"High blood pressure is our body’s response to the environment and the structural stresses we navigate daily. The body reflects the constant accumulation of stressors and their impact as they become integrated into our daily lives. It is sad to think that we may not even be familiar with how our bodies feel without stress. High blood pressure can also be the body’s response to going against the grain, swimming against the current, and not going with the flow. If we are continually directing everything that goes on around us, we cannot flow. Being a perfectionist reflects on heart health. Trust in your heart, and let it lead you to where you are supposed to be. In cases of high blood pressure, I remind my clients to center rest. Rest is radical in a world that rewards productivity. Often we are overreaching, overachieving, and overcomplicating our lives instead of just being. In my practice I have seen many people with issues connected to the heart have jobs in leadership or activism roles that lead to the heart’s overextension. To heal, the heart takes conscious work to develop new patterns that instill rest, sitting still, and finding and connecting to pleasure instead of constantly pressing forward. I remind my clients of this simple notion, the notion of being. [...]
Stress-Free Tea
This tea recipe is a preventative to stressors, and it is a great tea to relax the nerves and calm the heart when needed. It can be taken at bedtime, although the herbs do not have strong sleepinducing properties. I drink this tea throughout the day while working on stressful deadlines or needing to center myself when dealing with a heavy workload. It is a beneficial formula when healing high blood pressure. Yield: 4 cups (940 ml)
2 tablespoons (4 g) dried linden flowers
1 tablespoon (2 g) dried rose
1 tablespoon (2 g) dried hawthorn leaves and flowers
1 tablespoon (3 g) dried chamomile flowers
1 tablespoon (3 g) dried rosemary Honey (optional)
Place all the ingredients in a 1-quart (1L) wide-mouth mason jar. Pour boiling water over the herbs and fill the jar. Let the herbs infuse for at least 25 minutes, then strain off the plant material. Retain the tea, and discard the plants, or add it to a bath or footbath. If you desire, sweeten your tea with honey and enjoy it throughout your day. When stored in the fridge, herbal tea can last for 2 days.
Contraindications: Work with a doctor to use hawthorn if you are on heart medication, have ulcers, or have colitis. Do not use sprayed roses, or hybrid roses without scent or soul. Avoid long-term use of linden flowers, or if the user is allergic to it's pollen. If using rosemary honey, during pregnancy, avoid in large doses. Chamomile has no contraindications. However it does not support the first trimester of pregnancy. Be careful if taking antianxiety or other calming medications. More than 2 cups (475 ml) of the infusion can act as an emetic (make you throw up)."
— The Art & Practice of Spiritual Herbalism: Transform, Heal, and Remember with the Power of Plants and Ancestral Medicine by Karen M. Rose.
