Naturopathic Remedies 101

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Over the years I have cured many health and skin problems with natural remedies. Here are a few of them, the beginning of a series I’ll be doing over time. For the proper mixing, use and storage of essential oils please see my article Cure For Cold Sores?

Menstrual Cramps

Mix two ounces almond oil with ten to twelve drops essential oil of lemon. Put three to five drops on a cotton ball an rub it clockwise over your stomach, lower abdomen and your lower back. This remedy will really take the edge off.

Beer! You may not know that beer is great for cramps. Actually, too much beer can make cramps worse, but one beer and your good.

Scars

If you have a minor scar lavender oil works wonders. I had a scar on my chin from eight stitches, four inside and four outside. I used lavender oil on it for three weeks and ninety percent of the scar went away. Now you can barely tell anything is there. Lavender oil is also really easy because it does not need to be mixed with a carrier oil. Just put a few drops on a cotton ball and apply to the scar.

If you a major scar rose oil is an excellent remedy. It’s expensive, but worth the investment. Make sure you buy rose oil from a good source such as Young Living. Cheap rose is usually geranium oil or part rose oil part geranium oil. I would suggest mixing rose oil with grapeseed oil due to its high antioxidant content. Apply to your scar two to three times a day. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see a difference right away, hang in there and you will see a difference.

Burns

Lavender oil, lavender oil, lavender oil!! You may know that vitamin E is good for burns, what you may not know is that lavender oil is better. Just put it straight on your burn. If you want to you can mix it with grapeseed oil, which is also good for burns, but you don’t have to.

Muscle Aches

Arnica gel, a homeopathic gel that works wonders on tired and sore muscles. Buy it at your local health food store, GNC, and some Rite Aids are now carrying it.

Minor Cuts

Calendula gel, honey, or vitamin E. Calendula gel or cream is wonderful for cuts. Honey is a natural antibiotic, just put it on the cut and cover it with a band-aid. Vitamin E is both soothing and healing on cuts.

Acne

Acne could be the result of a hormonal imbalance in your body. This can show up with more than just the onset of adolescence, it can be the side effect of some birth control pills and some women experience it during menopause. Evening Primrose can actually balance that hormone in your system and rid you of your acne. Source Naturals puts out an amazing Evening Primrose, I noticed more results in a shorter span of time with this brand. Take three pills one to three times a day.

Tea tree oil is a good topical remedy for acne. Make sure you mix it with a carrier oil, tea tree oil and burn your skin if it’s put on alone.

Cure for Cold Sores

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Whole Life Times magazine ran an article in the December 2006 issue about chamomile oil and its effects on cold sores. Being an advocate and lover of Naturopathic medicine I was very excited to see read this article as I did not yet know the benefits of chamomile oil. According to the magazine, Germany’s University of Heidelburg did a test on several essential oils and chamomile oil tested to be effective on the Herpes virus, of which cold sores are a strain. It was also found that chamomile oil was effective on stains of the Herpes virus that do not respond to traditional medicine.

To put this remedy to use you need to mix the chamomile oil with carrier oil. In aromatherapy, essential oils are mixed with carrier oils so that the essential oil does not burn your skin. There are some essential oils that do not have to be mixed with carrier oil, such as lavender, but if you are not sure it is best to use carrier oil.

You can buy carrier oils in your local health food store. Good carrier oils are almond oil, grapeseed oil, and jojoba oil. Almond oil is a good all-purpose carrier oil, grapeseed is good for the skin due to its antioxidants, and jojoba oil is also good for the skin. As a side note jojoba oil has a property in it that will dissolve clogged pores and ingrown hairs.

To mix the oils use two ounces of carrier oil and add ten to twelve drops of essential oil, in this case chamomile oil. If you are going to store the oil for later use it is important to put the oil in a dark glass bottle, such as brown or cobalt blue. You can buy these bottles at you local health food store, as well.

Now you can apply the chamomile oil to your cold sore. The best way would be to put a few drops of the mixture on the end of a Q-tip and apply it directly to the sore. I would do this twice a day until its gone. If the results from this study prove to work, using the chamomile oil may help curb future breakouts as well as quelling the current one.

Loving Your Body and Yourself

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First of all, knock the coffee habit. I know this is a bold statement but pouring caffeine and acid down your throat just isn’t treating your body well. I love coffee too, but I save it as a special treat for weekends or after a nice dinner. Your body needs pampering and love. Imagine a life where your body feels so cared for that no matter what you have to do that day your body knows it can count on you to be taken care of.

To create love and pampering for your body begin by thinking of things that feed your emotional and physical well being. It’s different for every person, but one key thing is to create something where your body gets loving treats throughout moments of your day. Start by creating something in your morning that will ease you into your day. To often our bodies are jolted into the day without the opportunity to pleasantly wake up. Just as daybreak gradually melds into daylight our bodies will benefit by having something that lets us ease into our day.

I love starting my day with yoga. Yoga gets your blood circulating, it lets your muscles stretch and it clears your mind of any fogginess left from sleep. A.M. Yoga is a wonderful DVD for waking up, it’s filmed on a beach with the sun rising and gently walks you through waking up. This program is simple but effective at moving your body from sleep to waking.

Creating a morning practice for loving your body does not have to mean a lot of time. It can be as simple as drinking a cup of aromatic tea. Tea has antioxients that your body can use all day long and if you live in a city the more antioxidants you have the more you will be protected from pollutants. Drinking a cup of aromatic tea can also lift your mood and create a habit for your mind; every time it smells that tea it knows it’s time to feel good. Some wonderful ones are brown rice green tea, scented white tea, and lemon tea.

Next create something for your mid morning. This might be five minutes of meditation, or a healthy snack that nourishes your body. Something I love is almond butter on kamut bread with a cup of brown rice green tea. After eating this I feel like I’ve taken such good care of my body that I’m ready for what ever I’m doing next in my day. Another thing that is amazing is giving myself a five-minute facial massage, this is both relaxing and can be a great anti-wrinkle treatment as it boosts circulation and encourages proper energy flow.

Continue to find things that you can easily incorporate into your day, things that work for you and your lifestyle. If you try to incorporate things that are to difficult or time consuming for the way you live it will not work. This is not about forcing a result in you life, but rather about treating yourself well and feeling pampered and cared for throughout your day.

Having a practice for pampering before you go to bed is just as important as loving yourself when you wake up. Find out what this is for you. It might be taking a bath, or putting a frozen eye pack over your lids for a few minutes before you drift off (The Body Shop has a great one). What ever it is for you it is important that your body has a signal that says, “it’s time to go to sleep now”. This will ease you from waking into sleep and let your body move gracefully from cycle to cycle.

By pampering yourself, eating well, and gracefully moving your body from sleeping to waking and waking to sleeping you will find yourself with more energy for focusing on the other things in your life. When you and your body have an amazing relationship you are free to concentrate on the other things in your life that need attention and you know that you are never going to ignore yourself.

The Sweetest Breath

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He’s moving in and all you can think is, does my breath smell ok? Can he smell that garlic bread I had at lunch? Is this gum going to work? Since feeling good about yourself is a vital part of confidence and being beautiful, and your breath can be your first impression, I started taking on practices that give me good breath. Here’s what you might not know about having sweet breath:

The first step to having sweet breath is to brush your tongue. This may sound strange, but most people don’t realize that most bad breath germs live on your tongue. You can do this with your regular toothpaste or with tongue gel with zinc. The zinc effectively kills the germs on your tongue thereby neutralizes bad breath. I find the tongue gel to be the most effective; it’s also really refreshing.

Bad breath can also show up as a side effect of digestion problems. What’s the best way to treat this? Focus on your digestion and you will probably see your bad breath disappear. Peppermint is great for digestion, peppermint pills or peppermint tea. Fennel and rosemary are also wonderful for both breath and digestion, chewing on a fennel leaf works wonders for a digestion aid and will make your breath sweet. There is also a great product that combines all of these into an herbal pill, Breath Assure. You can find this or similar products at health food stores. I found these pills to be the most effective at giving me consistent good breath.

Another natural product for good breath is adding seaweed or a green algae supplement to your daily routine. Green algae contains chlorophyll which not only helps with breath but also eliminates body odors and seaweed has a cleansing effect which balances your digestion. If you are an “O” blood type try bladderwrack, you will see a difference not only in your breath but also in your skin and general well being. Bladderwrack has not been noted to have an effect on blood types other than “O”, so if you are any other blood type try Spirulina, high in chlorophyll and very cleansing.

The next time you are out on a date and worried for the rest of your dinner about the garlic bread you had as an appetizer, I have the answer for you! The best-kept secret about breath is that dark chocolate will actually neutralize garlic breath! It works, I swear. Also, beware that while natural peppermint will aid your digestion, candy peppermints will make your breath worse after the initial effect wears off.

Finally, if you have no dark chocolate and a fennel plant is nowhere to be seen, Listerine citrus breath strips are great. They kill germs and it won’t leave you with the Listerine mint smell either.

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