One of the first things you should do before you try any natural energy remedy is to pay your doctor a visit. Have a complete check up, including blood work, to make sure that a medical condition is not the cause of your lack of energy. Sometimes thyroid conditions or other medical problems can cause you to be tired all the time. So if you get a clean bill of health from your doctor, you can try some of the following natural energy boosters.

Herbal supplements can be great energy boosters. There are many on the market that claims to boost your energy levels. Ginseng is one supplement that has been shown to increase energy levels and improve mental alertness. It is a good idea to research herbal supplements on your own and find out which ones would work for you. But there are other ways to increase your energy level without taking supplements.

Getting plenty of sleep will do a lot for your energy level. Our busy and stressful lives don’t leave a lot of time for rest. But your body needs down time to re-cooperate. So a good night’s sleep is a must if you want to feel energized the next day.

It is also critical that you watch what you put into your body if you want to maintain a high energy level. Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Stay away from trying to boost your energy level with caffeine. You will just crash later. Another thing about caffeine is that it is a diuretic, which means it will dehydrate you. Dehydration can zap your energy levels very fast. So instead of high caffeine drinks, start drinking more water.

It is also important that you get more exercise. It may seem hard to exercise when you are so tired, but the more exercise that you do, the more energy you will have. The body was not meant to be stationary. It was designed to move, so following a good exercise program will boost your energy level and make you feel better.

So if you find yourself dragging through the day, try some of these natural energy boosters. When you give your energy level a boost, you can feel like a kid again!

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Ginseng – Siberian Ginseng has a long history of use in China for hormonal problems in both men and women. However, this herb can also be an excellent source of mental and physical energy. It can help your body fight off the negative effects of stress, and it also normalizes blood sugar and blood pressure levels. When ginseng is taken in conjunction with Cayenne and Gota Kola, it provides quick energy.

Gota Kola – This herb is mostly meant to improve memory. When gota kola is taken along with Cayenne, blood circulation to the brain is increased. Gota kola is also reputed to improve learning ability when taken regularly.

Black Walnut – This herb is loaded with natural potassium, iodine and manganese. It builds and strengthens nerves, muscles and even tooth enamel.

Licorice Root – This herb is included among energy and fitness herbs because it can help to stimulate and regulate the production of your body’s adrenalin.

Fennel - If you’re trying to lose weight, try taking fennel to help regulate your appetite.

Peppermint - This is a natural stimulant which is also an excellent replacement for coffee. Peppermint not only cleanses and tones your entire body, it also strengthens your nerves and heart muscles.

Cayenne - This well-known herb is an all purpose stimulant that is often found in a variety of infection fighting, energy boosting and blood building remedies. Cayenne optimizes the functioning of your body’s circulatory system. It rebuilds the elasticity of the cell structures of your arteries and veins. Your heart will love cayenne. Cayenne is a prime selection for boosting your energy.

Statements made in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and should not be taken as professional medical advice.

The colon is our body’s primary waste disposal system. The liver filters out toxins, wastes, and harmful bacteria then sends it along to the colon. The colon moves that waste along, and expels it from our bodies via excrement.

The colon is a very large organ though. Averaging six feet in length, it holds and moves a lot of material through our bodies. And waste material can get clogged in there, and sometimes it can become crusty and hard so that it’s difficult to move forward. This is when problems can occur, because the colon walls are thin. If too much backed up waste material stays in the colon for too long, the toxins and bacteria from that waste can leak back into the system, and cause problems for other major organs.

The colon is similar to a muscle as well. If you don’t have regular bowel movements, and keep things flowing smoothly on a daily basis, the colon can become weaker and thus not be able to move things through and out of your body as effectively.

Many herbalists feel that a healthy person should have at least two good bowel movements each day. And they shouldn’t take any effort either. You should feel the urge to go, sit down and have it happen almost immediately, without strain or pain.

If you’re not having at least two movements each day, or you have to sit and wait awhile, or you have to strain and push to make your bowels move, you’re constipated.

There are many very easy ways to resolve constipation problems though, particularly mild cases of constipation. Let’s look at several natural ways to make sure your bowels move regularly and easily…

1. Fruit juice. Yes plain old apple, grape, or prune juice often does the trick quite nicely. These are the strongest bowel moving juices too. If you just need to keep your bowels moving regularly, you might choose a citrus juice instead such as orange juice or home made lemonade.

2. Fiber. Adding fiber to your diet will help keep the waste moving regularly. Fiber can be added via foods you choose to eat, or you can take fiber supplements instead.

3. Water. Yes water by itself will help keep your bowels moving regularly. But you have to drink enough of it for this to work. In most cases, a good two to three quarts a day will do the trick.

4. Herbal supplements. There are a variety of herbs which will help relive constipation. Some of these work quite quickly, while others may take up to 24 hours. Here’s just a few that work wonders:

- Chickweed: An excellent herb for relieving constipation within a few hours of taking it, this herb also strengthens the stomach and bowels, and helps carry out toxins.

- Slippery Elm: Another wonderful single herb that works for both constipation and diarrhea, because it normalizes the stools while soothing, coating and healing the intestinal tract lining. Slippery Elm should be taken with lots of water to help move it through your system.

- Cascara Sagrada: This is one of the strongest herbal laxatives and it’s commonly added to over the counter medications for use in relieving constipation too. Take an herbal capsule at night with a large glass of water.

Statements made in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and should not be taken as professional medical advice.

The best example I can give you for a healing crisis is withdrawal symptoms. When someone has been taking addictive drugs for awhile, if they stop taking those drugs they will go through a period of time in which they’re very sick. This is the body doing it’s best to clean out the waste from that drug use as quickly as it can.

Another more common example that many people can relate to happens often when you go on a new diet. If you decide you will lose weight by cutting out extra sugar from your diet, the first step you might take is to stop drinking sodas. And everything is fine for a day or two, but then you start having a major problem with headaches. In fact, sometimes you may feel like you have the flu. And this is a normal part of the healing crisis your body is going through. It is finally able to start eliminating all the poisons and wastes caused within your system from eating so much sugar over the years

Different people will experience healing and disease crisis periods in different ways. This is because what happens most for you will depend on where your biggest problems are within your body. If for instance, you have chronic sinus infections and problems, you might find that a lot of mucus is suddenly starting to drain from your head. If you’ve had chronic problems with bronchitis, you might discover you’re coughing up a lot of mucus from your lungs instead.

Whatever your “regular”, ongoing chronic health problems usually are, they will seem intensified when you’re body starts it’s healing process. And this is a very good thing. The body gets rid of toxins, waste, and bacteria in a number of ways: Through urine and excrement, through runny noses and coughing, through sweat, through fevers, and more. By taking medications over the years to suppress these natural disease fighting systems in our bodies, we’ve made the problems worse.

Now, if you’re fairly healthy when you start cleansing your body, you will go through what is known as a healing crisis. This lasts for a few days, and usually tends to feel like you have a cold or the flu. If however, you’ve been quite sick for many years, you may go through what is known as a disease crisis first. This means all of your standard illnesses will be worse, and it could last for two weeks or more. This happens because your body has more toxins to get rid of when you’ve been sick for an extended period of time. It’s extremely important to stick with it though. Stay with whatever detoxifying or cleansing diet or routine you’ve chosen, and hang in there. It will get better, and you will feel so much better in the end as well.

Statements made in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and should not be taken as professional medical advice.

Because of this, a lot of herbal and alternative remedies designed to help with specific conditions won’t always seem to have anything to do with the specific condition at all. This is because instead of treating the symptoms of a condition, herbalists believe you should treat the underlying cause of that condition instead.

An excellent example is a type of skin disease known as psoriasis. Psoriasis is caused by your body’s immune system over reacting to some stimulus, and it’s pushing new skin cells to the surface at a much faster rate than normal. Usually new skin cells rise to the surface in about thirty days, but people who suffer from psoriasis get new skin cells pushed to the surface every 3-5 days instead. This creates a pile up on the surface of the skin, which results in thick, scaly, flaky sore like spots in various places on the body. The most common places to see psoriasis scales is on the elbows, knees and scalp, but they can occur on the feet, hands, ankles, or even all over your skin too.

Now, modern day medicine feels there is no cure for psoriasis, so treatments tend to revolve around trying to minimize the scaly skin build up. In fact, some treatments actually try to supress the bodies own immune system in order to “solve” the problem. But from an herbalist point of view, this can only lead to further problems.

When your body’s normal waste removal systems are clogged up or stagnated, it can cause those toxins to leak back into your blood stream and create havoc for all the organs. This creates a variety of diseases, conditions and symptoms because your body becomes desparate to clean out the toxins and waste that’s polluting it. So if it cannot get rid of things the normal way – through elimination via the colon – one of the next things it trys to do is get rid of the toxins through your skin.

This is just a simple summary of some of the major problems that can occur from your body being overly toxic. But it’s a nice introduction to the issue, and one you’ll need to be aware of as you procede with your own personal herbal remedy learning. As you come across alternative and herbal remedies in books, online, or via other people, you will often hear people talking about needing to detox or cleanse the body. And sometimes this will start happening naturally for some people as they start using herbs to treat various illnesses, vitamin deficiencies, and other health problems they may have.

Detoxifying your body is often done with the use of enemas, because these help you quickly flush out any stagnant waste within your colon. Diet and fasting can be used to detoxify as well though, and there are many herbs which help with this process too. So we’ll talk about the various ways to detoxify and cleanse in more detail with later articles.

Statements made in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and should not be taken as professional medical advice.

Well believe it or not, this does actually happen. One herbal remedy that does wonders in helping some people, might not seem to do a thing for other people. It’s the same thing with prescription and over the counter medications too if you think about it. Some people will have adverse reactions to a drug when everybody else seems to take it with no problems. Sometimes those “rare” side effects on warning labels will actually happen for some people.

And that’s because everybody is different. Our bodies respond differently to a variety of things. And there are many things our bodies might be allergic to, or simply things our bodies disagree with for one reason or another, that we’re unaware of.

One of the biggest reasons some people see no results when taking herbal medications however, is often due to what’s known as “user error”. If you decide that you have X or Y illness, and procede to go about treating that particular problem, you won’t usually have much success if you have misdiagnosed yourself. It’s like trying to take cough medicine to try and bring down your fever. It won’t usually work, because cough medicine is not made to reduce fevers.

The same basic concepts apply with herbal remedies and medications too. If you don’t know enough about what your condition is, you’ll find yourself having a very difficult time treating it properly.

An excellent example is kidney stones. In most cases, kidney stones can be treated naturally with lemon juice. This won’t work for everyone though, because there are actually four different types of kidney stones.

The most common type of kidney stone is a calcium stone – about 80% of people who get kidney stones get this type, and the lemon juice works wonderfully to dissolve these types of stones. If however, you have kidney stones that are one of the other three type, the lemon juice remedy may not work for you at all.

Still other types of herbal remedies will work on a particular condition, just not nearly as well as another herb would. There are also many times people have been misinformed about what a particular herbal remedy will do. Echinacea is an excellent example of this problem. Echinacea has become a very popular herb to take for colds. People seem to think however, that the herb will cure their cold, or prevent them from getting one in the first place. And this is actually untrue.

Echinacea is a wonderful herb with antibiotic properties, and it does a great job at fighting infections. It specializes in glandular infections and problems though, which makes it especially effective for strep throat, or other types of infections which give you swollen glands. It will not normally cure a common cold. It can however, reduce the severity of your cold symptoms, but it won’t actually cure it or prevent it from coming on. So people take Echinacea thinking they’re not going to catch a cold, or they’re curing the cold they have, then complain that herbal remedies don’t work.

Statements made in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and should not be taken as professional medical advice.

The problem though, is that while many herbs can help with multiple problems at the same time, they are not a cure all. You can’t take one herb for just anything, and there are certain herbs you shouldn’t take unless they’re needed. There are also many situations in which the actions of the herbs can be in conflict, or cause complications with, prescription medications your doctor may put you on.

That’s why it’s important to let you doctor know if you’re taking herbal medicines for any reason. And if you doctor does not understand the effects of the herbs you’re taking, you may need to explain it to him or her so they’ll better understand the potential interactions of your herbs and the medicines they want to give you prescriptions for.

An excellent example of two things that shouldn’t be mixed are Ginseng and Caffeine. Now, this might seem like a simple case of limiting your coffee or soda intake if you’re taking a Ginseng herbal supplement, and you’re right. But it also comes into play if your doctor prescribes you certain allergy or diet medications too. These can interact badly with the Ginseng, because of the components and capabilities of each medicine.

Another example is taking Golden Seal herbs while also taking insulin. Golden Seal is a natural source of insulin, so if you take it while also taking insulin injections, you could accidently overdose yourself without realizing it.

Yet another example of herbal and prescription medications that could cause problems when used simultaneously, is to take Kelp while also taking a prescription diuretic or water pill. A diuretic is an medication that causes your body to release more urine, and Kelp is a natural diuretic on its own. So taking Kelp while also taking a prescription diuretic could cause you to become dehydrated, or have other related dangerous side effects and complications.

Some herbal and prescription medication combinations taken at the same time can be dangerous, while others end up just working against each other. When you have a chest cough for instance, your doctor will often prescribe coughing medications that are designed to supress your coughing. Some herbs used for chest colds however, work as expectorants – which means they purposely try to help your body cough up the phlegm and mucus that’s in your lungs so that you can heal faster.

So before you start using herbs for medicating yourself, be sure to learn as much as you can about what the herbs actually do, and how that might conflict with anything else you may need to take under doctors orders.

Statements made in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and should not be taken as professional medical advice.

Alternative and herbal medicine has been around for centuries. In fact, there have been numerous cases of evidence showing that herbal medicine has been in use as far back as the Neanderthal period some 60,000 years ago. Other evidence of using herbs for medicine have appeared in cave paintings that are estimated to have been made between 13,000 and 25,000 BC. Most of our modern day synthetic prescription drugs have been based on natural substances and capabilities found in plants.

Now, many people argue that herbal remedies and medicines are not valid, because there have not been enough scientific studies performed to prove or disprove claims. Herbalists, people who specialize in herbal medicine, feel that a lot of the attempts to discredit herbal remedies and cures are brought on primarily due to money.

Pharmaceutical companies are not able to patent a natural medication, so the wide spread use of these herbal remedies would essentially put them out of business. Since they would be unable to corner a market and charge outrageous amounts of money for prescription only medications if herbs were too widely used, they must create synthetic versions in order to remain in profit. And they must discredit herbs for use in various medical treatments, in order to keep people buying their prescription medications instead.

There is also a problem with consumers misunderstanding how to use herbs, or not having enough knowledge about what is good or bad for you. Some people believe for instance, that as long as something is “natural”, then it must be safe to use. This is far from the truth. Many things found in nature are quite poisonous. Rhubarb plants for example, will give us nutritious vegetables to eat. But if you try to use the leaves from that plant for either food or medicine, you can go into convulsions and possibly die.

There are also medicinal herbs that can cause problems with certain people. Golden Seal for instance, is a very powerful natural antibiotic herb. But it’s also a natural source of insulin, so it can cause severe problems if taken by a hypoglycemic: Someone who has low blood sugar.

Herbs can have interactions with other herbs or prescription medications too, and many people don’t seem to realize this. Taking an herb that boosts your energy for instance, such as ephedra or Ginsing, will do just that. If however, you take large amounts of these herbs, you risk having heart palpitations. And if you take these herbs with consuming large amounts of caffeine – such as drinking regular sodas, coffee or tea – you also risk having heart palpitations. And heart palpitations can lead to more severe emergencies such as a heart attack.

Overall, it’s more common to see a lot of news coverage when someone has problems using herbs and natural remedies. In truth however, when you dig into the facts a bit deeper, there are far more cases of severe health problems and side effects with “approved” prescription drugs than there are with alternative herbal remedies. And as the general public continues to become more educated on these topics, herbal health care practices will continue to grow astronomically.

Statements made in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and should not be taken as professional medical advice.

There are two types of herpes simplex viruses to be aware of: Type 1 and type 2. Type 1 causes cold sores, and type 2 is the genital version. Either type can cause sores on both the facial areas and the genitals though. Once you’ve gotten a cold sore at least once, the virus stays in your skin and can crop up again throughout the years. Sometimes stress or menstruation can trigger outbreaks.

Cold sores often clear up on their own though, unless you have a weakened immune system. Herbal approaches to treatment include disinfecting the sores, and helping the immune system fight the virus.

Black Walnut is the herb of choice to use for cold sores and fever blisters. This herb is an antiseptic which is high in natural iodine, and can be used both externally and internally to treat cold sores. Use black walnut extract to paint the cold sores several times each day, and take dried black walnut herb internally as well.

Aloe Vera gel is another popular herb to use for treating cold sores. It too can be applied to the sores several times each day, and the juice can be drunk as well.

Comfrey salve will help heal the cold sores as well. This is a cell proliferant which helps your body heal very quickly. Prick the cold sores and apply comfrey salve externally for best results.

Remember that cold sores and fever blisters are quite contagious though, particularly when a sore is present, so you should avoid contact with babies and anyone who has a weakened immune system from diseases such as HIV and Diabetes.

When you have active sores, be sure to keep your hands clean, and avoid contact with other areas of your body such as the eyes and genital areas. Also be sure to sterilize or replace your toothbrush when outbreaks occur, and of course avoid kissing anyone until you’re healed.

Statements made in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and should not be taken as professional medical advice.

Bayberry is an herb that is excellent for using to slow or stop profuse menstruation. This works best for the problem when taken in conjunction with Cayenne. Bayberry also tones and strengthens the female organs, including the uterus during pregnancy.

Note that bayberry and cayenne can be used for uterine hemorrhaging, but hospital treatment will be needed as well. Please don’t take risks with this.

Alfalfa and Marshmallow are herbs used to increase milk production in nursing mothers. Green tea will also do this, however you need to avoid green drinks made from Parsley or Sage, because these dry up the milk. Blessed Thistle and Red Raspberry teas are also excellent for increasing a nursing mother’s milk.

For cracked and sore nipples, use Aloe vera, comfrey salve, or vitamin E oil.

Endometriosis is a common health problem for many women, in which tissue very much like the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterine walls. This tissue growth can occur in a variety of places, such as around the ovaries, behind the uterus, and on the bladder. Women with Endometriosis often experience very heavy, painful periods, and some are infertile too.

An infection fighting combination of herbs has been used to effectively treat Endometriosis in some women. This combination includes Echinacea, Goldenseal, Yarrow and Cayenne. Complete body cleansing and detox programs have often been helpful for treating Endometriosis too.

A combination herbal remedy to use for menstrual cramping is Ginger, Cayenne, Goldenseal and Licorice. Another remedy for menstrual cramping is ginger tea with a capsule of Black Cohosh herb.

For vaginal yeast infections, a garlic douche is an excellent remedy, as is a yogurt douche. Alternatively you may be able to buy Acidolphilus capsules at your local drug store, and these are used as vaginal suppositories.

You can also make your own using plain, natural yogurt with live bacteria in it. Simply fill an empty tampon applicator with yogurt, then place it in the freezer. Let this harden, then remove it. You may want to let it sit at room temperature for a few moments before inserting so it won’t be too cold against your skin.

Statements made in this article may not be approved by the FDA, and should not be taken as professional medical advice.