you did so, it will likely arrive today if it hasn’t already, or in the next couple of days. I really appreciate all the support, enthusiasm, and also your patience while I have been hyper-focused on it. My dad nailed it when he said it’s been like a multi-year pregnancy. It really has been a long process, delayed several times, so today feels long awaited. This book represents a lot to me, beyond the pages and words, as you certainly know if you have been following along for a while. I am eternally grateful for you being here, no matter how long it’s been. Thank you🙏

DIY Herbal Oil Quick Method

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Happy Equinox Weekend everyone! I decided to make some video tutorials that correspond with recipes in my book since the pictures aren’t necessarily step-by-step visuals of the process. I haven’t made a how-to video in over a year so this one is pretty rough. I’m feeling inspired to get back into the groove though so it feels significant that I restarted on Spring Equinox. This corresponds to page 94 of my book.

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All-natural perfume making, or the new sourdough bread — The Healthy Epicurean

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One of my blogging friends in the US, Kristen Schuhmann, whose blog, Blossom Herbs, is a go-to for all things herb-related, has written a beautiful book: All-Natural Perfume Making, fragrances to lift your mind, body and spirit. Banana bread, sourdough starters, supermarket toilet-roll brawls begone! Natural scents are order of the day. The title is […]

All-natural perfume making, or the new sourdough bread — The Healthy Epicurean

Excerpt from My Book on MindBodyGreen on How to Make All-Natural Solid Perfumes

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Solids are a great way to carry a perfume around with you in your bag, especially when traveling, since there aren’t spillage concerns with solids. The excerpt from my book explains how to make an all-natural solid perfume, including vegan options because most solid perfumes use beeswax. Click on the link below or here to see it.

Excerpt of My Book on MindBodyGreen

Happy Crafting! 🌸🌿

The Better Normal Article

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I wrote an article for the website, The Better Normal, and wanted to share it here as it has two recipes from my All-Natural Perfume Making book. (The recipes were modified in that they use straight oil or alcohol for the bases, instead of the herbal oils and extracts in the book, in order to provide less complex recipes.)

Here’s the first paragraph:

Nature gifts us many ingredients and tools to help us rest, relax, and rejuvenate. Just being in nature is grounding and soothing which is what led Japanese doctors to start writing prescriptions for ‘forest bathing’ (or spending time in nature). Doctors around the world have taken note, and the idea that being out in nature releases stress and promotes health is no longer fringe. Along with “forest bathing,” things like caring for plants, gardening, hiking, and outdoor yoga have plenty of nature-based health benefits. And from these experiences, we know that herbalism (use of things like herbs and essential oils for healing) is also an incredible gift from nature that can be grounding, relaxing, and promote better health physically, emotionally, and mentally.

To continue reading, please click this link.

Thank you for reading!

Multi-Layered Natural Perfume Making

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It’s March, my birthday, and my book will be released this month! I’m in the mood to celebrate! 🎉! March has become heavy with significance the last few years, and I am so happy that this March I can turn it around into a lighter, brighter month heralding spring and good things to come once again. In March of 2019, my (now ex)husband left after a tumultuous few years and right after promising we could start over and everything would be fine. In March of 2020 my divorce was complete on the same day we moved from the only house my kids had known, and it was the first day that schools here went remote and we embarked on a “two week” quarantine, which of course is still more or less going on a year later. To say that I’m happy that this March is the month my book is officially releasing is an understatement, and to celebrate all month I’ll be giving glimpses inside it.

One piece of perfume creation that the book covers is how to balance top, middle, and bottom notes. In the book you’ll find examples of where the essential oils fall in terms of top, middle, or base notes, but in general the top notes are the lightest scents, so citruses and some florals, middle notes are herbs and other florals, and base notes are generally the woods and resins. In order to make the most well-rounded perfume that lasts the longest, it’s best to have essential oils from each category. Top notes refer to the first notes of a perfume that you smell, while the middle notes come in next and are often referred to as the main component of the perfume, and the base notes are the last to come through and also linger the longest. If, for example, you are drawn to top heavy perfumes, it can help balance out a perfume to add scents from the other note categories. Personally, I tend to like base-y perfumes, and usually have to add a top note towards the end and that is always when the perfume comes together and smells complete.

Below is a recipe from the book for a mood balancing perfume, where the note categories are clearly shown. This perfume still works with just two of the essential oils, but when all three are together, it’s a more balanced, complete scent that just resonates better. As the word ‘note’ suggests, it is indeed like music. If you can imagine just a drum playing, then a drum and guitar, then a drum, guitar, and a bass guitar, that can help you visualize the difference between a perfume that’s just thrown together with one or two scents, as opposed to one where the different note categories are considered.

Once you mix your essential oils, add them to oil or an alcohol like vodka to actually put on your body. Don’t put essential oils directly on your skin because they are extremely potent and need a carrier. (There are a couple of exceptions to this rule, but in terms of perfume, always use a base oil or alcohol unless it is a solid perfume in which case the carrier is already oil and/or wax.)

Enjoy the change of seasons, wherever you are! It feels like spring here today🌷🌻🌷.