Pain relief, the doshas & lymph

It's a long story, but the short version is that I temporarily lost my writing space at the kitchen table. That's been resolved (inshallah) so let's get back on track, shall we? I missed you, did you miss me? When I don't write here, the emails dry up. I gets lonesome! 

lol.

This is a post I found half written in draft and finished today .. 

Here's another example of how different the treatment of pain from the herbalists' perspective is from what we're used to; there isn't really such a thing as an everyday, overall pain reliever - that I know of - in herbal medicine. It seems there's no equivalent to popping a Tylenol.

Medicine chest 5: herbs that reduce tension

I've written about the physical/emotional feedback system elsewhere, in a post I called "Got inflammation? Maybe you're angry."  You might want to go and read that post before you read this one ..

Essentially, the idea is that the effects of stressful emotional states aren't limited to the psychological, they reach into the body, too. The psychological signs of overload bypass our notice because we're just too focused elsewhere to pay attention; when that happens tension can settle into a joint or an organ or a system. It's a bit of a clusterfuck, too, because physical tension anywhere in the body can be so damn stressful!!

Relieving physical tension has the nifty side effect of helping us to think more clearly so we can get to the root of the problem, be it a physical or psychological issue (or both, it's often both). Herbal remedies really shine here because (for the most part) they're curative rather than palliative. I've never found that a steady diet of tylenol cleared anyone's mind .. lol.

Anyway, here are the allies I've found most useful for myself (and other people I've used as guinea pigs) ..