Its time to bring in the New Year and what better than to resolute Health, Long Life, and Vitality while steering free of colds and keeping your hair color!

I have some herbs along with some preparations to achieve such goals this year! I have some Chinese Herbs and some Western Herbs for you to use, and I will try to give you some tips on some of the easier herbs to aquire (local health food stores).

A New Year’s Resolution for a Healthier Life!

Let me start with the herbs before the preparations:
Goji / Gou Qi Zi / Wolfberry: Goji berry is up top for a couple reasons. Goji berries are really easy to get and available ready to go in a variety of ways. Basically all local health food stores including Trader Joes, Whole Foods, Henrys, and all the little guys too. The easiest way and I think the best way to take Goji berries is dried. Just buy them in a bag of dried berries (they look like little red raisins). You can just eat these straight out of the bag or use them in congee, kicharee, oatmeal, tea, or any other preparation. In Chinese Medicine Goji berries build blood and benefit the eye sight. Goji is rich in antioxidants and make for an easy step into a healthy year.

Astragalus / Huang Qi: Astragalus usually needs little introduction. Known in Chinese Herbal Medicine as Huang QI, this herb is known to be a staple herb to increase your immunity. A tip top immunity system is key to health and therefore longevity and vitality. In Chinese Medicine this herb is used quite a bit to increase and Qi and used to also build up that blood, therefore this is quite a tonic and strengthening herb! This should not be a tough herb to find.

Polygonum / He Shou Wu / Fo-Ti: He Shou Wu is a more or less another blood builder in Chinese Medicine, but this herb has more documented usage in recent times. This herb is very beneficial to the kidney and supports healthy kidney function. Lastly this herb has documented use of keeping your hair color well into your late years! Take this herb regularly and no need to worry about grey hair! You may need to get this one online or at a Chinese Herbal Store.

Reishi / Ling Zhi: By far the top of the heap of all Longevity herbs is the Reishi Mushroom. Ling Zhi has a healthy past showing incredible properties in Longevity and Vitality. Reishi is also anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-cancerous, and builds up immunity. Let me just give you some examples of usage of Reishi so you can understand why its the #1 herb for Longevity, Vitality, Health, and Endurance! Reishi is used to build immunity, treat and prevent cancer, herbal remedy for chronic fatigue syndrome, herbal AIDS treatment, and this herb was traditionally given to the Emperor daily in attempt to help the Emperor live forever! Ling Zhi comes in Purple, Black, Red, and maybe some others. Red Reishi is the optimum herb you want. This herb MAY be trickier to obtain, and it may be easier found in tablets or pills through an herbal supplement company. Make sure to use a reputable company as low grade powdered Reishi is pretty ineffective.

Ginseng / Ren Shen: I wont spend much time on this herb as it is pretty common. It is worth a note here though because it is a powerful tonic! ginseng when used in proper dose is great to build up your body and immune system.

As you can see building blood in Chinese Medicine is pretty important! The ‘blood’ in Chinese Medicine works to help with memory, eye sight, general health, fatigue, muscle/tendon health, and even sleep! Blood is burned out by losing sleep, over thinking, overactive lifestyle, and bad eating habits to name a few. So you can see the relationship of how most of us burn through ‘blood’ pretty quickly and therefore these tonic herbs can really be beneficial to our healthy lives!

Here are some simple recipe and preperations:
I am going to start with some easy ones I have already been given step by step instructions for!
Here is an Energy & Health Congee Recipe.
Simple Health and Longevity Kicharee.
Soup for Kidney Health and Support.
These food recipes are probably the easiest way to regularly take in the benefits of these herbs.
Alternatively try to add some to the rice when you cook rice, add Goji or others to your boiling water for oatmeal, or however you can.

Try a daily cup of tea:
3g Goji Berries / Gou Qi Zi
3g Huang Qi / Astragalus
3g Fu Ling / Poria
1g Zhi Gan Cao / Honey Fried Licorice
Decoct that down into some tea.

Add all of the herbs above including some others in equal parts in alcohol in a 4oz to 500ml ratio to make a tincture! Soak that for over 2 weeks and you take 30-60 drops daily.

Alternatively you can get the BEST Longevity and Vitality product on the market in the most potent way to take, as an Elixir. Elixirs are concentrated alcohol extractions that are similar to both teas and tinctures. They are a bit more complicated to make, but you can buy this recipe from Dimmak Herbs ready to go. Check out their elixir Longevity & Vitality Tonic that includes an excellent formula containing all of  these herbs listed plus many more.

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It is without a doubt the most common ailment out there is soreness or pain somewhere in the body. The most common of this problem is probably going to be muscle pain. Let’s discuss herbal and home remedies for pain and soreness.

The reason pain and soreness most of the time go hand in hand is because in herbal or Chinese medicine both are manifesting from the same problem, blockage! Whether you are talking about muscle pain, constricted muscle, pain anywhere, joint pain, back pain there is a blockage of Qi and blood to the area. This can cause coldness to set in the area, healing not to happen, area not getting nutrition it needs.

Blockage can happen several different ways. Self inflicted by working out and causing tearing of the muscle (normal), areas not getting used so circulation is low, coldness constricting the area, the body using self protecting mechanisms to contract and hold muscles, and many more. Most of the time all of these problems can be handled with herbs that move Qi and blood, including general pain or syndrome pain like fibromyalgia.

Wei Ling Xian / Clematis – Is an herb actually that is categorized to open blockages from what is called wind – damp or Bi syndrome (a problem that manifests similar to arthritis or other joint pain). Wei Ling Xian is an herb that regardless of category has a special focus on helping with pain. This is mainly thanks to its invigorating properties or movement properties. Wei Ling Xian can be used internally, soaks, liniments, poultices and more.

Dang Gui / Angelica Sinensis – Dan Gui (Chinese Angelica) is used as a tonic (blood tonic more specifically) and is heavily used in Chinese Medicine. I want to use Dang Gui as an example because it has a bit different use. Dan Gui also moves blood and is used in many external applications to move blood to an area, but it also has a soothing effect on the area. For example, Dang Gui is found in balms to help with burns and such. As you can see a bit different than Wei Ling Xian, Dang Gui can handle a bit different of pain. Externally used Dan Gui is very versatile; if you are wanting mostly the invigorating properties you should use the TAIL of the herb, or Dang Gui Wei.

Mo Yao & Ru Xiang / Myrrh & Frankincense – These two herbs deserve a part in this post because they are so widely used and respected for their invigorating properties. You will find Mo Yao and Ru Xiang in many formulas, especially external, for pain and blockage. Externally they make the base of most liniments and such, when taken internally a tincture is more common and low dosage is normal. You will find many arthritis patients that are seeking alternative medicine taking a tincture of these tree resins. Last great thing to say about Myrrh and Frankincense is they are quite inexpensive. I also realize that while I really never mention exotic herbs on here, some of the herbs I talk about aren’t easy to get unless you order online or go to a Chinese Herb Shop. Myrrh and Frankincense can be found even at most health food stores, so sourcing these 2 herbs should be easy for anyone.

San Qi / Tien Qi – Here we go again, my 1 Herb To Rule Them All. San Qi easily fits into this category for many reasons. San Qi reduces swelling, stops bleeding, invigorates the blood, and warms. You can see an almost complete package for pain relief but more commonly soreness and acute trauma. San Qi is in about every good external formula, but care should be taken internally especially if pregnant.

For most applications of these herbs a decoction is okay and easy to do. 3-9g of each herb can be taken in a decoction daily. Externally applied poultices can be made easily by making an even stronger decoction and applying externally with a cloth. Tinctures can be made as a 4 ounce herb to 500 ml of alcohol and soaked for 2-4 weeks. Liniments are by far the most potent and useful for soreness. Liniments are bit more complicated with herb dosages and amounts and soaked for 6 months to a few years. Therefore, liniments are best bought pre-made from a reputable seller.

Dimmak Herbs has many herbal liniments for externally treating many ailments. For soreness I would recommend Dimmak ‘19’ Liniment as it is a complicated formula that is very warming and makes soreness better on contact! Visit Dimmak Herbs’ Herbal Liniment Section to look over all the liniments you should ever need.

Balms are familiar to most people, they are jelly or wax bases used for a variety of problems. Tiger Balm is a popular balm or ointment that people use for external soreness. Here is what I like about Tiger Balm. Tiger Balm uses some of its Chinese roots to create a very popular balm, rather than Western over the counter applications that use a small percentage of menthol in a jelly base. What I like about Dimmak Herbs’ Dimmak ‘19’ Balm is that it uses an HERBAL blend that is infused into the oil based balm. Then the balm adds a good percentage of essential oils like Cajuput & Cassia. Tiger Balm is just 3 essential oils in a jelly base. This herbal infused oil in Dimmak ‘19’ Balm uses many of these invigorating properties and pain killers. This makes for the most superior yield of ointment application possible! I would also like to mention that Tiger Balm runs $11.00 per ounce, compared to half that of a product like Dimmak ‘19’ Soreness Balm. Alternatively look around at all the products for soreness: Soreness Herbal Remedies

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Can you believe the holidays have fallen upon us again? All those gyms you see everywhere, their business is built on us stuffing our faces full of food over the next month only to say to ourselves:

“I’ll join the gym for my New Year’s Resolution and lose all this weight!”

Some of us have to juggle 2-4 Thanksgiving dinners through the weekend from different sides of the family. Now lets not get too hasty and blame everything on everyone else. I know how delicious all of the food is and no body is forcing anyone to get that second platter! With 39 dishes in front of you, you have to have a whole serving of each one right? You don’t want to be rude!

Well, lets talk about some ways to help-

Obviously you can just not eat the food, but that’s probably what Glamour Magazine told you to do, so we will skip the obvious!
I posted last year some tips here:
Holiday Weight Management
So lets expand on what is already there…

Slow Down and Spread Out. This technique allows you to digest the food properly that you are taking in and give your body ample time to compute how much you have taken in and tell you are FULL! Eat slow, spread your eating out. Put only a little bit on your plate and a time and take more trips. This will allow much more time between the food intake for you know when to quit!

Don’t Skip Meals. This is probably the most damaging part of holiday meals especially Thanksgiving. You know you are going to eat a big meal so you don’t eat at all until then and you eat so much you don’t eat until the next day! So, if your dinner is scheduled at 1:00pm then make sure you have breakfast and only eat enough to make sure you eat dinner. If Thanksgiving is a dinner, then eat breakfast AND lunch. In order to prepare you body for an onslaught of food, try eating warm and easily digestible foods like soups and steamed vegetables.

Use Herbs! I am offering 3 great herb tips to use for Thanksgiving and Holiday Dinners this year.

• Shan Zha / Hawthorn Berry. This herb is in a category we call ‘Relieve Food Stagnation’. Does that sound like a good one or what? After you go full siege with the food and feel like you need to sleep for a week, this is when this herb comes in handy. There are 2 main points that make this herb great here. This herb ALSO lowers high blood pressure AND high cholesterol. This herb is readily available at health food stores in powdered drink form and already made drinks (Chinese Food Stores too).
• Chen Pi / Citrus Peel. Chen Pi promotes movement in the stomach area and prevents stagnation from happening. I believe fluid movement is a great way to help with keeping fit. If you keep movement happening you can continue to keep up your metabolism to burn in your food intake. I would suggest getting some at the herb store and taking in capsules or something before, during and after these heavy meals
• Chickweed. Chickweed does what some people imagine raw rice does when you eat it and then drink water. Eating a bunch of chickweed prior to meals will really plump up in your stomach and as soon as a little more food is added, your body is telling you that you are full! This herb is pretty easy to find and should be available at any health food store.

Let us also not forget our previous tip about eating a good source of fiber 30 minutes to an hour prior to meals. 2 pieces of extra fiber bread plain or as toast with some water before a meal will really fill you up quickly.

Keep the flow going. I mentioned some laxatives and ways to keep your bowels moving last year. This year I encourage a more natural way. Lets try flax seed for the natural oils and fiber content this year! If you would rather leave it up to some products I am recommending Dimmak Herb’s Bowel Regulator. This herbal supplement works to natural regulate the bowels and not simply just purge them!

My #1 tip this year - Daikon! Daikon is also known as Japanese Radish, East Asian Radish, Chinese Radish, and others. The flavor is more mild that regular radishes and makes a great soup. This herb is one of the greatest of all for our famous ‘Thanksgiving Carb comatose’! Simply make a soup or some other dish with a bunch of Daikon in it and eat it after these crazy meals. Feel the pain and bloating go away with each bite! There are many recipes online to try, so get what you need now! The Daikon will relieve the food stagnation and also stop any hiccup or burping you got from the large meal you ate!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

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Omega Fatty Acids, or EFAs, are considered ‘good fats’ and are an essential part of a healthy diet. Whilst most people tend to think that all fats are unhealthy, Omega Fatty Acids have a variety of health benefits including helping the body process cholesterol and degenerating arteries of cholesterol, assisting the adrenal and thyroid glands, and regulating blood pressure therefore becoming quite essential!

There are different varieties of Omega Fatty Acid, most notably Omega-3, Omega-6 and Omega-9 (carbon chains of 3). The final variety may be naturally produced by the body, however the first two Omega Fatty Acids cannot and therefore must be consumed either through Omega Fatty acid rich foods or via food supplements.

Omega-3, also known as Linolenic Acid or ALA, is perhaps the most well known of the EFAs and both Fish oil and flax seed are sources. Oily fish such as herring, salmon, sardines and anchovies contain high levels of Omega-3, with tuna also being a source but containing relatively lower quantities. Although fish is a source of Omega-3 Fatty Acids, they obtain them from algae in their diet, rather than producing the EFA themselves, and this later passes on to us via movements in the food chain.

Flax seed, also known as Linseed, is also a source of Omega-3 and is the other main source of Omega-3. Butternuts and Walnuts are also sources of Omega-3, but the percentage quantity of the EFA is far lower in these.

Regular consumption of Omega-3 is necessary for a healthy diet, and which source is most beneficial to your health is a question that deserves some coverage. Fish oil may be considered superior because it is an animal product, and because it is a direct source of EPA and DHA.

Flax seed may be a superior source of Omega-3 due to the fact that with oily fish there are health risks posed by the potential presence of heavy metals and fat-soluble pollutants such as dioxin. However, it should be remembered that many manufacturers have processes in place to both monitor and remove these contaminants. Flax seed is also considered by some to be superior because it is fiber rich, and also not a direct fat. Flax seed, or linseed, contains high levels of ALA which is one of the two Omega Fatty Acids the body needs, and the body can create all other Omega Fatty Acids that are needed once it has this ALA source. However, in doing so, relatively more flax seed must be consumed.

Another issue that people concerned with having a good source of EFAs in their diet may ask is whether they should obtain the Omega-3 source directly from the food or via food supplements. Although food supplements do offer the benefit that there is a regulated amount of the Fatty Acid, and therefore you can be ensured of how much of your RDA you are having, there have in recent years been many health scares related to food supplements and in particular with Omega-3 fatty acids. As an example, in 2006 the FSA in the UK was forced to temporarily withdraw a brand of Omega Fatty Acids supplement because of high levels of the toxic contaminant PCB. Although cost can be a contributory factor, it is almost always more beneficial to get your Omega Fatty Acids directly from the food source, not only because it is a more pleasant way or because there are less health risks but because in doing so you receive the other beneficial nutrients.
No suprise on my advise here. I believe you should know you are short on something before you start supplementing, making food choices superior. Omegas happen to be something needed weekly. If you eath fish 1-2 times a week (friday night sushi?) you probably get enough of your Omegas. Flax seed is a favorite of mine. I add to everything as it tastes good and adds fiber to your meals! Feel free to get more info on this, there are vast amounts of theories about ailments that come and go from lack of Omegas including fatigue!

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