Llewellyn's 2015 Herbal Almanac by Llewellyn

Author:Llewellyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: herb, herbal, calendar, annual, herbalism, health, healing, crafts, plants, nature, natural, annuals, calendars, almanac
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide, LTD.
Published: 2014-05-19T16:00:00+00:00

[contents]

Herbs for

Health and Beauty

Back to Balance: Making Herbal Tonics

By Dallas Jennifer Cobb

Living in a fast-paced world, we’re bombarded daily with myriad stressors. Whether it’s loud noise, air pollution, a failing stock market, or international conflicts, we can be thrown out of balance internally by external happenings. Add to these the everyday stresses of managing our personal lives, time, money, families, and relationships, and it’s no wonder we are dying from stress-related ailments. We are out of balance.

While we think that experiences are things that happen around us or outside of us, biologists have found that it is our internal responses that constitute the majority of our “lived experience.” In response to the perceived outside experience, chemical messages are produced and dumped into the bloodstream and surrounding tissues by the endocrine system, which includes the pituitary gland, thyroid gland, parathyroid gland, adrenal glands, pancreas, ovaries, and testes, and to a lesser degree the gut, our fatty tissues, and the kidneys. It’s their response that creates our internalized “experience.”

Working with the nervous system and immune system, the endocrine response attempts to help the body cope with perceived external stressors by sending messages to specific parts of the body to stimulate preparedness.

In many situations, the endocrine response is needed and helpful. The chemical messages stimulate cellular growth and repair, the process of digestion, homeostasis (that delicate internal state of balance), and sexual attraction, arousal, and reproduction.

But with so much going on around us, and so many external stressors, imagine how many chemical messages are stimulated within us every day, and how easily our systems can be thrown out of balance, and how in this state diseases can manifest and grow.

Like nature, the human body always strives to return to homeostasis. Homeostasis is defined as “constant stability,” coming from the Greek words homeo and stasis. Homeostasis, in part, is maintained by the liver, kidneys, hypothalamus, the endocrine system, and the autonomic nervous system, which all work together to regulate energy, temperature, blood pH levels, water levels, essential salt and mineral balances, and how the body metabolizes carbohydrates (fuel) and toxins. The process of returning to homeostasis is the set of complex interactions that enable the body to respond to and compensate for external and internal changes.

Tonics

A tonic is a nourishing formula that tones, builds, and strengthens, facilitating a return to homeostasis. Some of the herbs used in tonics act subtly on the endocrine organs, aiding them in the process of returning to and maintaining homeostasis (facilitating digestion by regulating the production of enzymes, for example). Other herbs act directly on internalized stressors that lay within the body (like ridding the digestive tract of worms).

While I learned the basics of making tonics in Jamaica, using Jamaican herbs, I have continued the practice since returning to my home in Canada. Jamaica herbs are widely available worldwide, and many are popular, easily accessible spices like ginger, cinnamon, and pimento. This article includes information on the Jamaican herbs, and herbs and spices that are widely available in North America.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.