medicine

How to Make an Herbal Tincture Part 1

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Making your own herbal tinctures is one way to really connect to herbs, make exactly what you want, and save money. If you want to make extracts without using alcohol for example, you can use apple cider vinegar or vegetable glycerine instead. You can blend several different herbs together in the tincture, or just extract one herb at a time. In the video below I just use St. John’s Wort in alcohol for the demo. For more information about natural anti-depressants and anti-anxiety herbs, check out this previous post on nervines. Be sure to label your jars with as much information as possible and maybe even write in a notebook or on a calendar what you did and when you need to do the next part. There are different schools of thought about how long a tincture needs to cure, but most medicine-makers agree that a moon cycle is an appropriate amount of time, so about 4 weeks. (That is why I have the moon information on my label.) The next step will be straining the herbs out of the liquid into dark glass dropper bottles at which point the tincture will be ready to be used. That will be in part 2, in about in a month from now, so stay tuned, and while you are at it, why not make an herbal oil as well…

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Adaptogens

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As I said in my last post, adaptogens are herbs that help our bodies respond to stress. I like to think of them as ‘slow health’ workers, akin to the slow foods movement, where you are thinking strategically about long-term health goals and supporting those goals through small daily doses of herbs that help get the body out of ‘fight or flight’ mode and into a healthier zone. We want our bodies to be relaxed so imbalances can be addressed before they turn into illnesses. The demands of modern life are such that if we don’t consciously address the pace, stress, overwhelm, and information overload, we can get caught in a continuous day-in and day-out stress mode cycle, which is definitely not a thriving place for our health and well-being. We hear a lot about self care lately and that very often translates into hot baths or massages which are great things to do, but we also have herbal allies to keep it real on a daily basis, keep us healthy long-term, and remind us that there are no prizes for being the most stressed out.

You can take adaptogens in pill form, tinctures, teas (herbal infusions), or as powders. In powder form, you are getting the whole herb and nothing else, which is a nice way to do it. I like to add one of my adaptogen powder mixes into coffee or tea, and the other mix I make, which currently includes Eleuthro and Rhodiola, I put into smoothies for my family and myself. You can also mix them into juice or just water, or add them to foods such as yogurt or cereal. It’s best to start with just a 1/2 teaspoon per day of an herbal powder, then add another 1/2 teaspoon later in the day once the first half teaspoon is perfectly tolerated. More can be added in time if desired, but adding too much too fast is a recipe for digestive issues and that will only add stress, not help it. Concentrating on being consistent is more important than how much you take because only a small amount is needed if taken over a long period of time.

Switching up your adaptogens is advisable, and don’t worry, you will still get the benefits of sticking to adaptogens over time. If you are new to adaptogens, this article will introduce you to probably the best known adaptogenic herb, Ashwagandha. Ashwagandha is a great place to start if you are new to adaptogens, but there are plenty of others to choose from as well, from many different traditions around the world. This article gives a brief overview of a few others, and these are some of my favorites you might want to look into: Tulsi, Rhodiola, Reishi, Fo-ti, and Schisandra, and keep in mind that combining adaptogens lets them work in a synergistic way.

280F9A5A-A3EE-4CF2-9387-2AEACC88EBEE[1] Ashwagandha and other adaptogens are showing up more and more in functional foods and drinks, such as SpicePharm’s Golden Chai (pictured above) and Chocolate Elixir, and Gaia’s Golden Milk as well as Amazing Grass’s Brain Elixir. There are cold drinks by REBBL that have adaptogens in their full line of flavors which I’ve found at my local Whole Foods but not online yet. (They are tasty!)

All this is to say, that adaptogens are abundant in numbers, available in ready-made products, and easy to incorporate into daily life so there is no reason not to make a conscious choice to have them in whatever way works best for you. Don’t let stress mode become your everyday mode and if it already is, then know you can make choices to get to a healthier space. You deserve it. The holidays are fast approaching so this just might be the perfect time to start building up your body’s stress response for the better. Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested. Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.

 

 

 

Herbalism for Today’s World

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In a lot of ways, herb usage hasn’t changed that much. We still use herbs on our foods to make them taste better and be more digestible, and we drink herbal infusions for their taste and health properties as well. Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, and Naturopathic doctors rely on herbs even today for balancing out bodily systems, and other health advisors such as nutritionists and massage therapists sometimes use herbs to produce certain specific effects in the body. Modern doctors on the other hand do not study herbs nor nutrition (for the most part), and pharmaceutical drugs have taken over as the one size fits all band-aide for almost any illness or ailment. Now modern medicine has its place and I absolutely do not fault doctors for not studying herbs and nutrition and for relying on drugs, because they have their own body of knowledge to learn and it’s incredibly important. No one wants to go back to leaches and non-medicated surgery I’m sure! But we need to remember our roots, (and our seeds, and our leaves), and know that often there are things we can do to help ourselves that don’t require pharmaceuticals with scary side-effects, nor a ton of money or effort. People used to know which herbs cured what in their own little communities, and they ate simple seasonal food because they had to, back when all food was organic and non-gmo. They also used herbs daily in other practical and even spiritual ways as well, to bless their homes and keep out ‘evil’, to keep vermin out of the house or out of their bedding, to help with bad smells of both house and body, and to beautify their surroundings and themselves. Many still do these things, and more, because herbs have never left our sides, they have weaved through our humanity over time and provided a vine of ancient memory we can tap into and remind ourselves of our humanness, despite our chronic phone addictions and race towards a more and more technologically advanced world. We are still people who eat, who get sick, who enjoy beauty, who fight the signs of aging, who want to connect with the world beyond the screen and breathe clean air, drink clean water, and resonate with the plants, animals, and people in our world. We are local beings and yet we are the first humans on earth to collectively live international lives through screens and keyboards. In this time of major transition, we need to remember that herbs were the first medicines, food was once all organic, and we still need this earth and her goods way more than she needs us. Let’s be good to ourselves, and good to the earth, and take a moment every day to remember that the natural world is still all around us, waiting for us to engage.

This is the role of the herbalist in today’s world, as I see it. We are here to remind others to stay connected to the earth and all its inhabitants, green or furry, scaly or funny, these are the connections that will support our health and well-being as we age and grow. Some herbalists concentrate on knowing all the herbs out there and their uses, others concentrate on a smaller set and understanding them inside and out, while still other herbalists concentrate on client consultation, and others are the makers who turn plants into medicine. I’ve worked with an herbalist who mostly wild-crafted herbs and also did a bit of medicine making, and another herbalist who taught and wrote about herbs as well as saw private clients. Personally I’ve taught classes, written about herbs, and I love making herbal elixirs of all sorts, and I have tried growing them with varying degrees of success. I’ve also worked in the natural foods and products industry where many know more than the average person about herbs and use that knowledge purely for personal and family use while others used it to set up their own stores or to consult customers on the floor. We all have our specialties and with modern-day access to global knowledge and traditions, the herbalists of today have an abundance of options when it comes to their personal practice. The things that do not vary though, are the respect for the plants and the earth, the understanding that our ancestors had intelligence that is often overlooked today, and a deep love for herbs and all that they offer in terms of health, beauty, and well-being. I am so excited to share this space with you and I encourage you to seek out the herbalists in your own communities. You might be surprised at the expertise you find and the local products available to you. I hope to get a list going here with local information for everywhere in the world, but that’s going to take your help. If you are an herbalist or know of a great herbal resource, please contact me via the contact page or comment below so we can start gathering resources together. Also, please follow this blog by subscribing because this is just the beginning~ there is so much more to share in terms of optimal health and beauty and I have a feeling we are going to gather a great community here. Please subscribe for weekly posts about herbs, natural health, and green beauty, and please share this with anyone who might be interested.

Take Care, Kristen

Autumn Mushroom 2017