St John’s Wort (Hypericum perferatum)

This herb is a favorite among herbalists, the small yellow flowers and aerial parts of this amazing herb are used to treat mild to moderate depression and anxiety for thousands of years. In recent times the standardised extract of Hypericum has shown to benefit in alleviating depression and anxiety. St John’s wort’s additional benefit is that it is a gentle sedative and is useful in treating insomnia.

The flowers contain hypericin, and hyperforin both considered to be vital components in the mood lifting action of this herb; and their compounds is enhanced by the flavenoid glycosides naturally found in this plant.

Caution is warranted if you are taking warfarin, digoxin and some drugs used to treat HIV (indinavir and nevirapine), chemotherapy medications such as irinotecan, and antihistamines, benzodiazepines and simvastatin. Consulting your health care practitioner is advisable before beginning any new medication and in the case of St John’s Wort, it is recommended to discontinue for seven days before a general anaesthetic.

Passionflower (Passiflora incarnata)

Passionflower has a tranquilising affect on the nervous system and is indicated specifically for anxiety and insomnia. With a reputation as non habit forming medication for anxiety, passionflower has been indicated in preparations for alcohol, nicotine and opiate withdrawal. This herb is extremely gentle in its action and should be considered for insomnia associated with anxiety before using Valerian.

Valerian Root (Valeriana officinalis)

Valerian root is possibly one of the most pungent herbs in use. This strong smelling herb is famous for being the plant that Valium was derived from. It is one of the more potent calmatives in use and care should be taken when using valerian for more than three weeks for insomnia associated with anxiety. Valerian can cause drowsiness and prolonged use may disrupt deep sleep which can lead to tiredness, even after a full night´s sleep.

Skullcap (Scutilaria lateriflora)

Skullcap is recommended for nervous tension due to long term stress, disease or fatigue; including neuralgia, insomnia as well as depression. This herb is considered to be useful in coping with the withdrawal effects of anti-depressant medication and has also works in relieving headache, anxiety and mild pain; giving Skullcap the reputation as a nervous system tonic. Skullcap is often used where relaxation is a required and may make some users drowsy.

Other natural herbs that have been used for depression treatment.

• False Unicorn - (Chamaelirium luteum)
• Thyme - (Thymus vulgaris)
• Mugwort - (Artemisia vulgaris)
• Fennel - (Foeniculum vulgare)
• Yerba Mate - (Ilex paraguariensis)
• Yellow Dock - (Rumex crispus)
• Vervain - (vervain-herbs.html)
• Wormwood - (Artemisia absinthium)
• Self Heal - (Prunella vulgaris)
• Borage - (Borago officinalis)
• Sweet Orange - (Citrus sinensis)
• Sweet Basil - (Ocimum basilicum)
• Blessed Thistle - (Cnicus benedictus)

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What Is an Alternative Therapy?

A health treatment that is not classified as standard Western medical practice is referred to as complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAM encompasses a variety of approaches. They include everything from diet and exercise to mental conditioning and lifestyle changes. Examples of CAM therapies include:

• Acupuncture
• Aromatherapy
• Biofeedback
• Chiropractic treatments
• Guided imagery
• Dietary supplements
• Hypnosis
• Massage therapy
• Meditation
• Relaxation
• Yoga

Which Herbal Supplements Can Help Depression?

There is a wide variety of herbal supplements that people believe can treat many illnesses. For depression, St. John's wort is a common herbal supplement that is used.

St. John's wort has been used for medical purposes in other parts of the world for thousands of years. But research findings have been mixed.

Using an herbal supplement requires caution and should be taken only after consulting your doctor. This is because supplements could interact with medicines that you are also taking, and use could be dangerous for people with certain conditions. Your doctor can help you weigh the risks and potential benefits. That way, you can make an informed decision.

Is Meditation or Yoga Helpful for Depression?

Meditation is sometimes described as an altered state of consciousness. Meditation can help promote relaxation, which has been found to be helpful for depression. 

There is some evidence to suggest that yoga may be helpful for depression, but the evidence is not conclusive. Yoga involves meditation with physical postures, breathing techniques, and relaxation. Yoga practices vary, and some may not be recommended to people with certain medical conditions. In addition to meditation and yoga, you can use a number of other approaches such as progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, or music therapy.

How Does Massage Therapy Boost Relaxation?

Massage uses touch to help provide relaxation. Most touch therapies are based on the premises that the mind and body are interconnected and that physical health and emotional well-being are closely linked. The belief is that, when the body is relaxed, the mind contributes to better health, less depression, and overall well-being.

There are also reports that mind/body exercises used with various types of bodywork can boost feelings of calmness.

How Does Exercise Help Ease Depression?

Different forms of exercise can lower stress, relax you, and help reduce symptoms of depression. Exercise can also increase your energy, balance, and flexibility. In general, exercise is a safe, effective, and easy way to improve your well-being. Check with your doctor before starting a new program.

What Is Guided Imagery?

Guided imagery is also called visualization. It is a method of communication between body and mind that utilizes perception -- vision, smell, taste, touch -- along with position and movement to produce a relaxation response. Guided imagery involves mentally seeing pictures of relaxing situations, such as a sunset on the beach, a flowing mountain waterfall, or a brilliant mountain sunrise.

As you use all your senses during imagery, you will actually make an effort to:

• Smell the flowers and trees.
• Feel the breeze or temperature.
• Feel the texture of the surface under your feet.
• Hear all the sounds in nature.

While some people are better at imagining than others, anyone can master this simple relaxation technique. You can use guided imagery during massage or another touch therapy to boost your relaxation and your feelings of serenity and peacefulness. Much like learning to play the piano or tennis, becoming skilled at guided imagery involves time, patience, and practice. It is one relaxation skill that cannot be rushed or hurried.

Can Music Therapy Lift Moods?

Music therapy has been shown to be an effective non-drug approach for people of all ages that assists in reducing fear, anxiety, stress, or grief. Music can be thought of as a natural tranquilizer for the human spirit.

Pythagoras, the sixth century B.C. philosopher and mathematician, is thought to have been the founder of music therapy. During World War II, the Veterans' Hospitals had volunteers who played their music for the wounded soldiers. The results were so positive that the VA added music therapy programs.

In its simplest form, all you need to incorporate music therapy is a CD player or mp3 player with headphones. Then choose music -- from New Age "mood" music to rock to classical -- that matches your personal needs, moods, and tastes.

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TO DO:

• Stop smoking cigarettes
• Question authority
• Go barefoot when possible
• Keep footwear dry
• Drink more water
• Grow a food garden
• Get male body educated
• Get regular non-sexual body massage
• Sauna when possible
• Choose a rational spirituality=not a faith-based fantasy
• Wear long hair
• Sleep enough; nap to tolerance
• Eat plenty of good, clean fats
• Mate for health & love
• Do Yoga/Tai Chi
• Eat mostly organic fruits and vegetables
• Ejaculate to tolerance
• Seek safe, clean work/employment
• Minimize toys: movies, TV, video games, car toys, non-productive vehicles
• Play local sports, especially team sports
• Do vigorous work/activity daily
• Do productive violent work/play at least weekly
• Acknowledge health worries and health problems: Depression, Rage/Anger, Loneliness Urinary Symptoms/ Problems, Constipation, Skin Problems, ED
• Accept Hair Loss
• Eat Zinc-rich foods: shellfish seaweeds, and most seafood, pumpkin seeds, eggs, raw meat
• WALK AT LEAST 2 MILES DAILY

DON’T DO:

• Stop Smoking cigarettes
• Avoid deodorants
• Avoid soap on skin
• Stop shaving
• Stop all coffee, sports drinks, carbonated candy drinks
• Avoid Hair dyes and make-up
• Stop wearing underpants
• Avoid White bread, white sugar, white treated salt, pasteurized white milk
• Avoid factory meats and animal products

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Herbs and Men's Health

 Some Notes and Thoughts

 

MALE USE OF HERBS

Essentially all of my male patients are self-medicating, most with various herbal products, including some of the most powerful and addicting herbs. We are a self-medicating society. I believe that the general use of physiologically strong herbs and taste and odor masking herbs both confounds and impairs effective therapeutic herbal medicine. It is my strong belief that smelling, tasting, touching herbs used medicinally is an important part of herbal therapy. If addictive and masking herbs have dulled both a man's basic body metabolism and senses of taste and smell, I believe he will tend to not respond positively to gentle and tonic herbal medicines. This might explain why many men remain uninterested in herbal medicine or find it inadequate: their bodies are not sensitive enough due to deliberate chronic desensitization in an effort to tolerate a basically unpleasant life reality. Many of the herbs listed below are not even considered by the men who use them as either herbs or herbal medicines. Often, only direct questioning will reveal the use of coping and masking herbs by men.


The most ubiquitous strong addicting herb is COFFEE (Coffea Arabica). The people of the United States consume over 40% of world coffee production whilst comprising less than 5% of the world probable total human population, even though no coffee grows in the continental United States. Our addictive needs have obliterated scores of indigenous cultures in the tropics and subtropics to maintain our supply of this harmful plant. It is our favorite nervine as well as a powerful habituating laxative, diuretic, painkiller (raises the pain threshhold considerably in most humans often without any notice on the part of the user but often obvious to non-coffee users), and mood changer. A scary factoid is that coffee is the most heavily pesticided food(????) crop and the third most heavily pesticided crop after tobacco and cotton.


The second most important herb used by 25-30% of men (still, the fools) is TOBACCO(Nicotiana tabacum), usually taken as inhaled smoke with the attendant carbon monoxide poisoning and rapid depressant effect; one ingredient, nicotine, blocks clear nerve transmission by attaching to acetylcholine receptor sites in the neural gap, in both the body and the brain. Smokers have a greater susceptibility to all of the main male killers; particularly cardivascular and cancer ailments as well as the obvious perpetual bronchitis and progressive emphysema, coughing their respective paths to their respective graves. Primary lung tumor is usually a consequence of tobacco smoking. Chronic smoking is suicide and obvious self abuse. Except when doing charity work for drug rehab centers and acute or first aid cases, I do not see patients that regularly smoke tobacco or other substances voluntarily. I feel that the herbs I have to offer can not compete with willful tissue destruction and nervous system poisoning. I ask for at least 60 days of no smoking

.

HOPS (Humulus lupulus) is another nervine and male libido and testicular suppressant, usually self-administered as a weak alcohol (ethyl alcohol), 3-9%, extract. In some rather interesting experiments, it was determined that the hops extracts in beer were far more addicting and habituating than the weak ethanol content. Consumption of weak hops extracts may be a way of suppressing xenohormonal disruption of male hormone balance from xenoestrogens and various growth hormones particularly from meat products and soy.

CAYENNE(Capsicum frutescens) is a superb vascular stimulant and vegetable, although the claim for oral abuse is partially valid. In many men it is used as a covert laxative and heart stimulant. In others it is used as a way to ignore taste buds deadened by smoking or bored with otherwise insipid repetitive food. Its use by the police of the oligarchy is herbal as well as citizen abuse. In Seattle recently at the WTO debacle, it was the police who were the terrorists. Who will protect us from the police? What herb will stop corporate brutality?




CINNAMON (Cinnamomum spp.) is an aromatherapy libido booster for many men (and women) and a super systemic hemostat (as is cayenne.) Cinnamon is probably the most benign of the popular self-medicating herbs. A drop of cinnamon oil in the hair or under the pillow can enhance a romantic encounter. Its use in food complements the usual extremely hyperglycemic foods which trigger a strong insulin response immediately after being eaten. These are the famous cinnamon buns and similar sugary baked foods.




MARIJUANA(Cannabis spp.) is another popular self-medicating herb used as a coping herb to deal with overwhelming pain, personal and sociological. It has a great future as a medical herb once the Federal government leaves the personal drug business (ethyl alcohol beverages) and no longer is compelled to eradicate competing substances.





I am not certain about Piper nigrum, BLACK PEPPER; it is slipped into the diet regularly as a simple spice but its ubiquitous presence smacks of habituation if not addiction. I agree with Buchanan's speculations that it acts as a subtle stimulant as some of its compounds are converted to amphetamines in the body. I find it a burning obnoxious herb that also acts as a urogenital iritant in men with particularly sensitive urinary mucosa. Something to remember when a man presents with a history of painful urination: ask about black pepper consumption.
  



  HORSERADISH (Amoracia rusticana) root preparations are used to add a hot spicey flavour to food; the fire is often the dominant oral sensation, with other tastes and odors nearly completely suppressed. I am not sure if this is just to excite a tired and insensitive palate or to mask the dullness of the same old boring food day after day. Herbally, regular consumption of horseradish can be a very effective therapy for alleviating and preventing protein-over consumption-induced gout; the fresh leaves eaten regularly in salads are less intense than the grated root. Regular horseradish consumption may also by cryptic self-medication for chronic urinary tract infections. For some men, too much horseradish presents as penile pain within the urinary tract, burning urine.
Coffee, Hops, Tobacco, Marijuana, Cinnamon, and Black Pepper are all herbs used to treat coping disorder. I believe most of my American and Canadian male patients self-medicate to treat chronic depression. This ongoing pandemic male cultural depression masks, confounds, and exacerbates other genuine organic physiological negative health problems. To me, there is no such entity as a "psychological problem"; no body, no psyche. Psychological problems are an avoidance construct of the oligarchy to maintain oppression. Watch a man "go crazy", and analyze the stressors. They are usually a combination of physiological and punitive cultural insults, especially economic oppression.
Cayenne and horseradish are dietary masking herbs with secondary positive physiological effects. They also desensitize the tongue and palate while their respective burning actions dominate the immediate eating experience with the near complete loss of more delicate and nuanced tastes and odors. Excess salt (sodium chloride) is used similarly.

Traditionally, occupation, climate, and geography have determined pathology in men. Involuntary young males were used as human brushes during the early days of large chimneys; lowered by ropes and chains, their bodies and clothing scuffed away the accumulated soot and creosote inner chimney plaque; their occupational hazard was a high rate of scrotal cancer.

 

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Botanical Medicine

What is botanical medicine? Simply put, they are plants (or substances that come from plants) that are used to treat or prevent disease. Plants have been used in this way in all cultures from pre-history on.

Are botanical medicines the same as herbal remedies?

Many people use the term herbal remedies, which is fine. We call them botanicals because, technically, the term botanical medicine is more inclusive and includes plant parts that are not strictly herbs, such as bark, seeds, roots, and stems.

Why are botanical medicines sometimes called dietary supplements?

Dietary supplement is a government category that determines how substances are sold and regulated. Some fast facts:

• In the United States, the vast majority of botanical medicines are classified as dietary supplements. (A few botanicals, such as digitalis leaf, are classified as pharmaceutical drugs.)

• Dietary supplements also include vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other ingredients.

• Dietary supplements are found in many forms such as tablets, capsules, gelcaps, liquids, powders, or even a bar. They are regulated under the larger umbrella of food, not drugs.

• The law regulating dietary supplements is different from that regulating pharmaceuticals. One difference is that manufacturers of dietary supplements cannot claim that they treat or prevent disease, only that their products affect structure and function. (See Are Botanical Medicines Safe? for more details.)

Why should I learn about botanical medicines?

Have you ever wondered if a botanical really works? Or if there were any risks in taking it? Or even if the brand you are taking is good? These are all great questions that deserve answers.
Research shows that many botanical medicines offer health benefits, often without some of the risks or side effects of pharmaceutical drugs. However:

• Botanicals are not always without risk, so you should be aware of possible adverse reactions.
• Botanicals are not always cheap, so you want to make sure you are getting the right, quality product.

In short, learning about botanical medicines can help you get the most benefit while reducing the risks.

Who is using botanical medicines?

You are not alone in your interests in botanical medicines. In the U.S., botanical medicines are one of the most popular and rapidly growing of all complementary therapies. In 2010, the global retail sale of botanical dietary supplements amounted to more than $25 billion, according to Nutraceuticals World. With this buying power, the more the American public knows about botanicals, the more it can influence good government regulations and reward manufacturers who produce quality products.

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