How can you stay calm in a restless world? When thoughts fly in circles and nerves are on edge, take time to breathe. Remember cooling soothing places where you have been content. A cooling massage oil reduces rashes, angers, headaches and joint pains. Apply it before or after a bath to moisten skin and relax tensions. Herbs that curb “excess pitta” refresh the mind and enhance sleep and pleasant dreams. Here is your summer-heat mind/body treatment.
Everyday stress sometimes boils over into depression. Grief, job loss, and worry weaken energy especially the immune system. There are natural ways to combat anxiety without drugs or therapy. Our senses are open to constant change because our body and mind want and need to be happy and healthy.
Why do we need restful sleep? It provides more than beauty. Sleep can be a powerful creativity-booster and brain-healer, as the mind in an unconscious resting state can make surprising new connections that it perhaps wouldn’t have made in a waking state.
This hour long video was filmed at the New York Adult ADD (attention deficit disorder) support group April 3, 2014. In this video alternative medicine expert Letha Hadady,D.Ac. describes diet, herbal and home treatments to ease tensions, reduce irritability, insomnia and improve mental focus and memory. This is the first video in a series of three. Herbs described in the video include skullcap, gotu kola, trifala AKA triphala, Saraswati churna, Gastrodia Relieve Wind pills from Health Concerns, liver cleansing herbs such as dandelion and bhumyamalaki, anti-anxiety herbs including sarpagandha, ashwagandha for adrenal support and the all in one tonic, cleanser and rejuvenating Chaga tea from royalchaga.ca https://www.dropbox.com/s/f4h2m0e10eua2ym/2014-04-05%2015.46.27.mov
Aches, worries, indigestion, and too much light can keep you awake. Do you roll over and bump into a cold nose or furry body in bed? Choose your bed partner and bed time carefully. Staying awake increases tension, pains, and heart stress. Create an evening routine, a bath, a book, a dimmed light. Reducing light increases melatonin so read using a dimmer light before bed. Put away your cell phone, computer, avoid too much TV. My cat, who I adopted from an animal shelter after he was rescued from the street, was sickly from chronic ear mites. Mites can live in bedding and just about anywhere. As a source of comfort, Kitty slept on top of a big electric wire. He nuzzled the computer. He sensed the energy there more than warmth. The energy of our electronics is stimulating. He is doing fine now because I gave him medicinal ear drops, digestive enzymes that cleared a digestive problem, and fish oil to keep his skin/fur in good shape.
This week’s articles at asianhealthsecrets indirectly address sleep problems. Some of us stay awake from hunger. The so called resistant starches satisfy longer and help quiet sweet cravings. Bananas, potatoes, pasta, whole grain bread, oatmeal, barley, and brown rice are typical examples. They help regulate blood sugar for diabetes and their calories burn slowly for sustained energy. For example, before bed try a ripe banana or a nice warm baked sweet potato, or a thin slice of whole grain toast spread with honey and a drop of sesame tahini. If digestion is troubled, drink warm chamomile or mint tea.
This evening Dec. at 6:45 PM I will meet with the Manhattan ADD support group at West End Collegiate Church 245 West 77th Street near West End Avenue NYC 10024 Here is the cell phone number for Paul who organizes the meetings: 914-523-0325. I can’t stay longer after the talk because tomorrow I have an early flight to New Mexico to visit Mother and Family. Here are my class notes.
Is there one herb you can use for fever, hot flashes, anxiety, and insomnia? It may be skullcap named for the decorative hat worn by women during early American colonial times. Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora,) AKA helmet flower, blue pimpernel, Quaker bonnet, hoodwort, and mad dog weed, grows wild in the woods of eastern North America. Skullcap was originally used as a treatment for rabies because of its tranquilizing effect on the central nervous system. Clinical studies have demonstrated skullcap’s ability to improve blood flow in the brain, inhibit muscle spasms, and act as a sedative. Some alternative health practitioners are now using skullcap to help treat symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Skullcap is used in the treatment of a wide range of nervous conditions including epilepsy, insomnia, hysteria, anxiety, delirium tremens, withdrawal from barbiturates and tranquilizers.
It’s not the slightly nervous, restlessness, hard-to-fall-asleep insomnia: Super insomnia is full-tilt, eyes wide open, mind racing with jibberish, pillow-pounding, and heart thumping. I have known it for years. It comes on with excess computer-use. It’s “The world wants to hear from me!” kind of exhaustion. You spread your energy out to hit the wind and end up stiff, aching, or jumping with nerve pains in bed. There are several general causes for Super Insomnia: Adrenal exhaustion, hunger, worry, or over-stimulation from work, caffeine, and/or too much bright lighting and noise, such as sirens, car alarms, and snoring in your bedroom. Scented candles and soft music never work. They can’t stop big city noise to prevent industrial grade insomnia. I resort to acupuncture.
How, living with city noise, stress, and pollution, can we create the right mood for sound sleep and pleasant dreams? Get yourself a cat. Their purring is hypnotic. Cats prefer warmth and will snuggle close to keep you cheery and comforted. A warm bath with Epsom salts, high in magnesium, can ease muscle pains and stress. Calming aromas penetrate the senses. Mix five drops of a sweet essential oil — fennel, rose, or lavender — per ¼ cup of milk. Add the mixture to bath water or add essential oils to a carrier oil and rub it directly on the skin. Fennel oil is useful for sadness, ambivalent feelings, breast lumps, or chest tightness. Rose is cooling for headaches and fevers, and lavender improves anxiety and heart distress. Did you know that eating 1/4 cup of tart cherries before bed can improve sleep? They contain naturally safe melatonin.
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“There is no one else of Letha’s stature, experience, and knowledge in the field of alternative medicine.” –Alice Rhee, NBC News
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–Bill Thompson, AP Radio
“Letha unearths the wisdom of the ancients.”
–New York Post
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