Saturday, January 28, 2012

Getting your immune system in order & choosing the right herb for your body type

With all the super germs floating around out there, everyone should be working on getting their immune system in good working order and have herbs on hand to help their immune system cope when they are feeling a little under the weather.

We cover this in detail throughout much of the 8 month herbalist course. For those of you with herbal experience I am going to offer an online workshop on my forum in March on the Trees & many of those trees I will discuss will be helpful to the immune system.

One easy way for anyone to kill existing germs that are brewing in your body after being exposed to someone who is sick is to use raw garlic. The garlic has to be raw, cooked garlic is a seasoning, it doesn't have medicinal benefits. You can throw a clove of garlic in the juicer along with a bunch of veggies, or make a nice spicy salsa with some raw garlic, or just chop up some garlic & swallow it. If you are feeling sick, you can do this several times a day if that agrees with you.

Using Elderberry is a wonderful way to modulate your immune system. So by using Elderberry you can get your immune system to work better. In our herb class we will be getting some dried elder berries, mixing them honey & pouring vodka over them to make a very tasty elixir.

We will discuss how to correctly use Echinacea to get it work for you. A lot of times people just aren't taking enough or taking some that is inferior quality. I prefer the roots only, and never capsules of dried herb, tincture made from roots is usually great.

Since we all have different constitutions many of us need one type of remedy such as elderberry to get over a cold. And others need something else. For some people, taking 50 mg of zinc will boost their immune system enough to keep them from getting sick. I suspect these people are deficient in zinc and once that is supplied in the right amount their immune system starts functioning correctly again.

Once of my students found that Pau d'arco is what has kept her immune system working properly. It may be that she was getting sick all the time from candida & the Pau d' arco has addressed that.

Calendula can be used for the immune system, I often make a tincture from the flowers, but also use the petals on salads.
This shows you how learning about a wide variety of herbs & ways to apply them for each person's needs is what is needed for using herbs correctly. I think a lot of times people think herbs don't work, but they've just used the wrong kind of herb for their body type, or the wrong dose, or a poor quality herb. So if you are comfortable working with the herbs & have that knowledge behind you, it becomes much easier to find the right herbs for the right purpose.


If you'd like to learn more about medicinal uses of herbs to use on yourself, friend, family, pets, or clients, take my 8 month distance learning herbalist course. Course work is posted on my forum. Much more info on my website. 
www.dragonflyherbals.com 


Or sign up her for the 8 month herbal, other herbal workshops held online, and reiki & chakra healing workshops:


http://dragonflyherbals.proboards.com/index.cgi