Tag: herbal remedies

  • 8 Health Benefits of Green Tea

    8 Health Benefits of Green Tea

    Green tea is much more than the complimentary beverage offered at Chinese food restaurants! Whether you love or hate the taste, it’s worth knowing about its amazing health benefits.

    Green tea has been used for centuries in China and throughout Asia to treat a number of maladies and diseases, everything from regulating blood pressure to killing cancer cells.

    It is a wonderful natural supplement to take because it’s list of benefits is long, but it’s also quite affordable. You can get a month’s worth of green tea for a few dollars! That sure beats a lot of other expensive herbal supplements.

    If you don’t like the taste of green tea, there are many ways you can take it. Its taste is certainly not sweet on its own, but it’s easy to mask by infusing with sweet fruit flavors or simply squeezing some lemon juice in it. Iced green tea has a considerably more muted flavor than hot green tea, so keeping a pitcher iced in your fridge with some lemons cut up in it can be a much more tasty drink that a hot cup of green tea.

    If you’re still not sold, consider these health benefits before dismissing the idea entirely:

    Increased Metabolism

    Green tea is a wonderful and natural weight loss supplement, and far better for you than the unnatural, unhealthy, synthetic products on the market. It contains valuable polyphenol, which intensifies levels of fat oxidation and can help boost the rate at which your body burns calories. Not to mention, it’s a zero-calorie drink, making it a great replacement for diet sodas or coffee.

    Regulate Blood Sugar

    Green tea has been shown to regulate glucose levels in your blood, which helps regulate overall blood sugar. This makes it a great option for diabetics and again,  assist with weight loss.

    Heart Health 

    Some scientists believe that green tea assists in the healthy function of blood vessels, keeping them relaxed and better prepared to handle changing blood pressure. This means a healthier heart. Green tea can also prevent the formation of blood clots, which are the main cause of sudden heart attack.

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    Lowered Cholesterol 

    You may be aware by now that there is “good” and “bad” cholesterol in the body, and that it is important to have a proper ratio between the two. Well, you guessed it, green tea can help with this! It helps reduce the bad stuff and keep good cholesterol in proper balance.

    Dental Health

    Some studies have shown that “catchin”, a property in green tea, actually kills the bacteria that contributes to tooth decay and poor gum health.

    Blood Pressure 

    Frequent consumption of green tea has long been linked to regulated, healthy blood pressure.

    Anti-Viral/Anti-Bacterial/Anti-Fungal

    On top of all these great benefits, green tea can also actually kill harmful viruses, bacteria, and fungi in your system. This mean it can help with everything from the common cold, to candida yeast overgrowth, to cancer. Many studies have shown it essentially stops cancer or disease dead in its tracks. If you’re not convinced that you should regularly consume green tea already, I don’t know what will!

    Beauty

    OK, so maybe your vanity is my last chance to convince you how great green tea is. If all the health benefits don’t phase you, perhaps green tea’s amazing ability to ease wrinkles and slow aging will. Green tea is incredibly antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, and studies consistently show it improves skin, reduces the effects of sun damage, and tones and clears complexion.

     

  • How to Use Calendula Oil

    How to Use Calendula Oil

    Calendula is a wonderful herb, that you can usually find in the natural medicine section of any health food store in the form of creams, but it’s actually much easier and cheaper to make your own calendula infused oil to use at home.

    Calendula is ideal for skin conditions like rashes, eczema, dry skin, burns, scrapes, sunburn, and bug bites. It is incredibly soothing and conditioning, and perfectly safe to use as well.

    It’s a great addition to any medicinal herb garden, but you can usually find the dried flowers very easily at health food stores or online.

    Making calendula-infused oil is very simple and easy to do at home. I’ve described the process of making herb-infused oils several times on this blog, but I don’t mind repeating myself!

    Ingredients

    • dried calendula flowers
    • neutral oil (almond or olive are ideal)

    Directions

    1. Stuff your calendula flowers into a jar.
    2. Cover with oil.
    3. Cover with the jar lid, and leave on a sunny windowsill for three weeks. Shake every day or so.
    4. After three weeks, strain the flowers, and store your oil in a jar or bottle.

    Now, you have your all-purpose calendula oil! You can use directly on rashes, burns, bruises, or anything else you need calendula for, or you can use as a base in many different kinds of remedies, such as:

    Lotion or Cream

    You don’t have to spring for expensive pre-made calendula creams, you can make your own right at home! Just use the calendula oil as the oil base for any lotion or cream recipe, and it will add the healing benefit of the herb to any recipe.

    Soap

    You can make a soothing, beneficial calendula soap by using the oil as a base for any homemade, oil-based soap recipe as well.

    Diaper cream

    Calendula is also wonderful when added to diaper creams and salves. You can again use as the base in any homemade diaper cream or salve recipe, or mix a little in with store-bought creams to add the benefit of calendula.

    Salad dressing

    Calendula is also edible too, and it’s a great addition to any salad dressing, in place of the oil! It’s both delicious and healthy.

     

    Calendula oil is a wonderful addition to any natural medicine cabinet, and a great item to keep on hand. And it couldn’t be easier to make and use!

     

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  • Easy Poison Ivy Remedy

    Easy Poison Ivy Remedy

    Poison ivy is such a drag to get. It can debilitate you almost as much as an actual injury. Depending on where you get it on your body, it can make it difficult and even painful to move and get work done, and especially for little ones, can make life very uncomfortable. The uncontrollable itchiness makes it hard to heal, also, as resisting the urge to scratch can be very difficult.

    There are a number of good poison ivy remedies out there, but I love this one because it is super simple, very cheap to make and will last you a long time. It’s the kind of thing you can make a big batch of and leave in your medicine cabinet for years, always ready to use.

    It is a remedy that is best made ahead of time, but there’s also a quick shortcut if you need it on the spot, which I’ll include at the bottom. Let’s begin:

    Ingredients: 

    1 quart raw organic apple cider vinegar (you probably won’t use all of this)

    1-2 bunches fresh organic sage

    1-2 bunches fresh organic plantain herb

    1 quart mason jar with lid

    *A quick note on plantain: this herb (not to be confused with plantain fruit) is most commonly found growing in your yard rather than in your herb garden or grocery store, so to ensure you do have “organic”, pick some that you know has not been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides. If you can’t find any plantain, it can easily be omitted or replaced with an equal amount of sage if desired. 

    Directions: 

    1. Wash and dry your herbs, the chop roughly. You want to make sure every leaf is cut at least once, but it doesn’t have to be diced. You can also put them in a blender with a little apple cider vinegar to make sure the essential oils in the herbs are properly released.
    2. Stuff your herbs into the mason jar.
    3. Cover the herbs with the apple cider vinegar, making sure there are no air bubbles in between the leaves. You can ensure this by pressing down on the herbs with a wooden spoon, releasing any air bubbles (here’s the cheat if you need this ready faster: heat up your apple cider vinegar and then steep the herbs in the hot vinegar as you would tea, then proceed to step 5)
    4. Cover and store in a cool, dark place for 2-3 weeks.
    5. After your waiting period (or when the mixture has cooled, if you are doing the quick version), strain out the herbs and return to the jar, or a smaller jar if needed, for storage.
    6. Dab the mixture gently onto the infected area as needed, using a cotton ball or soft cotton cloth. This will sting a bit when applied, but it is incredibly effective!

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  • Dandelion Balm for Aches and Pains

    Dandelion Balm for Aches and Pains

    Keeping your homestead in working order is bound to give you sore muscles, joint pain, and irritated skin from time to time.  Luckily you probably have the cure outside in your lawn.  Dandelions can be used in a balm to help treat soreness and skin irritation.  All you need other than dandelions are some oil (olive, coconut, almond, or sunflower will work), bee’s wax, and some canning jars.

     

    How to Make Dandelion Balm

    1. Gather up all the dandelions that you have available.
    2. Next, you want to dry them out so that your balm isn’t watered down.  Spread them out in a single layer on some cardboard, lay some paper towels over them, and put them somewhere they won’t be disturbed.  Preferably where they can get some light from a window to speed the drying.
    3. Once they have dried out (this could take a day or even two depending on the moisture in your environment) you can infuse the oil.
    4. Fill a canning jar no more than ¾ of the way up with your dry dandelions.  Then pour your oil over them until it is an inch or two higher, or near the top.
    5. Place the filled jar in a pot with a few inches of water in it, and bring it to a low heat.  You will need to continue to heat the oil for several hours.  The color of the dandelions should bleed out and change the color of the oil.  If you want your balm to be stronger, you can let the infused oil sit for a few days in the dark, or if you have more dandelions you can strain out the used ones and redo the process with new dried dandelions.
    6. Now you need your wax, you will need about 1 part wax for every 7 parts infused oil.
    7. Put the oil and the wax in a container(s) that can hold both of them and be heated, like a canning jar, and put these into a few inches of water to heat just as before.  This time, you only need to heat it until all of the mixture has melted together.  Then while it is still liquid, pour it into smaller jars.  If you leave it in a quart jar you will have a hard time getting it out with your fingers to apply when it gets lower than 20 ounces since it will be out of reach.

    Don’t let aches and pains keep you from getting work on your homestead done when the cure is right outside.

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