What Are Essential Oils?

Maybe you have heard the term “essential oils” but didn’t know what was meant by it. Perhaps you had a vague idea that it was connected in some way with aromatherapy, but didn’t know how. Now is as good a time as any to learn what essential oils are. Essential oils are made from different parts of plants. They can be made from leaves, like peppermint oil. They can be made from petals, like rose oil. Some are made from bark or wood, like sandalwood.

Others are made from other parts of plants. If a so-called “essential oil” has any animal products in it, it is not truly an essential oil. Also, true essential oils do not contain synthetic ingredients.

Essential oils are usually made by distillation to make the natural oils in a plant substance very concentrated. It takes an enormous amount of plant material to make just a small amount of essential oils. For this reason, they are very expensive. It only takes a few drops of these essential oils to have a powerful effect. Most essential oils are not used directly on the skin. Most are either inhaled or applied in a carrier oil. Sometimes the oils are put into a bath.

You can buy individual essential oils or you can buy blends. If you buy blends, it’s up to the maker to decide what oils to mix together and in what proportions. You can save money this way, because you only have to buy one bottle of a blend rather than several bottles to mix yourself. If money is no object, you might like to have the choice.

Essential oils have been used for centuries to promote physical and mental well-being. There are many varieties of essential oils and there are different ones for almost every ailment out there. There are several choices of oils for many of the conditions. Essential oils enter the body through the sense of smell. This is why they are often inhaled in some way or another. However, they are also absorbed into the tissues of the skin and into the bloodstream. This is especially true when they are used in baths or massages.

When essential oils are inhaled, they reach the limbic system of the brain and go on to affect all the systems that it interfaces with. These include the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the endocrine system, and memory. In the bloodstream, they affect the organs as well. When you have had a massage treatment with essential oils, it is wise not to bathe or wash it off for a couple of hours. This is because the systems of the body take time to absorb the oils from the skin.

Both psychological and medical conditions have been treated with aromatherapy through the use of essential oils. Some can be very expensive, especially those that come from exotic plants. However, by using the few drops as recommended, a small bottle can last a long time. Essential oils are effective tools in controlling uncomfortable symptoms.

Homeopathy Remedies – The Case For

Many people, disillusioned and disgruntled with conventional medical practices and medicines, have begun to seek out homeopathy remedies to help them manage and treat all manner of medical conditions and diseases. However, before jumping in and opting for homeopathy it is best to have an understanding about just what homeopathy is and how it differs from conventional medicine.

Homeopathy plainly put, is using like for like to treat. That means if a patient presents with insomnia, then coffee what we traditionally consider to be one of the a reasons for insomnia, is what a homeopathic practitioner would use to treat insomnia. It should be further explained that the coffee would be prescribed in the most minute of proportions.

What homeopathy remedies are also concerned with is treating the patient and not simply the disease or the condition. This is why when someone goes to see a homeopathic practitioner for a consultation, it will take some time for a full patient history to be taken. The practitioner is interested in documenting all areas of a patient’s life from diet, to family medical history, personal medical history, mental background, allergies, exercise regime, everything! Only then can a full picture of how to treat the patient be reached.

One of the homeopathy remedies for allergies that clearly indicates the like for like principle, on which all homeopathy is based, is the use of honey. Local honey is prescribed to beat allergies because in local honey can be found the exact geographical allergens that will trigger Hay Fever, for example. In exposing the body to these local allergens via the local honey, homeopathic practitioners believe that the body’s own immune system then has a basis on which to fight local allergies. It is this same belief that underlines the use of many vaccines that conventional medicines make use of: small pox, measles etc.

Homeopathy and conventional medicine though at times operating at different ends of the spectrum, do at times make use of the same ingredients. Take acne for instance, the recognized homeopathic remedy for acne is sulfur. Sulfur is often mixed with alcohol and salicylic acid to make an anti-bacterial paste that is applied to the skin. If you look closely at the tubes and boxes of conventional medical ointments for acne, that are available from your local pharmacy, you will see that the base ingredient of these ointments is sulfur.

The other great thing to remember about homeopathy remedies is that one of the main positives is that there are no side effects with using them. That means they are perfectly safe for young children, pregnant women and they can even be used in conjunction with many conventional medication.

So, do your research and find yourself a reputable homeopathic practitioner!

Better Your Memory by Eating Right

Leading a healthy lifestyle can cause so many benefits and that include helping you better your memory. This is a very important aspect because if you will not take certain steps in order to nurture it, you may end up with the disorders that are associated with this function of your brain. Your memory is your brain’s ability to encode information, retain and store them and recall vital data whenever needed.

Steps to Improve Memory

There are many things that you can do to help your brain perform at its best. This can be achieved by avoiding unhealthy vices like drinking too much alcoholic beverages, smoking and turning to prohibited drugs. You must learn how to control your vices if you can’t stop immediately. Exercising also helps in giving your brain good supply of oxygen. This will enhance its performance and will make you remember things easier. It is also a must to get enough rest and good amount of sleep. The way you think will be gravely affected if you are tired, especially when you only got some hours of sleep that may leave you feeling weak and you also cannot think straight.

There are exercises that you can do to help your brain improve. You can resort to various card games that promote such benefit. You should also be active in learning new things all the time even if you are already. This must not stop you to learn by reading and training. You must also engage in different physical activities that will help regulate the blood circulation on your brain. You must also learn how to control your emotions, especially the stress that you feel as a result of thinking too much about your problems. Depression causes a major impact on one’s memory as well as emotional instability.

Eating Right

You must eat right for your brain to function well. It will not help if you will be distracted by your hunger for your thoughts to come out fluently. By eating right, it means that you have to eat the kinds of foods that are healthy in proportions that will help you stay fit and vigorous. If you are into some type of diet, just be sure that you follow the recommended intake of the food that you are allowed to eat. Here are some foods that can help you achieve the goal of attaining better memory.

1. Sunflower seeds. Nuts contain healthy fats that you can incorporate on your diet. These seeds contain abundant source of Vitamin E, an antioxidant that help out in improving your memory as you grow older. Other rich sources of Vitamin E include hazelnut, spinach, kiwi, broccoli, wheat germ oil, mango and dry almond.

2. Salmon. This contains Omega-3 fatty acids that are important in developing your brain and helping it to function better. Such acids can also be found in walnut, soybean, shrimp, scallop, tofu, winter squash, flaxseed and walnut.

3. Blueberries. These are rich in phytochemical elements that can affect one’s memory in a very good way. These are also good for your overall health.

4. Lean beef. This is rich in iron that will help you boost and help better your memory if taken in moderate proportions. But make sure that you do not eat much of this because you may encounter weight problems if you do so.

How To Live A Healthy Life With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

How To Live A Healthy Life With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Imagine a lifetime of sickness, of perpetual headaches and of endless flu-like illness. Imagine being unable to walk from your bed to the couch because of too much exhaustion. Imagine being locked up in your house, unable to go to work to earn a living. Well, that sums up life for most sufferers of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or CFS is a disorder both of the mind and the body. Apart from the symptoms mentioned above, CFS also afflicts the immune system which makes an individual become very sickly. It also affects one’s threshold to physical activities, thus making an individual feel worn out 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Further, it limits a person to very minimal activities which make him incapable of holding a job.

With these realities, it is hard to imagine how one can live a normal, healthy life while suffering from chronic fatigue. But can a normal life materialize if you are continuously bothered by the symptoms of this disease? Most likely yes. Below are some of the things that one can do to limit the negative effects of the disease on yourself and on your life.

Remove the diets that spell disaster – It is easy to sabotage one’s health these days by just following the average American’s sense of food proportions, by consuming too much processed foods and by eating too many flour- and sugar-based foods. Sugar is notorious for killing the diets of Americans and so are flour, transfat, processed foods, etc. These types of foods are accounted for numerous diseases that upset health.

Since these foods take up so much space on the plate, nothing is left for foods with high nutritive values anymore. And for people suffering from CFS, it is crucial to maintain a certain level of nutrition in the body. So always try to eat healthy foods, this would lessen some of the biggest problems concerning your condition such as infection and weakened immune system.

Conquer Chronic Fatigue – If you are a sufferer of CFS, you understand that it is easier to stay in bed than to work around the house when you are seriously exhausted. However, it is important to maintain some form of physical activity. Try not to give in to exhaustion and incorporate activity to your daily life. Eventually, you would be able to exercise without getting too worn out.

Win over the illness mentality – In the face of chronic diseases, it is a lot more convenient to let negative thoughts defeat you. Try to picture a life free from chronic fatigue and try to make that picture your goal. Think that your condition is just a state of mind and changes in thinking would liberate you from the troubles of your disease. If you use this technique, which is actually a sound psychotherapeutic technique called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, you would not only help alleviate the symptoms of your condition but you can also prevent these from bothering you again.

Discover techniques that can treat your condition – Since the cure for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is yet to be established, you might as well discover one for yourself. There are actually treatment techniques that you can formulate for yourself as bases of your self-care system.

These can be made from careful observation of activities and treatments that you respond well to.