Herbal Aphrodisiacs For Valentine's Day

As usual, we have been provided with many natural substances to enhance our health and improve our body’s ability to have a full life. Certainly sex is a part of that and a powerful sexual response enhances a relationship. In ancient cultures, where the birth of children was a celebration and future prosperity, enhancement of sexuality was often religious, and attributed to the gods and goddesses of fertility, with a little assistance from the herbal healers.

An aphrodisiac is any plant or food substance that enhances pleasure, desire, or performance of sex. The word comes from Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of Love.

The herbal world provides a variety of choices for both males and females. Some of these herbs were probably discovered when humans noticed how animals responded to plants in the wild. It isn’t surprising that the attributes of plants that made animals frisky were explored by the human observers.

For example, a common male sexual enhancer is Horny Goat Weed. Saw Palmetto helps with male reproductive organs and is often used for prostate health. Panax Ginseng has long been associated with longevity, as well as male reproduction and stamina. Panax means “all healing” in Greek. Tribulus increases testosterone in men and estrogen in women, so it is a general herbal hormone tonic.

For women, Saffron has a history of enhancing female sexual desire. Damiana is another female libido enhancer. Organic Oats milky seed extract improves arousal in women.

Maca, often used as an energy-enhancing herb, also improves sexual arousal in both men and women.

Gaia Professional Formulas has created herbal combinations for both men and women. For women, there is Arousal Restore Formula and for men, Male Libido.

Balancing male and female hormones would be an important component, and there are herbs that enhance testosterone or estrogen/progesterone production.

For men, issues of sexual stamina or arousal may be related to circulation, so improving and strengthening the vascular system may be considered.

Beyond the herbal world there are other natural ways to enhance romance. Don’t forget back rubs with coconut oil, or other raw oils scented with your favorite essential oil scent.

And then there is the time-tested and plant-based reliable; Chocolate. The scent and flavor may be enough for many women!

Happy Valentine’s Day and may you have all the romance you desire.

Could Herbal Preparations Help You?

You already know how important vitamins, minerals and proteins are for your health. Along with air and water, they provide the essential building blocks for the repair and maintenance of tissue, glands, organs and cells of the body.

How often have you wished that you could just shift gears as fast as life requires? Imagine if you could speed up or slow down your body’s responses as needed. The ups and downs of life are inescapable. It may be that those who can adapt the quickest have the best health, and likely have more fun.

To shift gears, your body has to be able to make fast changes in various systems that monitor the whole show. How do you ensure that your body’s “monitors” are working?  This is the true function of medicine, to help the body adapt to demands and challenges on the body. The immune challenges include chemicals, toxic metals, radiation, and bacteria, viruses and fungus. The demands include the various stresses from all the incoming messages and requests, the tugs and pulls on our time and energy, we each get every day.  These bring emotional responses ranging from joy and happiness to anger, frustration, anxiety and grief. Basically anything you run into in life requires the body to adapt to the new circumstances, every moment of every day.

Even a perfectly functioning body-machine needs to monitor how to adapt to changing conditions when more or less production is needed. This is the challenge of our modern world.  Generally speaking, there are more factors to interfere with normal function, and less vital nutrients available, than in previous times.

Herbal medicine can assist by acting to temper, or regulate, the reaction of an organ or gland to the degree of stress it is under. This can work in both directions. If you are exposed to a large degree of stress, such as missing sleep, experiencing emotional highs and lows, or suffering an injury, different body parts may have to shift into high gear, and herbal preparations help them do this efficiently. Likewise, when the stress has subsided, the glands or organs in question need to shift down and switch to a more normal or moderate amount of activity so they don’t burn too many nutrients, or send the wrong signals to their partner body-parts.

 This ability to shift up and down gives you more stamina, mental clarity, a stronger immune system, stress reduction, deeper sleep, a healthier libido, and can promote healing and longevity. Some herbal medicines can work quickly to help you through immediate needs. Other herbal preparations work over time to strengthen the body and minimize the wear and tear of every day living.

Herbal medicine must be prepared according to exact methods and standards to give you the full benefits. Look for companies that source and prepare according to standard herbal guidelines. At Well Body Clinic we use MediHerb brand from Australia. If MediHerb cannot source plants to their specification they will suspend manufacturing for weeks rather than make an inferior product. Potency and results are ensured this way.

Recently many of our patients have gotten help with sleep, stress, immune, fertility, bloating/digestion and allergies from MediHerb preparations. The herbs can be used when needed, or taken every day. Either way, herbs can improve your life and give you much-needed help to live a healthier/happier life. Ask for a sample at your next visit or email us to find out more.

The herbal world may not be quite as magical as suggested in Harry Potter, but getting on top of your world may be miracle enough.

Need More Healthy Energy?

One of the number one reasons people visit their medical doctors is because they are tired or fatigued. When is being tired a risk to your health? When your fatigue makes it too difficult to carry on safely with the daily tasks of living or it causes too much of a strain on your organs or glands so that they are unable to function adequately. So, being tired can have consequences that go beyond falling asleep at your desk.

Fatigue can cause driving and operating machinery to be dangerous. An Australian study showed that going just eighteen hours without sleep caused a similar impairment to alcohol. Shift workers, parents of young children and young males are most at risk. http://drowsydriving.org/about/facts-and-stats/

Relationships can suffer because a tired person is not a patient, understanding person. When a person is sleep deprived, there are mood changes and memory impairment. Anxiety is more likely. These all put a burden on relationships with family and friends, and can even put jobs at risk. http://hr.uiowa.edu/uieap/10-reasons-well-rested

The physical stress puts more of a burden on the organs, especially adrenal glands, which compromises your immune system and may be a factor in the healthy function of your heart. Weight gain and difficulty losing weight is a common issue, and there is a higher cancer risk, as well.

There are many reasons why someone may be tired and unable to get sufficient restful sleep. If you are a high achiever, or in a demanding job situation, you may simply not be spending enough time in bed to get enough sleep. Emotional stress and worry may impact ability to fall sleep and/or stay asleep. Congested organs from toxins and processed foods, or a weakness in the hormonal system, can make it difficult for the body to relax enough to sleep. Eating a high sugar, high carbohydrate diet can play havoc with blood sugar, causing the body to wake up hungry when blood sugar drops too low after a sugar spike. Iron deficiency can cause tiredness and listlessness, because the red blood cells need the mineral iron.

Vitamin deficiencies may be a factor when fatigue becomes debilitating, as in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. As a syndrome, and not an actual disease that can be measured or viewed under a microscope, Chronic Fatigue may have different causes or be a combination of factors.

The best course of action is to identify the factors that are involved in any type of fatigue. Often people crave a diagnosis, particularly when they are suffering and having a difficult time with their symptoms. But so many diseases today are lifestyle issues, and they need to be sorted out by someone who can evaluate diet and other factors, rather than simply diagnose a disease, and give it a label. The important factor is to find a way to help the body get well, and that takes more than medication.  Lab work may only offer part of the answer, or none at all.

Don’t ignore fatigue, especially if it lasts for more than a few weeks. You can push yourself, but push when your body is rested, if you do not want to make the problem worse.

B vitamins deficiencies, Adrenal-hypothalamus-pituitary function, liver congestion and blood sugar imbalances can all wreak havoc on sleep, mood and general health. If you know someone who is tired, urge them to get an evaluation and find help. There is no reason to go through life too tired to enjoy the special moments.

With Spring around the corner, it is a perfect time to do a Cleanse/Purification program, or a Blood Sugar Balance program, or a Liver Detox Program. Any of these will help sleep, as well as energy and weight loss. The programs can be tailored for your specific needs. Call us and find out how to Stop Being Tired, no matter the underlying cause. Coffee won’t fix it. Natural and Nutritional Medicine will.

Matters of the Heart

The human heart is magnificent in many ways. It is no wonder that the heart has always been associated with human emotion.

Panic and fear often manifests as a wildly beating heart. Grief and sadness feels like a burden on the chest. Joy feels like the heart is soaring. Excitement causes the heart to beat faster. Seeing a loved one can feel like the heart is fluttering or experiencing a leap. We sometimes feel that we store special knowledge in our hearts.

Physically, your heart works very hard. It pumps approximately 2000 gallons (7571 liters) of blood every day.  That’s about 1 Million barrels of blood during the average lifetime. To achieve this, the heart beats more than 100,000 times a day.

The heart is really an electrical pump and can continue to beat when separated from the body, if there is a supply of oxygen. The thump-thump sound of the heartbeat is caused by the four valves of the four chambers closing.

The heart has the job of pumping blood to all 75 trillion cells of the body. Only the corneas of the eyes do not receive blood. A woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s, typically. (Is that any surprise?)

Blood travels in a matter of seconds; six seconds to the lungs and back, eight seconds to the brain and back, and sixteen seconds to the toes and back. http://www.mercola.com/infographics/human-heart-facts.htm

Studies show there is a correlation between education and lowered risk of heart disease. Happiness and emotional vitality also correlate to lowered risk.

The Blue Whale has the largest heart, weighing in at 1,500 pounds. The invention of the stethoscope was invented in 1816 by Rene Laennec, a young French doctor who was embarrassed to put his ear to the chest of a female patient to listen to her heart.  http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2015/07/21-amazing-facts-about-your-heart-infographic/

Because the heart is a muscle, as well as an electrical instrument, it needs to be nurtured with certain nutrients. There are specific B vitamins that are not commonly available in standard B complex that nourish the muscle of the heart. The electrical conductivity is also supported by whole food B vitamins, as well as nerve- supporting nutrients.

So, when I treat heart issues, I look for very different things than your cardiologist, because I am looking for healthy function, rather than disease. Hearts respond beautifully to the correct nutrients, even after the heart has been damaged or functions poorly.

Sometimes sleep difficulties are a sign that the heart needs nutrition, particularly if you feel your heart beating when you lie down at night.

Of course, you should seek immediate medical attention if you suspect a heart attack, because quick intervention saves lives. What it does mean is that you can have the health of your heart evaluated early to prevent heart disease from developing. The heart function is also dependent on the strength of the adrenals, so healthy adrenals are vital. This explains why stress is a risk factor for heart disease.

In addition to wholefood B vitamins, the heart loves magnesium and the herb Hawthorn. Important factors also include balanced blood sugar and normal weight, with waist smaller than hips, to keep the heart strong and healthy.

My heart leaps for joy when I can help someone have a healthy heart. You probably know in your heart if your lifestyle is the best for the health of your heart. Yes, broken-down hearts can be mended, but why let it get to that point? If you have any symptoms that concern you, or hinder your life, come in for a heart check and let natural medicine help your heart last a lifetime. Cross my heart.