HERBAL MEDICINE

Herbs used as medicine has been an art form for thousands of years, predating our modern day understanding of pharmaceuticals. Herbalism is a wonderful approach for the treatment, or prevention, of common ailments and illnesses. Our wilderness is filled with powerful plants that have a variety of treatment purposes. With the right education, anyone can start utilizing wild or home-grown herbs to start treating health discomforts and guide you into natural healing. The purpose of this course is to help take your health back into your own hands. There are a surprising number of ways to care for your health in a natural way. Although pharmaceutical drugs have their purposes, they can also carry a wide variety of negative side effects. So in situations where possible, utilizing a natural approach through herbs can be better for your health and overall well-being.

Modern day medicine is closely related to the history of herbalism for its medicinal uses. Most cough suppressant medicines come in cherry flavor because wild cherry bark works great as a cough suppressant. Ginger Ale is popularly used when someone has an upset stomach, because ginger is traditionally used to soothe upset stomachs or nausea. Every day things we are used to consuming have their connection to herbalism in one way or another.

Humans have relied on herbal medicine for tens of thousands of years. Only in recent history has modern medicine taken the place of traditional practices of herbalism to cure ailments. Herbalism today isn’t to replace the advancements and sciences provided by modern conventional medication. However, working hand in hand, it can make conventional treatments work better or work in preventing you from getting sick in the first place.

There are a lot of illnesses and ailments, like type 1 diabetes, that herbalism can’t cure. But using herbalism with your conventional medicine can help support the body’s needs. If someone suffers a heart attack, you’d still need to seek treatment from a medical professional. But after you’ve been properly diagnosed and treated, you can use herbalism to speed the healing process and make your heart stronger. If you break a bone in your body, it’s still important to visit a doctor to ensure the bone has been set properly so it can heal. Then you can apply herbalism to help speed up the healing process. You may need to get surgery to save your life, but you can then use herbalism to help you heal and help reduce scarring after the surgery. All of these examples are just to note the powerful ways that herbalism can be used, not only in the prevention of getting sick, but as an aid in the healing process. You may need professional treatment if you suffer from a virus, but herbalism can help keep your body healthy and aid in fighting bacteria and viruses so that you either don’t get sick, or if you still get sick, you can recover faster.

Herbalism works great for daily bumps and scrapes. When it comes to the treatment of serious illnesses, be sure to consult with your doctor and a professional herbalist to ensure you’re safe combining herbs with any medication you’re on.

The number of prescription medications has spiked drastically over the past few decades. And although most medications are studied to assist with specific ailments, a lot of medicine masks the overall health problems versus healing them. Prescription and over-the-counter medicine also have a lot of negative side effects. Often, when people are on daily medication, they end up taking other medicine to help reduce the negative side effects of the one they need. This keeps people stuck in an unhealthy and miserable cycle, taking daily medication for their whole life.

Herbalism, when used with healthy lifestyle and dietary practices, allows people to heal and live healthier lives. A healthy person is a happy person. Although the majority of pharmaceuticals are derived from natural plants, they are made to be more potent and harsh because of the process to concentrate a single constituent. This leads to more negative side-effects. For example, Aspirin’s primary ingredient is salicylic acid. This is derived from the willow, which contains salicin, and is used as an anti-inflammatory. However, long-term use of aspirin can lead to stomach ulcers, because of the potency of the ingredients. But long-term use of willow doesn’t carry this side effect, because the herb’s other constituents can heal ulcers while still providing you the anti-inflammatory benefits.

The other negative aspects of over-the-counter and prescription medication is artificial dyes and flavoring. Herbalism provides a natural approach to living a healthy lifestyle, minus the unhealthy substitutions. In this module, we’re going to share some simple herb recipes to help your fight against common ailments. Once you start your herbalism practice and become familiar with day-to-day remedies, you can then expand your knowledge of herbalism in application of more difficult ailments and illnesses.