Breathing Freely

I wasn't sure what to write about but since I promised myself at least a post every month I figured while I had the time I'd try my hand at updating. What a concept!
This last week I was stuck inside. If the snow wasn't enough I ended up with a cold that left me literally unable to move beyond crawling back in to my bed. For the record I'm a pretty healthy person by most standards. I rarely get sick and when I do its usually a 24 hour stomach bug of nastiness rather than a cold. Last week for the first time in at least 2 years I did nothing but sleep, eat homemade chicken noodle soup and drink herbal teas.
speaking of herbal teas did I mention that ginger root tea makes an excellent remedy for a stuffy nose during a cold? The easiest way and the most inexpensive method to make ginger tea is to buy a small chunk of ginger root, slice and simmer in a pot with 1-3 cups of water for fifteen minutes. If you are like me you can go the more expensive route and visit your local health foods store and by ginger root that has been dried, crushed and packaged in pretty little tea bags for your convenient use. While this was definitely more expensive I found it easier; not to mention more economical since I sucked down the ginger tea like candy.
Another herbal remedy I used last week with amazing results was to take 2 capsules of white willow bark every 4-6 hours. White willow bark is known to have amazing anti-inflamitory and fever reducing propperties that are similar to aspirin but without all the nasty consequences to your liver. The willow bark definitely worked better than Tylenol, but the one down side was that it took longer to get in to my system if I was in a considerable amount of pain. Willow bark can also be drunk in a tea or taken in a tincture under the tongue; however, for economical reasons I chose the capsules that my local health food store offered. After careful checking of the ingredients to make sure that all I was getting was willow bark and not any nasty addatives I plunked down the $5 for a bottle of 200 pills. More expensive than Tylenol or Aspirin but my liver can thank me in 50 years.
The last herbal remedy I consumed was raspberry leaf tea. I have to say by far that this tea is my favorite tea to drink any time of day. Raspberry leaf tea is made from just the leaves of red raspberry plants which gives it an Earthy taste that is soothing when drunk hot or cold. The raspberry tea was originally being drunk for some female issues that I was having. Since traditionally red raspberry is great for helping women of all ages I figured I might as well start my day out by drinking a few cups. It not only kept me from feeling horrible when my cycle came around but it helped me feel better during my cold! The long and short of it is that raspberries and the leaves contain good nutrients that women need for good reproductive health and they also contain antioxidants which as we know help keep the rest of our bodies healthy as well.
The most interesting thing I found about using herbal remedies is that I healed more quickly. I first began experiencing symptoms on Monday January 30 and 6 days later I was feeling back to about 90 percent of my strength. My previous colds were twice as long, my symptoms of a runny nose, coughing, exhaustion, fever and achiness lasted anywhere from 10 to 14 days. With just a few small herbal remedies my cold was drastically shorter!
Before anyone thinks that I am forsaking all western medicine from now on... I will be the first to admit that at night I used Nyquil. I wasn't completely and totally sold on using it but I needed to sleep and I can't drink whiskey without gagging; so the over the counter Nyquil won out for now. When I'm sick next time I plan to try the herbal remedies again. With any luck it will be in another 2 years.