- Emotional Triggers-Why does comfort food seem like it tastes better when we are feeling a little blue, sad or lonely? These foods often have more sugar, which sends a shock of energy to our body and makes us feel a little lift in our spirits. And then, it sends us crashing down into an even darker sadness. Breaking cycles with eating bad foods during times of trauma helps you to become grounded and to have more clarity. The Gut is our first brain. Therefore balancing those emotions from having peaks and valleys is critical in having a healthy emotional eating habit. My favorite flower essence blend for these types of patterns is “Breaking Through” a careful blend of blackberry, cayenne, Indian paintbrush, sagebrush and walnut. This blend helped me to stabilize the emotional energetics that come from emotional eating.
- Whoa Gluten & Dairy! Yup that’s right, like many people I know my digestive track is sensitive to gluten and dairy. I tend to stay away from these delicious treats, but when I know they are going to be consumed I load up on probiotics and THS tea blend “The Smooth Operator”. Greek yogurt, Eva’s Herbucha and kefirs are a wonderful ways to get living probiotics into your digestive track. If you want to learn how to cook with Medicinal herbs check out Amanda Frankel and Chef Nige’s class on November 8th.
- Activate: By maintaining an active lifestyle on the daily this helps digestion to run regular. Take a little walk around your neighborhood, an urban hike or a stroll through your favorite park. If you are feeling a little sluggish give yourself a little shot of Mind Your Manna’s Garden Brew. This will help stimulate all parts of your body including your digestion. To learn all the benefits on Fire Cider check out Claire Porter’s class on making Fire Cider.
Digestion With Herbalist Amanda Furbee
Amanda FurbeeShare
November 2016: Digestion
With the harvest of her abundant gardens and vibrancy of red, orange & yellow falling leaves, Fall has peaked her brilliant face all around us. This time of year is a time for winding down from the summer, and reminding ourselves to slow down, to take a few extra deep breaths and ground down for the final season to come. Not only are we finishing up those final projects of the year and dreaming about the next, but also preparing for the Holiday celebrations that are always fast approaching. You can almost hear the snow falling, the smell of hot coffee roasting and feel the heat of a crackling fireplace. As your calendar begins to fill up with Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, Christmas & New Years plans, it is a good time to pause.
As a society, we are typically much more active from the first of the year till the fall. Not only does it feel natural to slow down with the change of the season, it becomes very easy to fall out of the patterns we have worked very hard to maintain over the past year. I encourage you to take a moment and write down all the things you have accomplished this year. Maybe you got a new job, fell in love, bought a house or even maintained better eating habits and a more active life style. No matter how big or small it was, pat yourself on the back. You did good!
I often find that if I can hold tight to new patterns for 1 year the habits tend to stick. However, with that being said its okay if we fall back. Don’t be too critical on yourself; just try to be more aware of what you are working on. Progress is often in baby steps, not in giant frog leaps. The next few months are important in breaking those cycles and beginning the new year fresh. During this year I shifted my focus on my eating habits and digestion. Whoa Nelly! Did I learn a lot!
Here is a little about what I learned: