Natural Health Remedies
For Your Body and Mind
Charlotte Sneddon - Natural Health Remedies Expert
Charlotte Sneddon
Hello. My name is Charlotte. In January 2007 I suffered a bad dose of flu, but never got better.
In fact, I got worse! I was very ill and was diagnosed with M.E. (also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Post Viral Syndrome/CF-IDS).
Doctors told me there was nothing they could do to help, and I might be ill for many years!
I was sure that natural health remedies would be able to help. I studied for diplomas in Herbalism, Nutrition and Flower Remedies, and have made huge improvements in health since my diagnosis.
Through my return to good health, I was inspired to create a website about the natural remedies which helped me. The website is not just about my personal journey to good health, but also includes lots of other useful natural health information, about many other illnesses and ill-health conditions, which I discovered along the way. See if the information in my website could help you too...?
The information contained on this site is not presented by a medical practitioner and is for educational and informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read.
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Natural Remedies for Headaches
Natural remedies for headaches are effective, gentle and soothing. Holistic remedies treat the cause of the headache, not just mask the pain.
Most importantly, they don’t have the same nasty side effects as conventional treatments. Natural remedies are certainly worth a second look….
Headaches are very common – and there are many different types of headache too…and just as many causes…
You can soldier on through some headaches, but some simply demand silence and a darkened room…
Painkillers are probably the first thing you reach for whenever you get a headache. Occasional use of mild painkillers shouldn’t be too much of a problem… but did you know that if you regularly use painkillers to dull your headache, you could actually be making it worse…?
Regular use of painkillers, means you end up needing to take more and more to get the same effect – so gradually making your headache worse and worse – until even your high strength painkillers don’t help!
This is just one, in a long list of nasty side effects that conventional painkillers have on your body. They also cause damage to the stomach, liver and kidneys – possibly leading to more health problems …. really, it’s not what you want!
Natural remedies for headaches are a gentle alternative …. and just as effective …. Just without the troublesome side effects.
Depending on the cause of your headache, there are lots of natural health remedies you might want to try. Some you can easily prepare in your kitchen, at home … others might require the skills of a trained practitioner … so it is up to you to choose the remedy that suits your situation best….
Treatments that you can take long term, with the help of a qualified practitioner, are acupuncture, acupressure, head and neck massage and osteopathy.
You may also find relaxation treatments are beneficial, especially for tension headaches. You can do these at home, or with a trained practitioner. Some you might want to try are: yoga, massage, hypnotherapy, massage.
You can also get more calming and relaxing effects by using Flower Remedies or the relaxation herbs, such as Camomile, Passion flower or Lemon Balm.
Why not try essential oils as a very effective natural remedy for headache, that can work in minutes. Aromatherapy essential oils that usually do the trick, are peppermint, lavender and rosemary. This usually involves a gentle head massage as well, or using hot or cold compresses on the head.
Some foods can affect your headache too. There may be foods that you are allergic to, or sensitive to. And there are food types that commonly cause headaches in lots of people – caffeine, chocolate, strong cheese, red wine, processed meats, additives and sweeteners. These can easily be avoided, once you have identified your triggers.
Certain foods can actually help with your headache – particularly spicy foods such as horseradish or cayenne pepper. These remedies are most useful for sinus headaches. This type of headache also responds well to steam inhalations too.
Herbal remedies that you can try at home include: Cayenne, Ginger, Peppermint, Passion flower, Valerian, Oregano and Ginkgo Biloba. Feverfew is said to be one of the best herbs for effective treatment of migraines.
I think one of the strangest natural remedies for headaches is warm cabbage leaves on the head…. Does it work …? I don’t know … I’ve never tried it! But it is meant to be very effective!
Whether you choose to put cabbage leaves on your head, or not, is completely up to you. Natural remedies for headaches are gentle, versatile and actually very effective.
Well worth a try – you may find you never go back to the painkillers…!
Natural Health Articles
More articles are being added all the time, so check back often
Yeast Infection
A yeast infection can be far more far reaching than you ever thought. Yeast infections can spread to your entire body, and be very harmful to your health…
So if you have any of the obvious symptoms of a yeast infection, such as thrush, jock itch, ringworm, white coated tongue, athlete’s foot or a fungal nail infection, you should be aware that these could indicate a more serious infection inside your body.
There are other more innocuous symptoms too, which could easily pass unnoticed in busy modern lives. These could indicate a serious yeast infection inside your body, which could easily lead to more serious health problems.
Symptoms to look out for include: bloating, wind, constipation or diarrhea, food cravings, sensitivities and intolerance's, sinus problems and runny nose, cystitis, fatigue, depression, irritability, feeling spaced out, brain fog.
Yeast infections inside the body start in the gut. Yeast (also known as candida albicans) lives normally in the gut in a healthy individual. It is usually kept in check by ‘friendly bacteria’ which lives in the gut too. Sometimes the yeast gets out of control – a ‘yeast overgrowth’ – this is when it starts to cause you health problems.
There are conventional treatments, and natural health remedies for candida yeast problems – but none will be entirely effective unless you get your diet sorted.
What you eat can have a huge effect on the bacteria living in your insides. The yeast itself feeds on sugar, and as it feeds on sugar it creates a nasty waste product (called acetaldehyde) which is highly toxic to the body. As the yeast feeds and grows stronger, it creates long roots, which burrow into the walls of your gut and causes leaky gut syndrome (hideous thought, huh?)
So clearly sugar should be top of your list of foods to avoid! This is not just sugar added to tea or coffee – it is all sugar! Sugar in processed foods, cakes, pastries, even white bread. You should also avoid the natural sugars in fruit, or in derivatives such as fructose, lactose, maltose and dextrose.
Other foods could also be affecting your yeast overgrowth. So as well as natural and refined sugars, also avoid: alcohol, yeast products, smoked and cured products (such as meat and kippers), fermented products (such as vinegar or soy sauce), caffeine (tea and coffee), chocolate, dairy and cheese (except for ‘live’ yogurt), mushrooms, nuts and any foods you are allergic to.
Don’t panic and think you might have to be on this strict diet forever. After a few weeks you may be able to reintroduce fruits and then other food stuffs more gradually.
To avoid yeast overgrowth in the future, though, it is still advisable to steer clear of refined sugars, and sugars in processed foods, such as cakes, pastries and white bread.
Follow a healthy diet of raw and cooked vegetable, some fruit (later on) and whole grains. The most effective food that you can include in your yeast-free diet is ‘live’ yogurt. Live yogurt contains the ‘friendly bacteria’ that you need to bring a healthy balance back to your gut, and to help keep candida yeast under control. (You can also buy probiotic supplements which contain the same ‘friendly bacteria’.)
The yeast free diet will work very well to kill off yeast overgrowth, and maintain a healthy balance of bacteria in your gut – but it may take quite a while.
For faster results, you may want to check out herbal remedies for yeast infection. These are very effective at removing the yeast overgrowth, and in combination with the yeast free diet, should keep you completely yeast free in the future.
Useful herbs for this purpose are: garlic, barberry, pau d’arco, grapefruit seed extract, olive leaf, oregano oil, tea tree oil, peppermint, rosemary, echinacea.
Natural Remedy for Acid Reflux
Discover your own best natural remedy for acid reflux.
Understand the causes, and find out why conventional treatments could actually be making you worse!
Learn which herbal remedies could help you out...
The pain from acid reflux and heartburn can be quite intense and quite scary.
And did you know that using antacids may actually be making your problem worse?
I will show you how a natural remedy for acid reflux and heartburn is definitely your best solution…
Acid reflux happens when some partly digested foods and stomach acids, come back up, from the stomach into the esophagus (food pipe).
This can cause a number of symptoms, including burping, belching, indigestion and heartburn.
The pain is actually caused by the strong acids from the stomach, irritating the delicate lining of the esophagus (food pipe).
Although heart burn and acid reflux may seem to be a minor irritation, it should never be ignored. Repeated symptoms over a number of years could lead to inflammation and damage of the delicate esophageal lining, and serious health problems.
Conventional treatments, such as antacids, may temporarily soothe your symptoms. But do take care, as repeated use can actually make your problems worse. Frequent use of antacids can cause an increase in stomach acid (called ‘rebound acid’) when you stop taking them – which, of course, makes the problem even worse!
Conventional treatments can have some nasty side effects too – including headaches, rashes, anxiety, confusion and depression – all things you can very well do without!
I think it is best to take a natural approach to acid reflux and heartburn.
The main factor in this natural approach is learning about the causes of acid reflux, and avoiding them. This will certainly clear up any future problems of this kind…
Causes for acid reflux are actually quite simple – over-eating, twisting or lying down after eating, tight clothing around the stomach, stress,
cigarette smoke and alcohol. Certain foods can bring on symptoms too – mints, onions, chocolate, fatty foods, caffeine, white sugar, cakes and
pastries, spicy foods, tomatoes, citrus fruits.
To avoid symptoms, you should aim to eat your meals in a relaxed manner, chewing well. Don’t overeat, and don’t lie down or sit awkwardly afterwards.
As well as these causes, which you can now avoid, there are herbal natural remedies for acid reflux, which can help considerably – especially when you are sat in pain from indigestion, heartburn or acid reflux.
Herbal remedies are a gentle and effective solution – and really work…
The best herbal remedies to try are: liquorice, marshmallow root, slippery elm, aloe vera and calendula (marigold). These are most effective taken as a tea – but can also be taken as a capsule, or tincture, if more convenient.
Natural Hayfever Remedies
Does the sight of a summer meadow fill you with dread? Or the sound of a lawn mower starting up send you running for cover? Then take a look at these effective natural hayfever remedies - and have a pleasant summer...
At this time of year, we all hope that the sun will be shining! If it does, though, it can mean misery for millions of hayfever sufferers around the world.
In recent years, hayfever, and allergies to grass and tree pollen, are becoming more and more common – especially amongst children and teenagers.
Hayfever can make your life a misery – streaming eyes, itching, runny nose, headaches, sore throat, sneezing and congestion… you look and feel like you have a severe cold …. Yet you are strangely expected to soldier
on regardless..!
For some people, hayfever even has further implications – making you feel run down, tired and irritable.
Conventional hayfever treatments don’t always work. Sometimes, when you use a treatment week after week, year after year, it loses its
effectiveness. Or sometimes you have to go for stronger and stronger treatments every time.
Many people, myself for one, are concerned about the effects that conventional hayfever drugs have on the body. Surely taking chemicals over a whole summer every year, can’t do anyone any good…!
Personally, I was getting to the point where conventional hayfever treatments barely worked, and left me with a whole host of other side
effects and complaints instead. Another summer of feeling sick and ill – no thanks, there must be another way!
Natural remedies for hayfever are the obvious alternative – but do they really work?
Well, they did for me!
There are a whole host of natural remedies for hayfever to try out. Most are best taken as a long term remedy, starting several months before the hayfever season actually kicks in – so try and remember to start early next year!
Some do actually work fairly quickly though – to give effective and natural hayfever relief.
One of the best choices for all kinds of allergy symptoms is Vitamin C. Don’t just content yourself with the tiny doses of Vitamin C present in multi-vitamins. What we need for effective allergy relief is mega doses!
Vitamin C needs to be taken in doses of around 1000 to 3000 mg per day to have a noticeable effect on the immune system and allergy relief – but it is really effective.
Other supplements which help protect against hayfever, and other allergies, are garlic and fatty acids.
Garlic is a great, all round health-giver. Swallowing one fresh, peeled clove per day is ideal – but not for the faint hearted! Capsules are a
socially acceptable alternative! Again high doses are important in this treatment, so if you are taking capsules, aim for around 4-5000 micrograms of active ingredient allicin per day.
Also include capsules of fish oils and evening primrose oil to complete your supplementation program.
Herbal teas can be a very pleasant way of taking natural remedies for hayfever – just swap one or two of your usual tea or coffee drinks for restorative herbal teas. The best teas to choose for relieving hayfever symptoms are peppermint, elderflower, feverfew, and nettle.
It is an excellent idea to add a spoonful of honey to any of these teas. Honey is another effective remedy for hayfever, and can be added to teas, chewed as honeycomb, or just taken on a spoon. Local honey is the most effective in soothing symptoms, as it is made by bees from the pollen of local plants and flowers. This gently and gradually builds up the body’s natural immunity to the local pollen.
Another really effective treatment is liquorice. Liquorice works in a similar way to cortisone – which is the substance that many conventional hayfever treatments use in their remedies. Use whole liquorice, and do pay attention to any contraindications listed, before you take it.
Homeopathic treatments are really popular, and effective as well – these should be taken well before the hayfever season starts, for the best effect. It is advisable to consult a qualified homeopath, who can advise you on the most suitable homeopathic treatment for you.
Natural remedies for hayfever can take a little forward planning and organisation. But there is no doubt that the results can be well worth the extra effort.
Not least is the thought that you are not subjecting your body to weeks or months of chemicals and unpleasant side effects.
And on a personal note, I would like to say that with using only natural remedies for hayfever this year, my symptoms have been the best they have ever been.
Summer meadows and lawn mowers? No fear!
Natural Remedies for Anxiety – Relax and Take Control of Your Worries
Are you anxious, fretful and worried? It’s not nice it is..?
Discover how natural remedies for anxiety can help you feel more relaxed and in control of your worries and concerns … not the other way round!
Anxiety is actually a natural and normal part of everyday life … but this is not much comfort when your anxiety starts to take over your life!
If you have long term concerns and worries, anxiety can soon start to get you down…
This can cause physical symptoms, emotional upsets and mood swings. Over a period of months or years you can risk putting your body into a prolonged state of stress … this does a lot of physical damage to your body, and can make you very ill indeed.
So it is definitely worth looking for holistic remedies for anxiety that can give you a new outlook on life and a lasting and long term solution to your worries and anxieties.
With herbal remedies for anxiety, you have to be careful not to take them at the same time as conventional anxiety medications, except under the guidance of your doctor.
But, these other holistic remedies for anxiety work very well to relax you, and soothe your anxieties … with or without conventional or herbal anti-anxiety treatments.
It has been proven that anxiety sufferers who practice ‘mindfulness meditation’ techniques showed much improvement in their anxiety symptoms. The improvements increased the longer the patients continued the meditation techniques.
The ideal state of mind for meditation is one of relaxed awareness … when the mind is empty, yet ‘aware’. It is the same state of mind as when the body is asleep, yet the mind itself is still alert.
The best way of getting into this state is by focusing on something. This could be something visual (commonly a single candle flame), a physical movement (as in yoga or t’ai chi), a breathing pattern or a spoken mantra.
It is possible to learn to meditate on your own, at home, through books, CD’s or DVD’s. You can also learn in a group, with an experienced teacher, who can guide you into the correct state of mindful relaxation.
Many meditation techniques are allied to specific faiths, but the principle of focus and relaxed awareness is the same … and this is the factor which brings the relaxation and benefit.
You should make sure that you practice meditation regularly to gain the most benefit for your anxiety problem.
Hypnotherapy takes advantage of a similar state of mind to the deep relaxation of meditation.
When the mind and body are in this deep state of calm and relaxation, the unconscious mind is still alert and very receptive to suggestions made at this time.
This is how hypnotherapy works to make suggestions to a willing and receptive mind, of how the person could react to potentially anxious situations in the future.
You should always work with reputable hypnotherapy practitioners when treating anxiety in this way. But you can achieve very effective and long
lasting results through hypnotherapy, although several sessions may be required to see the full benefits.
You can also use pre-prepared audio hypnotherapy sessions for use at home. These take you through easy relaxation techniques to put you in the required state of deep relaxation, and makes therapeutic suggestions to help ease your anxiety.
Other relaxation techniques can also help to control anxiety, such as controlling breathing patterns, massage or acupuncture.
Natural Cold Remedies - Feel Better This Winter
Find out how natural cold remedies could be your best health defence this year, against the dastardly attack of the winter cold…!
So, it’s getting round to that time of year again …. The weather is turning autumnal, leaves falling and the start of the cold season!
Colds just seem to be a part of every day winter life. Every year you seem to get at least one, and often it lingers for far longer than it should…
Did you know that conventional medicines might not be helping you out at all when you have a cold? (That’s in spite of the promises to have you up and about in no time at all)!
We are constantly being told that antibiotics don’t work on colds and flu – but antibiotics could actually make you worse, as they kill off all
bacteria in your body – and we need some of it (the ‘good bacteria’) to help our bodies work properly!
Even if you heed the warnings, and don’t take antibiotics unnecessarily, over-the-counter cold and flu remedies may still be doing you more harm than good. Recent studies have found that products containing aspirin and paracetamol can actually inhibit the body’s own healing processes. They can make your cold last longer, and can actually make symptoms, such as a stuffy, blocked nose, worse!
If all this can’t convince you, then perhaps reading the side effects from conventional cold relief treatments will. Unpleasant side effects include drowsiness and faintness, congestion and headaches and insomnia.
Natural cold remedies are definitely the way to go, and can make your symptoms less troubling, while the length of your illness will be likely to be much shorter.
Top of the list is to allow your body to rest and recuperate a little while, and keep well hydrated, by drinking plenty of fluids.
Echinacea has had a lot of publicity in recent years, as a wonder-herb for colds, and rightly so – it is very effective at cutting short your illness.
You get the best results by taking a high dose of Echinacea, as soon as you feel symptoms coming on, and while they continue. (Don’t take it as a preventative measure every day, or for longer than 8 weeks at a time.)
You should be aware that Echinacea works by flushing the toxins out of your system – so you may feel a little worse for a short while, while this is happening. But the results will be worth it, and your illness will be of much shorter duration.
Other really good supplements to take are Zinc and Vitamin C. Again, taking a high dose as you feel symptoms coming on, works really well.
You might like to take some soothing herbal teas and drinks – these will definitely ease your symptoms and make you feel a lot better. Try Ginger, Lemon and Honey, Nettle or Blackcurrant Teas.
Other natural cold remedies you may like to try are herbal steam inhalations, a ginger root foot bath, natural salt water nasal sprays, and herbal chest and gland rubs.
There are plenty of options to try, that will make you feel better. Soon your cold will be gone, and without any lingering after effects this time..!
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