Posted by Hombre on July 21, 2010, at 5:58:47
In reply to Re: Chinese Medicine)))Hombre, posted by Hombre on July 20, 2010, at 21:22:17
Sorry Lao, I'm latching onto your thread to keep adding information I think might be helpful to you and maybe others. It isn't necessarily aimed at anyone in particular, but I feel that it is tied in thematically with our ongoing conversation about herbal medicine. I appreciate your tolerating my posts.
Picked up "The Male Herbal" from the library today. From what I've read so far, I really like the author's message. He wants to empower people (not just men) to have some dignity and independence when it comes to taking care of themselves, and to concentrate on enhancing what is already "right" about themselves, and not falling into the mindset of "fixing" what's "wrong". Thus he sticks mostly to Western terminology and develops the idea that each of us, as individuals, can become our own personal herbalist.
Lao, you are already your own herbalist; your methodical approach to trying supplements is the same thing only you're using vitamins and minerals. Herbal formulas are no different. You don't have to worry about each individual herb just as you don't worry about the detailed biochemistry of each synthetic compound/vitamin you take (at least I don't think so). You eat them, and then you see how you feel. If it is helping your energy, continue. If after taking it long enough you find that it really does not help or even makes things worse, you drop it.
***
"As I briefly discussed in chapter 2, "Recycling Our Heritage," the effects of an herb on the human body are quite predictable. This predictability has been made possible for us by humanity's timeless history of observing the actions of each herb as it has been used internally and/or externally by myriad human beings. These well-documented actions of an herb are readily outlined in most herbal texts, but they are rarely understood my the modern-day reader and are casually regarded as peripheral information. The average reader tends to look for a "hit-medicine" that can be taken to eliminate a particular condition. We Western individuals are strongly conditioned to approach health care in this manner, but this is the manner in which allopathic science deals with disease, using a potent drug to override and counteract a body symptom. Individuals seeking alternatives to allopathic heroic chemical drugs turn to herbalism for its materia medica, but then usually continue to approach the use of these herbs in an allopathic fashion. This is not the most efficient method of for using herbs. Instead, one needs to reconsider the relationship inherent between the energy of herbs and the requirements of the human body, which is a self-healing organism. Normally, the spontaneously healing body does not need something to be done to it; rather, it readily uses allied supportive energy (herbal actions) and biochemically appropriate (easily assimilated) nutrients to supplement its inherently competent, self-healing, vital energy."
poster:Hombre
thread:954953
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20100703/msgs/955247.html