Heal

With the season of spring comes new life and beautiful growth! The allergies that can come with the season, on the other hand, are not so beautiful. People often experience such issues as runny nose, sneezing, coughing, and wheezing. Most conventional allergy medicine today can cause unwanted side effects. Thankfully there are herbs out there for just about anything that ails you, including seasonal allergies. Finding the right ones is key to alleviating those symptoms that can cause you discomfort and misery.

Every single morning for the past nearly 11 years I have treated myself to one of Ayurveda's oldest secrets for health and longevity. With herbs and warm oil in hand I rub my entire body down with a gentle massage which has helped me to retain elastic skin and a vibrant body. Abhyanga is the Ayurvedic term given to describe warm oil self-massage (often with herbs) and it is simply heavenly.

Do you wake up every morning feeling fresh and rejuvenated? Is your mind clear and skin glowing? If not, you may be experiencing the accumulation of Ama in the body. A body free from Ama feels light and generally enthusiastic about life and has a pink tongue and blemish-free complexion.

A weekend in Bali. A month in Morocco. Three weeks camping on the Baja Peninsula. Expensive, exotic yoga retreats, trainings and festivals are popping up all over the globe. As wonderful as it would be to just drop the kids off at Grandma’s and jetset around the world to connect with the yogis and energies of foreign lands, it’s not always feasible -- especially when Grandma’s RVing in North Carolina and you used the last of your PTO when your bestie was in town last month.

Tea tree oil is famously known for its antiseptic and antibacterial properties. Derived from the Australian plant, Melaleuca alternifoli, it's a great addition to any holistic medicine cabinet.

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Chamomile (Matricaria recutita) is intensely fragrant and very pleasing to look at, but don’t let the perennial’s cute, daisy-like appearance fool you. Centuries ago, the flower was used in certain areas of Greece, Egypt, and ancient Rome for its many healing purposes. The medicine is said to be contained in the flower area of the herb, which contains strong oils. There are many kinds of chamomile, and they can be used in things like teas, oils, tinctures, soaks, homemade salves, vapors, washes, and more.

There are a multitude of herbs that have reportedly numerous healing properties and can be effective for treatment in a wide array of conditions. Ashwagandha is one of these herbs. Ayurvedic practitioners in India have been utilizing this ancient herb for many issues, especially for conditions that have root in the brain, including memory, cognitive functions in general, the regulation of neurotransmitters and insomnia.

Stomach ulcers or “peptic ulcers” are truly terrible. They are sores that form in the lining of the stomach or in the first part of your small intestine. These sores can be quite painful, and when left untreated, they can become worse.  According to WebMD, if peptic ulcers keep coming back, you may have an increased risk of developing serious complications, such as bleeding or even a hole in the wall of your stomach or small intestine.

We explored using Mantra as a tool for staying Sensitive in a not so sensitive world in the first part of the ‘staying sensitive’ series.

Now, I would like to go deeper into using meditation to stay sensitive and process all that is perceived by the sensitive soul.

The yogis say a thousand thoughts are thought with each blink of the eye and those we don’t act upon are dumped in the subconscious mind. Even though the subconscious mind is vast, it can fill up and affect our unconscious or conscious mind and eventually disrupt the physical body as well.