Category Archives: Natural Health

Natural health information that you can use to make your health better today. Why wait?

Milkglass Salt & Pepper 2. The truth about salt and blood pressure. Thanks © Tmcnem | Dreamstime Stock Photos

The Truth About Salt and Blood Pressure

Everyone knows that salt restricted diets are helpful for blood pressure, right? Right? As is often the case, the things that “everyone knows” should always be open to more scrutiny. Frankly if it were that easy, why would we not have fixed the blood pressure problem? There is no doubt that there is a link between salt and blood pressure, but the research is only beginning to bring clarity.  Ironically my first exposure to these ideas came from the most unlikely place, which is Dr. David A McCarron, MD, FACP – who is a totally main-stream conventional MD. A lecture from Dr. McCarron in Houston brought to light the large body or research that shows that salt moderation is helpful, but salt restriction – especially to the newly recommended 1500 mg per day for high risk individuals – can be harmful. Let’s talk about why:

There is no doubt that high salt intake increases blood pressure – anyone who has had a big night in Texas with salty corn chips, salty salsa and salt-rimmed margaritas can tell you that.  The next day after salt-fest your body is puffy, your hands are tight and your blood pressure is higher because your body holds on to a lot more fluid to help dilute all that salt.  This is totally natural and you will never hear me make the argument that salt and blood pressure aren’t intimately linked up, but the solution isn’t as simple as taking all the salt out of your diet.

Salt is vital to every cell and tissue in your body simply because sodium is one of the major ions in your blood stream and is used to transport other things across cell membranes, to help information travel through the body and generally in every step of the processes necessary for life.  Because it’s so vital, salt levels in your blood stream are tightly regulated because if they change too much your body will die.  The primary way you adjust to changing salt intake is through the hormone aldosterone, which rises when sodium levels in your blood stream get too low. When aldosterone rises your body conserves sodium and excretes potassium through your kidneys and urine.  So aldosterone causes an increase in blood sodium, which causes an increase in blood pressure. Aldosterone is also produced by your body if your blood pressure gets too low, so even if you have a salt-restricted diet you can end up with higher sodium and higher blood pressure. This is part of the more complicated Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone system that helps regulate blood pressure in humans, but obviously there is a strong link between salt and blood pressure.

What I see from this is that there is a sweet spot – a place where there is the right amount of salt. Not too much, not too little.  Let’s call it the Goldilocks spot for salt intake.  One huge research study (actually a study of other studies, called a meta-analysis) done by the Cochrane Collaboration shows that long-term moderate salt diets can be highly beneficial to blood pressure for both genders and in all ethnic groups studied.  They estimate the Goldilocks spot to be about 3 g (or 3,000 mg) per day.  This is higher than the currently accepted medical suggestion of 1,500 mg – 2,300 mg per day.




Medically we also use this same pathway to try to artificially control blood pressure. Two of the main classes of drugs that are used to lower blood pressure are designed to inhibit the release of aldosterone. One class are ACE inhibitors, including captopril, enalapril, lisinopril and ramipril. The other class is called Angiotensin Receptor Blockers, or ARBs  and these include losartan, valsartan, telmisartan, irbesartan, and olmesartan. This may mean a severely salt restricted diet could actually make some of the medications you may be taking for blood pressure less effective.

To add ammunition to this argument, the second paper in a series of long-term research about dietary salt intake and risk of death from major cardiovascular events was published.  This paper, called the PURE paper was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and it supports the idea that too high and too low sodium intake are both a problem.  This study shows that the group of people with the highest sodium excretion (meaning also the highest intake) at 7 g per day have a 15% increased risk of death from cardiovascular events as compared to average.  It also showed that the lowest sodium intake group, below 3 g per day (that’s the Goldilocks spot from the Cochrane study) had a 27% greater risk for death from cardiovascular events.  So in this study the lowest salt intake group is at significantly greater risk of dying from heart disease than the highest salt intake group. This means that if you follow the current medical guidelines of 1.5-2.3 grams of salt per day you are actually at higher risk than if you don’t restrict salt at all and have a high-salt diet. Eek!

In this study the lowest salt intake group is more likely to die from heart disease than the highest salt intake group, and following the current medical recommendations would put you solidly into the lowest salt intake (and highest risk) group. This means too little salt as well as too much salt is detrimental to blood pressure control.

Milkglass Salt & Pepper 2. The truth about salt and blood pressure. Thanks © Tmcnem | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Milkglass Salt & Pepper 2. The truth about salt and blood pressure. Thanks © Tmcnem | Dreamstime Stock Photos

 

As with everything else, it seems the best course of action lies in moderation.  Dr. McCarron’s view on the problem was that restricting salt intake can be as harmful as overdoing salt intake, so maintaining a “normal” intake is best.  In this, I have to admit, I agree!



This gorgeous tree could help your heart to stay healthy.

The biggest Reason to Be A Treehugger – The Health Benefits of Trees.

Anyone who knows me can tell you I love trees. LOVE trees. So it’s no surprise that I’m advocating tree-hugging, but I’m not actually talking about it here for the reasons I usually do (sanity check, beauty, air purity, etc…). I’m actually talking about your health.  As it turns out, the health benefits of trees are not all mental and emotional. Not that those aren’t important, but there tends to be some eye-rolling when doctors talk about “connecting with nature” and “getting out into the woods to relax.” I get it.

A recent study published in the journal Environmental Pollution  showed that trees (just trees!!) prevented 850 human deaths, averted $6.8 billion dollars in health care costs, and helped prevent 670,000 cases of acute respiratory symptoms in 2010 alone. That is all because of trees and all in just one year. But again – the respiratory part, we all knew about because trees are the natural filters for our air and trees and plants generally are our major natural air filters. This great pictograph shows precisely how much air pollution is removed by trees in your area:

The number of tonnes of air pollution removed per square km by trees. From Environmental Pollution and also The Atlantic Monthly

The number of tonnes of air pollution removed per square km by trees. From Environmental Pollution and also The Atlantic Monthly

More remarkably, there is a link between trees and your heart health. A study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine in 2013 took advantage of a natural crisis in the tree population to show how the number of trees affects human health. Between 1990 and 2007 the Emerald Ash Borer (a type of insect) killed hundreds of millions of Ash trees in the U.S. and this study looked at trends in heart disease and also lung disease during that time. The results showed a clear increase in heart disease and death from cardiac causes in areas that were losing trees – 15,080 heart-related deaths because of tree loss specifically.  In those areas there were also an additional 6113 deaths from lung disease.  This suggests that the link between trees and heart disease may even be stronger than the link between trees and lung disease.




Trees also help reduce stress levels, increase wound healing speed and generally make life more livable. In fact, Richard Louv proposed a series of problems, especially behavioral problems in children stemming from “Nature Deficit Disorder.” I don’t know about you, but for my heart, my stress levels and my overall happiness I’m going to do everything I can to spend more time with trees.

The Health Benefits of Trees - This gorgeous tree could help your heart to stay healthy.

This gorgeous tree could help your heart to stay healthy.



Save Your Ta-Tas! Add melatonin to prevent tamoxifen resistance. Spread the word!

If you Take Tamoxifen You Need To Read This! Prevent Tamoxifen Resistance

Breast cancer is a big deal, and if you have it then you want to do everything to make sure the treatments you’re taking are actually working, so here is a simple, effective way to prevent tamoxifen resistance – please tell every woman you know! Nobody knows if this will prevent resistance 100%, but according to this study published in the journal Cancer Research, not adding this one simple step can make the drug ineffective, and it’s something that seems harmless. Nobody would ever think this would make such a big difference for breast cancer, but it does so spread the word to your girlfriends – because the killer might be sleeping with your lights on, even a small amount of light under a doorway might cause tamoxifen resistance.




If you know ANY woman with Breast cancer who is using Tamoxifen as a treatment make sure she knows this one simple step. You can help to save her from Tamoxifen resistance.  Tamoxifen resistance happens when melatonin levels are too low, and that can be triggered by tiny amounts of nighttime light.  Make sure women taking Tamoxifen are also taking melatonin at bedtime and sleeping in TOTAL dark.

It’s completely crazy that this might make such a huge difference, but the research is clear. Exposure to even small amounts of light at night can shut off melatonin production and if there isn’t enough melatonin then the breast cancer is rendered completely resistant to Tamoxifen. Researcher David Blask explains the mechanism this way:

“High melatonin levels at night put breast cancer cells to ‘sleep’ by turning off key growth mechanisms. These cells are vulnerable to tamoxifen. But when the lights are on and melatonin is suppressed, breast cancer cells ‘wake up’ and ignore tamoxifen,”

This has huge implications for women who work night shifts, women who sleep with a TV or computer on in their room or even women who have LED lights or even alarm clocks with lit faces. Also for women who have poorly regulated sleep to begin with or who may not produce adequate melatonin. To me, the simple solution is to include melatonin into the protocol for every woman undergoing breast cancer treatment.  Especially since melatonin has it’s own anti-cancer benefits. The standard starting dose for melatonin is 3 mg at bedtime, but in cancer research doses of 20 mg have been shown to have potent anti-cancer benefits, especially for solid tumors like those in breast cancer. If you currently have cancer please talk with your doctor about this and make sure your doctor is aware of the research because this is a new development. Make sure all your lady friends know too because we want to save the ta-tas.

Save Your Ta-Tas! Add melatonin to prevent tamoxifen resistance. Spread the word!

Save Your Ta-Tas! Add melatonin to prevent tamoxifen resistance. Spread the word!

This study was conducted at Tulane University School of Medicine.



The Best Kind of Magnesium For You

Right – so one thing you’ll notice about supplements is that everyone is pretty convinced that their product is the best. THE BEST! Except that it’s a little harder to believe when every product you see claims the same thing. You would think something like magnesium, which is a mineral, would be pretty straight forward. Naturally, that is not the case at all. Nothing is straight forward about it and sadly, there is no easy answer as to what is the best kind of magnesium, other than to answer what is the best kind of magnesium for you. 

What Is Magnesium Anyway?

Magnesium (Mg) is a mineral that is involved in almost every process in your body from muscle relaxation and proper muscle movement to hormone processing. Clinically it is used to treat muscle cramps, restless leg syndrome, high blood pressure, constipation and chronic stress. Magnesium is pretty much everywhere – it’s the fourth most abundant element in the earth as a whole and the ninth in the universe as a whole. Magnesium is also highly water soluble and is the third most common element dissolved in sea water. Generally, the composition of sea water and the composition of our bodies internal mineral balance is reasonably similar (although sea water is significantly higher in sodium) and as humans we function best when we have a rich supply of magnesium in our system. Magnesium is the center of the chlorophyll molecule in plants, so any dark green plant is a rich source. Magnesium is central to all of our energy-forming reactions in every cell in the human body and there are over 300 enzyme pathways in humans that are dependent on magnesium to run.

Magnesium crystals - this is probably not the best kind of magnesium for you. :) Picture by Warut Roonguthui in wikimedia commons.

Magnesium crystals – this is probably not the best kind of magnesium for you. 🙂 Picture by Warut Roonguthui in wikimedia commons.

Historically magnesium would have been a larger part of the human diet – partially as a mineral dissolved in spring water (which city water is not likely to have) and partly because the average human diet would have had a higher proportion of green vegetables.




How Do I Find The Best Kind of Magnesium For ME?

Magnesium can’t just be by itself as a molecule – it needs to be bound to something else to be stable, so the biggest difference in different magnesium products comes not from the magnesium itself (which is all the same) but from the molecule it’s bonded to.  The most common bonding agents I’ve seen are oxide, citrate, glycinate, sulphate or amino acid chelate. There are two things to look for about the molecule it’s bonded to: size, and function. There is the secondary consideration of absorption.

The size of the molecule matters because most people don’t want to take a tablespoon of something, they usually want to take a reasonably small amount – like maybe the amount that will fit into one or two capsules.  Magnesium itself is a very small molecule, but if it’s bonded to something large and floppy then you get a very small amount of magnesium, mixed in with a pretty large amount of something else.  So magnesium by weight is higher if it’s bonded to an extremely small molecule (like oxygen in Mg oxide) than if it’s bonded to a large molecule like glycine (in Mg glycinate) or an amino acid (in magnesium amino acid chelate). Citrate and sulphate molecules are somewhat in the middle for size.

The function of the additional molecule is also something to consider.  Oxygen is obviously useful to body tissues, as are amino acids but some amino acids have functions that may enhance one particular effect of the magnesium that you might be looking for clinically. We’ll go over different forms of magnesium individually.

Magnesium Absorption

Absorption is a separate concern. Magnesium itself is reasonably poorly absorbed (35% absorbed in the worst case scenario and 45% absorbed in the best). Generally if you are magnesium depleted then your body will absorb any magnesium better than it would otherwise.  Calcium and magnesium compete for absorption, so if you take calcium and magnesium together they will both compete with each other (meaning you will absorb less of each). Also high or low protein intake can reduce magnesium intake as well as phytates from some vegetables.  Generally if you’re taking a magnesium supplement it’s best on an empty stomach.  Magnesium also absorbs well through the skin (potentially far better than through the digestive tract) , so epsom salts baths (magnesium sulphate) and magnesium lotions, gels or oils (usually magnesium chloride) can be a great way to increase your body stores. Topical forms can be best if you’re using magnesium for it’s muscle relaxation and calming properties.

Orally magnesium citrate is the best absorbed form (but it’s bonded to a big molecule so there is a smaller amount of magnesium by weight). Mg oxide is the most poorly absorbed form but has the highest Mg per weight, so actually you may get more elemental magnesium out of the same dose of Mg oxide vs. another magnesium, simply because of the size. The other forms of magnesium are somewhere in the middle in terms of absorption.

What Are The Benefits of Different Types of Magnesium?

Magnesium Oxide

Magnesium Oxide (MgO) is simply bonded to oxygen, which is obviously also something your body needs so there is nothing unnecessary in the product. The oxygen is useable by your body but will not strongly affect the way you feel taking the Mg. This is the least absorbed form, but also has one of the highest percentages of elemental magnesium per dose so it still may be the  highest absorbed dose per mg. This is a great general purpose magnesium if really Mg is all you need.  It makes a simple muscle relaxer, nerve tonic and laxative if you take a high dose.

Magnesium Citrate

This is one of the most common forms of Mg on the commercial market. This is Mg bonded to citric acid, which increases the rate of absorption. Citrate is a larger molecule than the simple oxygen of oxide, so there is less magnesium by weight than in the oxide form. This is the most commonly used form in laxative preparations.

Magnesium Glycinate and Magnesium Amino Acid Chelate

In this form, Mg is bonded to the amino acid glycine.  Glycine is a large molecule so there is less magnesium by weight, but the glycine itself is a relaxing neurotransmitter and so enhances magnesium’s natural relaxation properties.  This could be the best form if you’re using it for mental calm and relaxation. Magnesium amino acid chelate is usually bonded to a variety of amino acids, which are all larger molecules.  In this form there is less magnesium by weight but the individual amino acids could all be beneficial for different things. Every formula is different so if you need both Mg and a particular amino acid, then this could be the way to go.




Magnesium Taurate

This is a less common form, and is typically taken for cardiac conditions and heart function in general. Magnesium helps the heart muscle relax, as well as the blood vessels that feed the heart to open and deliver more blood to the heart tissue itself.  Taurine is an amino acid that is known to feed cardiac muscle and enhance the quality of contractions of the heart so if you’re taking Mg for heart function this is probably the best form for you. Again, taurine is a larger molecule so there is a lower Mg by weight.

Magnesium Sulphate and Magnesium Chloride

These forms are both typically used topically, although there are some oral preparations as well.  Mg sulphate is best known as epsom salts.  If you’ve taken this internally you know it tastes horrible and has a very strong laxative effect, but when used in a bath or soak it is extremely relaxing to the muscles and can ease aches and pains.  Epsom salts baths can also help to lower high blood pressure and reduce stress levels.  Magnesium chloride is more common in the lotion, gel and oil preparations that can be used topically for muscle cramps and relaxation.

Sea water is high in Magnesium chloride. This is the sea in the straight of Gibraltar.

Sea water is high in Magnesium chloride. This is the sea in the straight of Gibraltar.

Generally magnesium is one of those universally necessary elements that needs to be in your body for proper function, no matter what.  Great dietary sources include coffee, tea, chocolate, spices, nuts, and of course green vegetables with chlorophyll. Good body stores of magnesium will improve your health, mood and general functioning so finding the best kind of magnesium for you is tremendously important.



What is a Gut Feeling?

Everyone has gut feelings, but what does that mean in a culture that wants everything to be logical? Is it valuable to listen to your gut or is the evolution towards listening only to your brain/mind a good way to go? I’m a big believer in the inherent wisdom and knowing that your body holds – especially your gut.

Gut instincts - your gut always knows. www.dramyneuzil.com

Gut instincts – your gut always knows. www.dramyneuzil.com

What is a Gut Feeling?

A gut feeling is a  sudden strong feeling about something that doesn’t necessarily have thoughts behind it, it’s more like intuition or an inherent sense that you “know” something. It’s the sense you know something even though you don’t know why you know it. There may even be a body sense of that feeling – a literal sensation, usually in your stomach area, that gives you a very simple idea of what your body likes or doesn’t like. Gut feelings can be instant judgements about another person, about a situation, or just a sudden sense of “knowing.”

Your Gut is Your Second Brain

Technically, your gut has some 100,000,000 neurons (that’s a hundred million) which is more neurons than are in your spinal cord. Over 30 neurotransmitters are present within the digestive tract and 95% of your body’s serotonin is found in your bowels. The brain and the gut communicate, but while only 20% of the information flow goes from brain to gut, 80% goes from gut to brain.  There isn’t that much information about digestion, so the gut must be giving other information as well, potentially about emotional state and also potentially contributing to the “gut feeling”. This second brain certainly influences your state of mind. “A big part of our emotions are probably influenced by the nerves in our gut,” says Emran Mayer, professor of physiology, psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.).




Butterflies in the stomach, which are signals from the gut in response to stress, is a simple example of how your “second brain” might contribute to emotions and information processing. Everyday emotions, according to Michael Gershon, author of The Second Brain, may rely on messages from the brain below to the brain above. One example given by Gershon is the new depression treatment which involves electrically stimulating the vagus nerve. This may actually mimic the healthy signals from your gut, therefore telling your brain that all is well.

Trust Your Intuition

In a general sense, your gut feeling is your body’s only way of telling you yes, or no, or if something feels unsafe.  As a doctor (and as a woman) I always encourage people to trust their gut feelings – about people, about situations, even about foods that they eat or supplements that they take. If you stop to listen, your body will give you a gut feeling about many situations that has the potential to be a far more relevant signal than what you think about that thing.  It’s easy to get into convoluted thought loops about things, but your gut and your intuition are pretty direct. Bottom line? Gut feelings are usually important – pay attention.



Stuck and Overwhelmed? Just Clean Something

Chances are, when you’re stuck and overwhelmed, you don’t really want to add any more things to your to-do list. I’m guessing your to-do list is full to overflowing with sh*t that really needed to get done yesterday. Uh-huh, I’m feeling your pain here. Sadly, mine too. And I have been feeling a little stuck and overwhelmed. Not so much that life isn’t moving forward, it’s moving forward with great haste but instead of driving the ship I’m running behind it trying to pick up the pieces that pick up the pieces that are being left behind. It’s that kind of feeling. This weekend I stumbled on a great solution that has shifted my feelings of stuck and overwhelmed to something softer and more manageable and even given me a big dose of excitement about the future.

The Simple Solution for Feeling Stuck and Overwhelmed

It really is a simple solution – and I’m pretty sure it works universally.  It boils down to “Just Clean Something” but has far reaching implications for your psyche. For me, the something that I had to deal with was my back porch.  Please keep in mind this weekend I had a list of things to do that quite literally couldn’t have got done if I’d worked 24 hours and hopped myself up on red bulls. It was already piled up with stuff that needed doing.  Instead of tackling that whole list and getting bogged down in the heaviness of all of that task-management, I took a track that fed my soul a little bit more and has given me the mental room to make the to-do list look simple.

This Sounds Like Crazy-Talking

Yes, yes I know it does.  Here’s the thing – there is more to this cleaning thing than meets the eye. So here’s what I want you to do.

  1. Find an area in your space that has been driving you crazy – it could be a big area like your bedroom or your kitchen, or it could be the hall closet full of the random stuff that doesn’t go anywhere else. It might even be a place that used to be a favorite place but that has fallen into some serious disorganization (like the back porch).
  2. Put aside the rest of the to-do list that you’ve been spinning out about, and just get down to it.  Physically organizing a space is usually a whole lot more simple than organizing your life or your brain, so get to it.
  3. Get rid of anything that isn’t making you happy in that space (for me it was the dead plants, the empty pots, the half-started projects.) If it isn’t enhancing your life somehow then just chuck it.
  4. Make the space feel like you – this might mean adding some finishing touches or it might just mean looking at thing with fresh eyes and creating a space that suits you now (as opposed to the space that suited you whenever you last looked at this).
  5. Voila! Accomplishment – you have officially beat back the chaos in this one small area and re-asserted control over your domain.




    Feeling stuck and overwhelmed? Tackle a controllable project and unlock those mental gears.

    Feeling stuck and overwhelmed? Tackle a controllable project and unlock those mental gears.

Cleaning as a Metaphor for … Cleaning

Um… yes.  So – the cleaning that you’re doing is actually an act of taking-charge.  It is the literal act of making order out of chaos in one small area of your life (for me, the porch). By making order out of this one tiny area of chaos something in your brain recognizes that you, as a human, have the capacity to do this.  If you can make sense of one chaotic area of your life, then you can make sense of others too.  I know this sounds a little odd when I say it, but honestly your brain is very literal.  If you can do the thing, you can do it.   Your brain is clear on that.  Literally your brain does it again with other things because it knows it can – it knows it did it before. One chunk of chaos might be bigger than the other, but it’s still the same thing and the same puzzle and you’ve already solved it. So what are the psychological benefits here?

  • Your brain suddenly recognizes your amazing ability to solve the chaos problem, which ironically frees up a lot of mental space for actually solving other chaos problems.
  • You have solidly started and completed something, which generates some good satisfaction and productivity juju.
  • Clearing clutter and chaos out of your environment does actually help your brain to de-clutter too, simply because every thing that’s heaped all over your space takes a tiny bit of your attention. Fewer things and less mess means you have more free attention to spare.
  • You now have a lovely space to enjoy. Like my fabulous, serene, peaceful back porch. This alone creates joy and fulfillment. Even with the to-do list still rattling away in the background.
  • The to-do list suddenly starts to go down far more quickly because your brain knows it can generate order, and that’s a lovely thing. There is far less tire-spinning and far more just crossing things off.

I know it sounds too simple to work, and a little counter-intuitive because you’re actually neglecting your to-do list in order to make your to-do list easier to manage.  It’s just that this actually works so next time you’re feeling stuck and overwhelmed, find that one project you can totally tackle and just clean something – getting it done helps you to get it done. Voila! Instant un-stuckness.



Are You Emotional Eating?

To some degree emotional eating is just part of being a human – we all do it now and again because the bottom line is that it works. Food really does translate into comfort in the human brain and that comfort feedback can get out of hand. It’s easy to use food as a reward, as a treat, or as a way to calm down when you’re anxious, depressed or angry.  It’s easy to do because a lot of the time it works – food does help you feel better in the moment when you’re emotions are getting the best of you.  It can also hurt you in the long-run because then you have to struggle with weight, self-image, powerlessness and body issues. This is a no-win cycle, but there are ways out.

Candy!! A great emotional eating trigger food. Take Five!

Candy!! A great emotional eating trigger food. Take Five!

Six Signs of Emotional Eating:

  1. You often eat so quickly or so much that you feel over-full, uncomfortable or bloated
  2. You find yourself eating ‘for no reason’ or ‘because you’re bored’
  3. You eat more when your schedule becomes tighter as a sign of stress
  4. You gain weight in stressful times or in emotional times
  5. You feel ‘addicted’ to food or to certain foods
  6. Your cravings are compelling and changeable (ice cream for sadness, chips for boredom, snickers when you’re feeling lonely)

Fixing Emotional Eating:

Emotional eating isn’t easy to fix, but it isn’t hard either, there isn’t a complicated technique or months of waiting, just some honest emotional processing.  The hardest part is being willing to actually sit down with yourself and feel exactly what you’re feeling instead of self-medicating. Sort of like an eating meditation, or a food contemplation. There is not really a big difference, grand scheme of things, between hiding from your feelings with food and hiding from your feeling with heroine. These are both just ways of escaping from what you really feel, even if one is a little more dramatic than the other.  It sounds really easy to admit that you’re feeling crummy and sit with that; maybe cry or get angry or be scared but this is honestly one of the hardest, most wonderful and most terrifying things you can ever do as a human. Real, honest emotions can be genuinely world-changing. This is some of the scariest, most honest work you will ever do along with some of the most rewarding, so let’s get to it.




The Cure for Emotional Eating: Take Five

  1. Take a tour of your kitchen and pantry and find your emotional trigger foods.  Chances are you know what it is you go for when you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed or sad or lonely.The usual list includes things like brownies, snickers, sweets and candy, ice cream, chips, pop corn, etc…
  2. Write on the outside of those food containers with a sharpie to “Take 5” in big letters so that when you’re in a vulnerable place you don’t have to try to remember whether or not that’s a trigger food for you, you can just read the package. Make sure that when you go grocery shopping you label your trigger foods when they come into the house.
  3. When you grab something out of the pantry, check the package to see if it says “Take Five”
  4. Sit down as usual, but set your kitchen timer for five minutes.
  5. In that 5 minutes, just sit and look at your food but don’t touch it yet.  Just sit, and look and pay attention to how you feel. Not how you want to feel, but how you really feel. If emotions are hard for you to get in touch with, then just focus on your body. How does the air feel in your lungs when you breathe? Is your stomach tight? Do you feel relaxed? Are you hurting anywhere? What does it feel like to be inside your body?
  6. In that 5 minutes, you may feel angry for having to wait, impatient, frustrated, sad, or irritable.  You may burst into tears, start thinking about a fight you had with your partner or have a grand realization about your life.  You also may not notice anything, or think about the toe you just stubbed on the chair as you were sitting down. Just pay attention to however it is that you feel and when the buzzer rings then eat like you normally would.
  7. As you’re eating, notice what the food feels like in your mouth, why you chose the food you did and how you feel as you’re eating it.  Really think about whether or not that food is making you feel any different.  Really think about if that food is giving you what you thought it would or not. You don’t have to change anything else about the eating other than just paying attention to it. Honestly, if you’re paying attention to how you really feel the compulsive eating will resolve itself.

That’s it! That’s all you have to do – is just wait five minutes and really be in your body before you eat and while you’re eating. This is an exercise in finding out about yourself.  Emotional eating is different in every person because we all have different hurts, fears, traumas, anxieties and life situations.  The only way to fix it is to notice that you’re doing it, notice when it happens and acknowledging those feelings in a healthy, honest way. The idea behind this is that you can’t deal with whatever is under there, unless you know what it is. Pretty simple, right?

If you work through things on paper, like I do, then keeping a journal about what you’re feeling can be really helpful.  If you’re more of a talker then finding a food buddy can be helpful or talking with a counselor. If you like to read about the idea then the best book I’ve found about this subject is Geneen Roth’s Women Food and God.

Women Food and God is just a great resource for anyone who really wants to get to the root of their emotional self, and the book uses the idea of food as a pathway to everything – life, beliefs about yourself, and god. Essentially her idea is that your relationship with food is your relationship with life, so if you’re eating for comfort or solace or escape, then what does that say about the rest of your life? Emotional eating is a challenge for sure, but it is also an opportunity for growth and a tool that you can use to explore yourself more deeply.  Of course there are many health reasons to do this, but the most important reasons are about happiness. After all, nobody self-medicates happiness.



Oil Cleansing – Your Skin Will Thank You For This!

Oil cleansing is one of those things I’d heard people talking about for years before I actually worked up the nerve to try it. Let’s face it, smearing oil on your skin to clean it just seems counter-intuitive.  Several years ago, in a fit of boredom, I decided to give it a whirl and I’ve never looked back.  After oil cleansing my skin literally felt softer than it has ever felt. Soft and smooth and it looked kind of dewy – you can’t buy that. It was an amazing transformation after oil cleansing just once so for all you skeptics out there who have used every product imaginable and are utterly jaded on the whole “miraculous difference” thing – just wait until you’re having a bored day, and slather up!

Why Does Oil Cleansing Work?

The basic idea behind oil cleansing is that oil is natural to your skin, where soap isn’t.  Oil naturally travels deep into your pores, because it’s pretty much what is meant to be in there, where water stays outside because oil and water don’t mix, and they’re already filled with oil.  So if your pores are filled with oil (which seems bad) but then you’re adding it on topically (supposed to be good) then what is the real story?  Essentially we’re  pulling out the gross, dirty oil from your pores and replacing it with oils that are beneficial to your skin and clean so that your skin can stay smooth and soft and lovely. This is great for acne-prone skin, dry skin or combination skin and it’s amazing for anti-aging because it keeps your skin hydrated and nourished.

What Oil Should I Use?

This is where it gets fun because you get to play kitchen chemist. First, let’s start with the base:

Oil Cleansing Base:50% Castor Oil
50% Jojoba

This base has the anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties of the castor oil as well as the stability of jojoba oil.  It also penetrates deeply into pores because the castor oils ha very small molecules and the jojoba is the most molecularly similar to your skin’s natural sebum. This base by itself is a great mixture and if you’re just starting out and not sure you’ll like it, it’s a great place to start. You can always add things to the mix later on.

Mountain Rose Herbs. A herbs, health and harmony c

Great add-ins for Dry Skin

Kukui nut oil – high in essential fatty acids, readily absorbed into the skin to nourish the deeper layers.
Argan oil – rare, high in vitamin E which absorbs quickly and adds a level of luxury.
Baobab oil – light, rich in vitamins A, E and F which absorbs quickly and is specifically used for hydrating and protecting dry skin.
Sea Buckthorn OIl – exceptionally rich and healing for deeply dry, chapped skin. A small amount goes a long way.

Add-ins for Oily or Blemished Skin

Meadowfoam Seed OIl – healing and nourishing and high in natural salycilates, which reduce inflammation.Hazelnut Oil – highly suited for oily skin because it has astringent properties and helps to reduce excessive oil production.

Meadowfoam - of course this beauty would help your skin.

Meadowfoam – of course this beauty would help your skin.

Great additions for Anti-Aging

Pomegranate Seed Oil – it isn’t hard to imagine that this is highly prized for skin care and nourishes the skin while it provides antioxidant benefits. Promotes skin regeneration.
Rosehip Seed Oil – one of my favorites this is the predominant oil for wrinkled and aging skin.Black Seed Oil – highly nutritive and restoring to the skin. A little goes a long way.




Beautiful rosehip seed oil. My favorite.

Beautiful rosehip seed oil. My favorite. Mountain Rose Herbs is a great source for all of these exotic goodies.

So How Do I Oil Cleanse?

This is the best part:

  1. Get a headband to pull your hair back because stray hair gets oily really quickly.
  2. Put a dime sized amount of your oil mix in your palm and use the fingertips of your other hand to gently massage it into your face – don’t forget your lips, under your jaw line and your decollete, those are highly visible areas that often have the same problems as your facial skin, and your lips will just love the moisture. Use gentle upward strokes or light taps to encourage collagen production because god knows we all want more collagen.
  3. Leave the oil on your skin for five to ten minutes if you have some time, or you can skip straight to washing it off if you’re in a hurry.
  4. Run a washcloth under super hot water and wring it out then put it over your whole face and use the heat to dissolve and liquify the oil.  Don’t scrub, just use the heat to almost steam the oil off your face and wipe up what is left with the still hot washcloth.
  5. Marvel at the beauty of your newly lovely skin. Seriously, it’s amazing.
  6. Use a tiny amount of an oil based moisturizer – I love MiraCell Skin Relief and Support (for a premade product) but you can also make a lighter skin oil and use a few drops as a moisturizer. We’ll talk about that in a separate post.

    Miracell - a nice moisturizer after oil cleansing.

    Miracell – a nice moisturizer after oil cleansing.

The only part about this that I don’t absolutely love is the washcloths – simply because it’s hard to get the oil out of them.  The best trick I’ve found is soaking them in a bowl with baking soda in the water to dissolve the oil before you put them in the washing machine. In general it shortens the lives of wash cloths, but so spectacularly worth it for such lovely skin.

This is a totally different approach to skin care that has entirely changed the way I view soaps, and not for the better.  I source all of my carrier oils from Mountain Rose Herbs and keep them in the fridge to prolong their shelf life.  I mix up small batches (usually just an ounce at a time) of the facial cleansing oil, and then also end up using it as an after-shower moisturizer because it feels amazing.  Typically I use about 80-90% carrier oil, almost always a larger portion of rosehip oil because I’m pretty sure it’s addictive, and then experiment here and there.  I love changing it up a little bit and am always trying new combinations.  I have added essential oils before, but I honestly like the simple oils better by themselves. I hope you love oil cleansing as much as I do – let me know what you think!

Mountain Rose Herbs. A herbs, health and harmony c



The Benefits of Being Sick: Are You Being Honest About Your Suffering?

The Benefits of Being Sick: Audio Version

The folks at the Diabetes Council were kind enough to make an audio version of this article, read by Holly Houston (sadly I can’t claim that lovely voice). If you prefer to listen, rather than read then here it is!

The Benefits of Being Sick: Plain Old Written Version 😉

This is such a difficult topic because our culture likes to make things all “bad” or all “good” but the truth is, there are many social benefits of being sick and sometimes it’s hard to get well if you’re not willing to really look that whole concept in the face. For the most part, nobody actually wants to be sick.  There are some rare exceptions with psychological diseases, but at the end of the day most people want to be healthy, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t benefit in some way – usually some entirely unconscious way – from being sick.  When there are benefits of being sick, sometimes they can become an obstacle to truly getting better – simply because somewhere in your subconscious mind you aren’t ready to let go of whatever it is you’re getting out of being ill. It’s easy to generate a lot of judgement about this and to immediately recoil from the idea that people might have unknown motives even for suffering, but the fact of the matter is that your brain is more highly evolved than you can possibly imagine.  If your brain finds a way to get what it wants, it isn’t necessarily going to stop and ask for permission from your rational mind – it’s just going to go ahead and get what it wants and give your rational, thinking self a nice story (I’m sick – I have to stay in bed) to hold on to. Never underestimate the power of the human brain, and certainly don’t fall for the illusion that “you” – the part of you that you hear thinking in your head and that makes up all sorts of reasons why things happen – are actually the one in control.




Illness is a huge, multifactoral beast. Sure, there are plenty of colds and flus and simple things that you get because there is some kind of germ or bug going around. Although when you really look at them, even the simple things might not be so simple.  Why is it that some people go down with a particular flu and some don’t? Sure there are lots of arguments about immunity and previous contact with that virus. No question those things matter, but what about the convenient fact that often the people who get sick are the ones who really need to take a break? Or the ones who haven’t let themselves rest? Sure – their system is weakened from overwork, that is probably true, but it might also be true that being sick is a socially acceptable reason to stop, to rest, to take a break, to not be at work, and to actually give your body the sleep it’s been missing.  When you get into complex or long-term illness it’s a whole different animal.

The benefits of being sick. Image from © Shannon Matteson | Dreamstime Stock Photos

The benefits of being sick. Image from © Shannon Matteson | Dreamstime Stock Photos

I want to say here that I am NOT trying to imply that people are fabricating illness in any way – absolutely not. When you get sick you actually get sick and for people who are chronically ill, they’re actually ill and not because they want to be. Still, if you don’t look at the benefits of being sick then sometimes that can become a barrier to becoming well, simply because your body isn’t willing to give up the benefits if you haven’t changed your life to incorporate them naturally. Let me start with an example – this is a pretend client that is based on literally hundreds of real clients I’ve seen in the same position:

“I’ve always been healthy and I was a really energetic person – I was always able to go above and beyond for everybody. I worked in a corporate setting and was in a high stress job but I really loved it, I loved the challenge and the business.  Everything was great, but when I had my second child it felt like everything suddenly shifted.  That child is a little more demanding than the first was and generally needs more of me and I just started to feel drained.  Now I’m on a leave of absence from work and I really don’t know if I’ll be able to go back because I feel worn out. My joints hurt, I’ve become sensitive to so many different foods it feels like I can hardly eat without something disagreeing with me.  My sleep has suffered but all I want is more sleep. I can get up to fix breakfast for the kids but that just wears me out and I have to spend the next few hours resting or watching TV or trying to recharge.  I feel pitiful – just getting up to make breakfast shouldn’t be all I have in me for the day.”

I can’t begin to tell you how often I’ve heard variations of that same story. I was an uber-achiever until this thing happened and now I can’t keep up at all. I am forced to rest, to hold back, be home with my children, to not work, to constantly recuperate. No doubt this person is actually exhausted and actually has physical dysfunction – possibly autoimmune disease or mixed hormone failure. Absolutely. In reality those things are happening and need to be addressed. But what about possible benefits?

Primary Gain – The Benefits of Being Sick

Primary gain is a concept in medicine that looks at exactly this idea – that being sick does come with some advantages, even mixed in with all the obvious disadvantages, and that those advantages are a factor in healing. Primary gain deals mostly with the psychological benefits of being sick, which are typically entirely unconscious. These are the psychological perks of being ill that nobody actually notices or talks about, but that you may have a hard time giving up. Examples of primary gain might include:

  • If you’re not performing the way you think you should, being sick can reduce some of the feelings of guilt and inadequacy.
  • If you deeply believe that doing things for yourself is “selfish” or have a negative judgement about it then sometimes being sick is the only acceptable reason to allow yourself to care for yourself appropriately.
  • Being sick might actually encourage your partner to be more supportive, more caring or more nurturing.
  • Being sick is a valid reason to not do things that you might not want to (but probably think you should).
  • Being sick is a legitimate reason take breaks.
  • Being sick is a real reason to stay home more with the kids.

These are big obvious examples – but there are thousands of tiny gains that can be individual to each person and aren’t always obvious to them or to anyone around them (these are kind of obvious – but the best examples I could come up with this morning). Often in the healing process if we don’t address this issue, then healing gets stalled out as soon as we run into this wall. If we took the above example patient and re-balanced her hormones and addressed autoimmunity, chances are we’d get her to a great place right up until she started taking on too much again, because that’s her basic nature.  She’d pick up all of her old obligations and no doubt over-perform to make up for feeling guilty about being sick and inevitably land in a crumpled heap on the office floor despairing because she relapsed. I’ve seen it over and over and over again. People charge right back into the old way of being without examining what it was that their body was trying to tell them with the illness.  What was the benefit of being sick and how can they keep that without the sickness?

Of course it’s easy to talk about, but in real life this comes down to some incredibly hard transformations and evolutions as a human. Maybe it means letting go of the deeply ingrained belief that you only have worth based on what you produce. Or the feeling that your job is to take care of others (only others – anything you do for yourself is “selfish”).  Maybe it means confronting ideas from your faith about how good people suffer, or how suffering is a penance. Maybe it means sitting down with your partner and having the tough conversation about ways to change your circumstances so you can stay home with your children more. It could mean looking at your life and seeing if you’re still on the path you want to be, or if you really wanted to be an artist but your family thought that was a soft option. These issues are at the core of who we are, who were were taught to be, and are always the biggest, scariest and most challenging to actually work though.

Secondary Gain – The External Benefits of Being Sick

Secondary gain is the idea that there are also real benefits of illness that come from the outside – from society. These are far easier to see and to deal with and include things like:

  • Missing work
  • Avoiding military duty
  • Financial gain (disability, family support)
  • Drugs
  • Avoiding jail (insanity plea, etc…)

Again, although these are more obvious, more tangible benefits, they are still largely unconscious.  Your brain is tricksy and doesn’t let you see some of the subtle motivators.

There are No Benefits to Being Sick – This is The Worst!

I know – there are people reading this who are deeply and personally offended because they feel so crappy and have been struggling for so long to get better. I know that, and here’s the thing – it is 100% true. Being sick sucks in so many ways, but that doesn’t mean it has to be all black or all white – there are almost always shades of grey and sometimes looking at the grey areas can help you to examine your life more deeply, even if it ultimately doesn’t change the course of the illness at all. Here’s an exercise.  No matter how horrible you feel you can probably think of three good things that come out of being sick – even if you’re really reaching.

The Benefits of Being Sick Exercise:

1. Write down at least three benefits you get from being sick. These can be big things (like my partner is nicer and more supportive) or little things (someone else cleans the toilet).  At least three but list as many as you can think of.

2.  List three things you’ve learned about yourself and what your body needs directly because of being sick:

3. If you were suddenly 100% healthy, what would be the hardest for you to change?

4.  What are some ways you can keep the benefits of being sick but let go of the sickness? You don’t have to have concrete answers, but start the thought process.

Remember none of this is about judgement or right and wrong answers, it’s about learning something about you as a human and discovering a little more of what you need to be your happiest most functional self. Sometimes illness is the greatest teacher and you can choose to take the opportunity to grow from it. There are some benefits of being sick, but there are also ways to structure your life so that you have those benefits without actually having the sickness and finding them may help you on the path to healing.



Honey Beats MRSA and Other Reasons to Love Honey for Health

As if there weren’t enough reasons to love honey, it’s also showing a staggering array of health benefits, in fact honey for health might just be this years new buzzword (shameless pun, I know.) Seriously honey is kind of a miracle anyway; the awesomeness of bees flying 55,000 miles and visiting two million flowers per pound of honey is pretty staggering, but as it turns out every day we have more and more reasons to be amazed by honey health benefits as well.  Today’s amazement includes a fully stocked arsenal of weapons against against antibiotic resistant bacteria.

honey for health dreamstimefree_192457

Hard at work for your honey health benefits… Gorgeous shot from © Olga Vasilkova | Dreamstime Stock Photos

One of the most immediate problems modern medicine is facing right now is the epidemic of antibiotic resistant bacteria.  Of course MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)  is all over the news, but equally distressing are the antibiotic resistant strains of tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea, and Clostridium difficile that are popping up all over the world and the U.S.  We’re calling these new big bads the “Superbugs” and really, we’re at a bit of a loss trying to figure out how to kill them. The whole concept of antibiotic resistance is distressing because it is the evolution of organisms into newer, more dangerous, better adapted pathogens.  These bacteria create conditions that we thought we knew how to treat, except the old treatments aren’t working anymore because the bacteria have become “smarter” in their own way. Seems kind of astounding that something as simple as honey might be the answer, but the way it’s looking now, honey could be a big part of the solution.




How bacteria become antibiotic resistant

This is a complex process that has happened partially because of the way we hand out antibiotics like candy for humans, and partly because we use antibiotics in our livestock’s food – not just to keep them from getting diseases in unhealthy living conditions, but also because antibiotics are proven to help fatten animals faster (humans too. Sigh.) Mechanisms for antibiotic resistance include:

  • Genetic resistance – Some bacteria have mutated (or evolved) to resist antibiotics, and bacteria have a very free and easy swapping of genes, so gene segments can jump from one bacteria to another in a slightly scary form of information sharing. Bacterial genetics can change very quickly, which makes them highly adaptable (and makes the human error of antibiotic overuse that much more serious).
  • Evolution – Darwin would be gleefully saying “I told you so” if he were here to see this. We have unintentionally created an experiment in natural selection.  If you blast a person who is sick with antibiotics and they don’t quite get better, the bacteria which have survived are naturally the strongest members of that colony.  Quite literally the ones best adapted to survive that harsh environment.  They then go on to breed happily with each other enhancing those survival traits so that in the future that harsh environment is just another walk in the park for that particular bacteria. Essentially we’re breeding and cultivating better pathogens.
  • Antibiotic overuse in humans – Obviously medicine has been on a bit of a field-day with antibiotics. Doctors have given them for everything from ear infections (usually viral -which antibiotics won’t help) to acne (really? We should put teenagers on systemic antibiotics for months? Really?) The more we use them the more likely it is that our bacteria evolve to avoid them. Plain and simple.
  • Antibiotic overuse in livestock – In the effort to make fatter farm animals (which is clearly what this culture needs) we feed them antibiotics. The good news is that it works – they fatten right up. The bad news is that they become factories for drug-resistant bugs.  The other bad news is that the humans consuming those animals get exposure to the antibiotic resistant bacteria, and also low doses of the antibiotics themselves, thereby nudging their own internal bacteria towards drug resistance.
  • Biofilms – one of the things bacteria have learned to do to avoid dying in an antibiotic-rich environment is to create what is called a biofilm.  It is exactly what it sounds like, a sticky, gooey mass of bacteria that literally cement themselves together to make it harder for you to kill them.
Staph aureus biofilm. Did you know honey can help you fight this??? Honey for Health! Thanks to wikimedia commons for the image.

Staph aureus biofilm. Did you know honey can help you fight this??? Honey for Health! Thanks to wikimedia commons for the image.

How honey helps fight antibiotic resistance in bacteria

Outside of being utterly amazing and yummy and rich in minerals, polyphenols, antioxidants and bioflavenoids, honey is also a pretty amazing bacterial killer (not to mention wound healer – honey is used in hospitals on severe burns and wounds that won’t heal).  Honey has many overlapping mechanisms for killing bacteria, which makes it much harder for bacteria to develop resistance – honey really is a miracle health food. Here’s what it does to bacteria:

  • Kills them with kindness – The high sugar concentration in honey actually does kill bacteria through osmotic effects. Essentially it’s like pouring salt on slugs – it just draws all the water out of the bacteria and dries them up. Incidentally, this is a big part of what happens to human cells in diabetes – think about that the next time you buy a giant bucket of soda.
  • Kills them with cruelty – Honey is designed to prevent bacteria growth because it’s long-term storage food for bees. This means it contains substances that are toxic to bacteria like hydrogen peroxide, polyphenols, and acids that are actually directly harmful to bacteria.
  • Isolates bacteria – New research shows that honey disrupts something called “quorum sensing”, which is the method bacteria use to communicate with each other. This makes the bacteria less virulent by stopping them from communicating enough to release toxins and also increases their susceptibility to conventional antibiotics.
  • Prevents biofilms – Without quorum sensing, bacteria have a much harder time forming biofilms (you can’t gang up if you can’t talk with your buddies). This takes away one of the bacteria’s main defenses against drugs and toxins.
  • Honey is tricky – Honey doesn’t kill bacteria by targeting the essential growth processes, it eliminates bacteria on many fronts, which makes it much harder to develop a genetic resistance to this kind of damage.

Honey for health: The best things about honey

Honey for health isn’t a new idea – it’s been used for centuries as a healing tool. Honey isn’t just antibacterial, there are a host of other great benefits as well. Here’s a quick list, but we’ll probably revisit this issue because there is always more to tell.

  • Honey prevents everything – In addition to being antibacterial, honey is also antiviral and antifungal
  • Honey is a tremendous antioxidant – That’s all we need to say about that.
  • Honey is healing – Honey is extremely soothing to tissues and helps wounds and burns heal with less scarring. Because it’s also antibacterial and antifungal it’s being used in hospitals for this purpose.
  • Honey is a cough suppressant – a mug of hot water with honey and lemon juice helps to relax your bronchial tree and loosen up a tight cough.
  • Honey helps a sore throat –  My grandmother (and mom too, but I remember it best at Nana’s house) used to give me honey and fresh squeezed lemon juice when I’d have a sore throat and have me eat it as slowly as I could (which was not very slowly because it tastes awesome). Worked like a charm.
  • Honey makes a great mixed drink – I know in Texas we don’t have many cold nights, but if you ever need quick warming up, try a shot of spiced rum in a mug with honey and hot water. So delicious and warms you right up.
  • Honey is soothing to the stomach and esophagus – honey can help to heal gastritis, ulcers and mild erosions in the upper GI tract.  This effect is especially well documented with manuka honey.  A teaspoon two to three times daily between meals really helps.
  • Honey may help with allergies – Eating raw, seasonal, local honey gives you traces of the pollens from the local area and can help to reduce your symptoms from airborne allergens.
  • Honey makes you radiant – Honey is just as nourishing to your skin as it is to the rest of you, and helps to nourish your skin from the outside.  Honey in your skin care routine can help to provide antioxidants, kill harmful bacteria and rejuvenate skin cells, as well as return your skin to it’s naturally slightly acidic pH. Here’s a favorite honey mask:

1 tsp whole milk
1/2 tsp honey
1/4 tsp sea salt

Mix the ingredients together and apply to your face in gentle circular motions.  Leave it on for five minutes and then rinse with warm water. The salt is gently exfoliating, the milk has lactic acid which helps to dissolve old or dead skin cells and the honey and milk proteins and fats nourish your skin to leave it soft and smooth and lovely. Once or twice a week will give you noticeable improvements in skin tone and texture and is just a lovely way to pamper yourself. Honey does tend to lighten the skin subtly, so it can also help with sun spots over time.

I’m obviously a big fan of honey, especially raw organic honey.  Honey for health isn’t a new idea, but it’s easy to overlook. Your pantry is often the most useful medicine cabinet in the house, and in truth I’m not sure how I would make my life work without honey (or vinegar – we can talk about that one later.)  In the interim – just give honey a try. Honey for health is simple, gentle and effective and best of all it’s one tool that does many jobs. No need for many different types of remedies and potions, just a few really great basics.  If you’re looking for even more great information, here’s a great article called 13 Science-Backed Health Benefits of Honey.  Totally worth a look!