Herbal Therapy – Specific herbs can assist with healing and enhancement of wellbeing.
By fuelling our body with the nutrients it requires, it can function efficiently and ward off infections and illness.
Herbs are used in a range of activities, including horticulture, cuisine, cosmetics, ornamentation medicine, and various others.
In medicine, herbs can assist with healing and enhancement of wellbeing. Herbal medicine aims to restore balance and harmony by stimulating the body’s natural healing abilities. An herbal remedy can be matched to a pattern of imbalance (mind, body, spirit). Dynamic, living medicines (plants) rather than synthetic chemicals are used, and thus there is no standard dose of an individual active ingredient. This is because the quantity contained in the growing plant varies throughout the day, according to its stage of metabolism.
When an herbal remedy is given, it reflects the unique balance that the plant was in when it was picked. (Old herbalists always advised picking specific remedies at specific times of the day). A specific dose of the part of the herb used or the whole herb can be given. Many herbal remedies do not have the unacceptable side-effects of the pure or synthetic active ingredient, as they contain the natural counter-substance to protect against such effects.
Health is a balance, while disease is an imbalance brought about by an excess of hot or cold. Herbal remedies can be applied according to their qualities of hot and cold to help balance this. Hot conditions are characterized by fever, feeling hot, flushing, swelling, redness (basically conditions of ‘excess’) and are best dealt with by herbs that are cooling in nature. Cold conditions are characterised by feeling cold, stagnation, congestion and general slowing of processes, and are best dealt with by herbs that are warming in nature.
So everyday herbs used in the kitchen can be helpful to maintain this balance, although specific herbal remedies may be needed from time to time to correct more serious or chronic imbalances.
Lifestyle advice is important as it enables clients to maintain the healing effects of in-session and remote healing balances.
After all, we are each responsible for our own health, and this forms a vital part of the healing journey.