No herbalist comes into the world knowing everything there is to know about plant medicine. We learn from one another. We learn from experience. We learn from the plants. I’m incredibly grateful to the many people who influenced my study and helped bring this book together.

Herbalist Michael Moore, with whom I studied at the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine, remains my most influential teacher. He opened my eyes to the body systems and made me realize how utterly fascinating the nexus of herbal medicine and the human body can be. Although I have learned remedy-making techniques from many other herbalists, Michael’s unique techniques remain my favorite and can be found in this book. Though we lost this herbal icon in 2009, his profound contributions to the herbal community live on through his books, course, wife, and students.

To round out my education, I’m grateful to many other herbal teachers: Rosemary Gladstar is not only a wonderful herbalist but also probably the most inspiring human being I have ever met. Nancy and Michael Phillips introduced me to the way of living herbs. Christine Tolf taught me to look beyond the more chemical aspect of herbs and work with flower essences. Other people who greatly influenced my approach to herbs — through reading their work and interviewing them for articles — include Mary Bove, Rosalee de la Foret, James Duke, Henriette Kress, Greg Marley, Rob McCaleb, Jim McDonald, Joe Pizzorno, Aviva Romm, Kiva Rose, Julie Bruton-Seal, Sharol Tilgner, and Maia Toll. My work at Natural Health Magazine, Herb Quarterly, and Remedies Magazine, along with teaching classes, seeing clients, and working the supplement aisles of various natural food stores, has provided constant exposure to other people’s stories — what has worked for them and what has not. I’m always listening and taking notes, and I thank all those people who have taken the time to share their experiences with me.

In my life, I’m grateful for the loving support of my parents, my grandparents, and my husband. I must admit that Shannon was a little anxious to have his wife quit her “day job” after our honeymoon to be a full-time herbalist, but we made it happen! I also thank everyone who kept asking when I would write a book, especially Susanna Hargreaves, who finally made it “click” and helped ignite my vision and drive for these pages. Thank you, too, to friends and colleagues Mimi Alberu (the animal herbalist), Dr. Cora Rivard (the naturopath), and Tiffany Coroka (my first-pass editor) for their invaluable input on my manuscript.

Lastly, my deepest gratitude to the team at Storey, without whom this book wouldn’t be possible: Deborah Balmuth, Nancy Ringer, Michaela Jebb, Kimberly Peck, and Sarah Armour. Thank you for believing in me and bringing the book into being.

Introduction: Achieving a Natural Balance

We thrive in nature. We feel better, we feel healthier, when we rely on real food, spend plenty of time outdoors, bring the elements of nature into our daily life, and use herbs as our primary form of medicine. Many of the common ailments and diseases we see in modern society stem from the fact that we have shifted away from our primal connection to nature. Health and disease in the body interact in fascinating interconnected patterns, and when we make use of our connection to nature — employing herbs and natural therapies — we can shift those patterns to bring the body into greater balance and vitality. Plants heal. Nature heals.

Whether you have a multitude of serious diseases or you’re relatively healthy, with just a couple of minor complaints, your symptoms are not something to overcome. Instead, they’re your body’s way of telling you that something is out of balance. These symptoms are your taskmasters — that is, the alarm system for your body and clues about the underlying imbalance. This book will teach you how to listen to your body. It may take some detective work and a multifaceted healing approach, but it’s worth it. The earlier you recognize your body’s distress signals, the easier it will be to heal disease naturally. But no matter where you are in your health, you can make improvements with herbs and holistic therapies.

Americans are gradually realizing that our current allopathic medical system — its approach and its medicines — often makes us sicker (not to mention broke) in the long run. In this profit-driven system, we spend more on health care than any other nation, yet we come in at a dismal number 38 worldwide for our actual health and well-being. Doctors rely heavily on an arsenal of pharmaceuticals, but side effects from these strong drugs kill more than 100,000 Americans annually. Even if you survive the treatment, you’ll often experience a slew of serious side effects. With this myopic approach to treating symptoms, the body continues to scream for help, and new issues (backup alarms) sound off. Side effects build. You might be taking a handful of pills each day, but you still don’t feel well.

Natural therapies are generally less expensive, significantly safer, better suited to self-care, and more holistic than allopathic medicine, and they have a host of side benefits. In fact, just one herb can contain hundreds of compounds that work together in synergy to address a range of health conditions. So that hawthorn you’re taking for blood pressure may ultimately also improve your mental clarity, energy levels, and mood.

What’s really fascinating is how they do this. Herbs rarely force the body in a particular direction or supply a single isolated compound with a specific effect on the body. Instead, herbs encourage your body to heal and balance itself. For example, the reproductive herb vitex doesn’t contain progesterone; instead, it encourages your brain and ovaries to produce healthier levels of this hormone over time. Most immune-system herbs don’t act directly as antibiotics or antivirals; they fortify your body’s natural immune response so that white blood cells and disease-fighting mechanisms work better. What’s more, many herbs have a modulating effect on the body, not a one-way action. For example, astragalus and medicinal mushrooms (fungi are honorary “herbs” in this book) balance over- and underactive immune systems. Modest doses of eleuthero raise low blood pressure or reduce high blood pressure, depending on what’s needed. Holy basil and other adaptogenic herbs amp up or turn down the production of stress hormones, like cortisol, as needed. It’s really quite amazing.

Don’t think of herbs as mere substitutes for drugs. Herbs act like training wheels to help your body relearn patterns of health, breaking away from patterns of disease and improving day-to-day functioning. For this reason, this book is not an A-to-Z list of helpful herbs. I want you to understand your body, what it needs to be healthy, and common themes of disease. You’ll learn how to listen to your body and understand what it’s telling you. You’ll grasp how the herbs work so that you can put together the best blend of herbs and natural therapies to nudge your body back into balance, no matter what your starting point.

How to Use This Book

In this book, we’ll look at the root causes of disease, patterns of imbalance, and how to sleuth out clues to find the most appropriate herbs and therapies for you.

First, it’s important to understand your body’s basic needs. When those needs aren’t met, it’s almost impossible for your body to stay in balance. When they are met, many diseases and symptoms simply disappear. A whole-foods diet and good nutrition, adequate sleep, stress management, and regular exercise and movement — how well you attend to the pillars of health makes an enormous impact on how healthy or sick you will be. If you’ve got a long way to go, never fear. Take baby steps, make slow changes, and address the specific areas that seem to have the most impact for you. Achieving vitality and a healthy lifestyle is a lifelong journey.

Herbs make the journey easier. Plant medicine helps your body shift into healthier patterns. But herbal medicine is more than just taking plant remedies. Any herbal or holistic practitioner will tell you: herbs work best when combined with a healthy diet and lifestyle. As we delve into the individual body systems, you’ll see Protocol Points sections that clarify approaches for addressing common health concerns. These sections will recap the specific dietary guidelines, lifestyle practices, and herbs that tend to work best for the health condition in question.

The bulk of this book will explore specific body systems and patterns of health and disease. The first body systems it discusses make the biggest impact for the most people: nervous-endocrine (stress, sleep, mood), digestion, and detoxification. These body systems affect everything else, and when you bring them into balance, it becomes easier to overcome seemingly disparate health issues.

In herbal medicine, we identify underlying disease patterns and select herbs and other natural therapies that address those patterns. For example, many people suffer from poor digestion (especially poor fat digestion), combined with constipation, high cholesterol, cardiovascular inflammation, chronic pain, diabetes, and sometimes also skin issues. These folks tend to run hot, eat poorly, and not get enough exercise. Cooling, digestion-enhancing, detoxifying, anti-inflammatory herbs like artichoke, turmeric, dandelion, and schizandra work wonders as the base of a formula for turning the tide. In another pattern (often relating to food sensitivities), migraines, allergies, digestive upset, rashes, sinusitis, and asthma often run together, and just one thorough treatment approach may eliminate all of them.

Even if you have serious health issues, and even if you are taking pharmaceutical drugs, you can still use the herbal approaches outlined in this book to improve your situation. These methods are not an either/or option, and herbs often work fantastically alongside conventional medicine, helping you get better results with fewer side effects. If you’re taking pharmaceuticals, you will want to proceed cautiously when choosing herbs and work closely with your health practitioner; see here for more discussion of herb-drug safety.

You’ll get an herbal vocab lesson as you peruse this book, getting to know the specific primary herbal actions, what they mean, how to use them, and which herbs have them. You’ll quickly come to understand what nutritives and adaptogens are and why they make a great base for almost any formula, why demulcent and astringent herbs heal damaged tissue, and precisely how antioxidants fend off age-related diseases. Though herbs have many, many synergistic effects on the body, these primary actions are worth reading about in depth, and you’ll find them referred to throughout the book because they have tremendous benefit for many different body systems.

The Basic Principles of Herbal Medicine

Although it’s entirely possible to use herbs in an allopathic way (“plug X herb in for Y disease”), herbal medicine works much better when incorporated into a more thorough, holistic approach. The following basic principles set herbal and natural medicine apart from conventional medicine in a variety of ways.

A Key to the Herb Profiles

Each of the herb profiles in this book includes a brief notation on the herb’s availability indicating whether the plant can be grown in the garden, harvested from the wild, or purchased from an herb seller, and how easy (or difficult) it is to do each of those things. The “codes” are as follows:

G garden herb
W wild herb
C common in commerce
+ easy to grow/find
− more difficult to grow/find

Who’s on Your Health-Care Team?

Herbal medicine empowers you to take a more active role in your well-being, but you’ll also want a good health-care team to turn to for guidance, especially when you reach your limits in self-care and knowledge. Sometimes it’s hard to step back and see the big picture, or a condition may warrant therapies that you can’t provide for yourself. Here are some types of practitioners to consider for your team. At the minimum, I’d recommend a doctor or naturopath. Remember that you hire them. If you don’t like a particular professional or aren’t getting desired results, find a different practitioner. Ask around for recommendations, and schedule a short meet and greet. It’s also helpful to understand what different practitioners can and can’t do.

Your Doctor

This category includes doctors of medicine (MDs) and doctors of osteopathy (DOs). We may as well also include here nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician’s assistants (PAs); though NPs and PAs aren’t technically “doctors,” they perform similar functions and work within the standard medical system. Unfortunately, the doctor tends to become “the enemy” when we begin to explore alternative medicine. The truth is, although our conventional medical system is broken, many great doctors do exist, and the number is growing. Modern medicine can be a powerful ally and may sometimes be the best approach for treating disease. Find a doctor who is willing to listen to you, answer your questions, and respect your decisions. It’s important that you trust your doctor so that you can take his or her advice seriously. Doctors can perform useful diagnostic tests, prescribe drugs, and perform or refer you to surgery when needed. Most doctors don’t have the training to recommend herbs and natural medicines, though some do, and many more are coming to respect their patients’ decisions to use natural remedies. In an insurance-driven system, they may also be your most affordable practitioners.

Your Naturopathic Doctor

Like MDs and DOs, licensed naturopathic doctors (NDs) receive intensive medical training and can run diagnostic tests, prescribe a wide variety of drugs, and perform minor surgeries. However, NDs tend to favor holistic approaches like diet, herbs, dietary supplements, and homeopathics over conventional medical treatments. Depending on your state and insurance carrier, your ND may be covered by your health insurance and be able to act as your primary care practitioner. While NDs can provide many of the same services as conventional medical practitioners and generally spend more time with you than MDs, they may not be covered by insurance, so they can be expensive. Note that not every state licenses naturopathic doctors, and in states that don’t license, someone could call him- or herself a “naturopath” with only a correspondence-course education. Find a licensed naturopathic doctor near you via the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (www.naturopathic.org).

Your Herbalist

Most herbalists are not trained as doctors and can’t legally diagnose or prescribe; however, they will generally look at your current diagnosis and health patterns and recommend a protocol specific for you. Typically they can’t run diagnostic tests. They usually have more herbal training and a more intimate understanding of the plants compared to other types of practitioners, and they often incorporate diet and lifestyle recommendations into your treatment plan. Herbalism is an unlicensed profession in the United States, and insurance rarely covers your visits, but herbalists’ services (and their recommended remedies) often cost less out of pocket than those of doctors and NDs. They may offer economical options like free clinics, sliding-scale rates, or barter payment systems. Herbalists registered with the American Herbalists Guild — identified with “RH (AHG)” after their names — must have a minimum of 400 education hours, 400 clinical hours, and peer review, and you can find one near you via the AHG website (www.americanherbalistsguild.com). However, many other great herbalists are not registered AHG professional members.

Your Nutritionist/Dietitian

These practitioners can give you more detailed advice from a dietary perspective. Training varies widely. Compared to other types of nutritionists, registered dietitians (RDs) and registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs) generally have more education and are more likely to enjoy mainstream medical status — including insurance coverage; however, their approach may be more conventional.

Your Pharmacist

Though mainly in the business of dispensing drugs per your doctor, most pharmacists can provide extra information about the drugs, their safety, and herb-drug interactions upon request. Some are trained in herb-drug interactions, and most have good databases at their disposal. They may be able to provide more detailed information about interactions than your doctor, but they can’t tell you what to take or not take, and you should always keep your doctor in the loop.

And Then Some!

Depending on your specific health needs and philosophies, you may want a chiropractor, massage therapist, physical therapist, acupuncturist, energy worker, yoga instructor, fitness trainer, or other specialist on your team.

An Ounce of Prevention: Herb Safety

As much as mainstream media would like you to believe otherwise, herbal medicine is one of the safest forms of medicine in existence. Evidence suggests that humans have relied on plant medicine since at least the Stone Age, and formal written herbal healing practices date back several millennia. Herbs remain the number one form of medicine worldwide. They’re affordable, accessible, effective, and empowering.

So why should you be concerned about herb safety at all? Because different herbs suit different people better, and you want to find the best herb for you and your situation. Herbs can have side effects, though fortunately they’re usually mild and go away if you stop taking the herb. Many herbs just aren’t a good fit for certain individuals. Cinnamon works well to staunch diarrhea, but if you already tend toward constipation, it could make that worse. Hot and spicy ginger gets stagnant digestion going, but it might aggravate acid reflux in certain people. If you’re researching your herbs and listening to your body, you’ll figure out pretty quickly what does and doesn’t work for you.

That said, not every herb or natural remedy is safe. Some have high rates of toxicity and can even be deadly, such as foxglove, datura, aconite, and the destroying angel (amanita) mushroom. Though they can have medicinal actions when used properly at low doses, they’re not appropriate for self-treatment and are not generally available for purchase. When you’re harvesting herbs from the wild, you will want to be aware of these deadly plants and be sure to distinguish them from safer plants, lest your cup of mullein tea turn out to be a deadly dose of foxglove.

Potency vs. Safety

Everything exists along a safety continuum. When possible, start with the gentlest option. As you move across the continuum, the medicine becomes more potent, but the risk of negative side effects increases as well. Keep in mind that some situations warrant a more heavy-hitting approach right from the start. For example, a kidney infection requires immediate medical attention and antibiotics. Pussyfooting around with nettle tea delays appropriate treatment and increases the risk of kidney failure.

Part of taking a holistic approach to medicine is knowing which approach will be the most effective for the situation at hand and when to turn to a trained professional for stronger medicines with a higher likelihood of side effects.

The Four Safety Rules

Most of the sources you can go to for health and herb information — including this book — offer general information rather than specific, personalized advice for you. You’ll need to do some digging to pick out the best options for self-treatment or see a practitioner whose approach will take into account your particular health issues and constitution, any potential herb-drug interactions that could arise during your treatment, and so on. Before you begin taking high doses of an herb (or anything, really) on a regular basis, I recommend the following.

1. Do Your Research

Information about herbs is constantly evolving and varies across cultures, time, and the herbalist you’re learning from. Before you begin taking an herb, research it in at least three good sources, whether online or in print. Look for sources that come from the perspective of herbalists as well as those that are research driven — folk use and science. Herbal practitioners generally offer a better understanding of the nuances of herbs and the ways that they can be used. Researchers (who may not actually use herbs themselves) are more likely to list every potential side effect and drug interaction under the sun while discrediting folk uses that haven’t been researched. (Do we need a double-blind, placebo-controlled study to prove prunes are laxative?) Both perspectives are useful.

Science can help us better understand herbs; however, research on the use of herbs is very limited in scope. Scientists are notorious for using inadequate doses and treatment time frames, active placebos, or uncommon extracts of the plants and for having a vested interest in antiherb outcomes. Well-designed studies also rarely test the crude, whole-plant medicine that most of us use, partly because such studies are harder to fund — there’s no profit in finding out whether a whole plant that anyone can grow themselves is medicinally useful.

Relying on a mix of quality sources for your research gives you a broader understanding of a plant’s actions and potential pitfalls. See appendix 11 for a list of some of my favorite resources to get you started.

2. Listen to Your Body

While you should do your research, also listen to your body to see if the herbs agree with you. A tea that makes some people feel absolutely vibrant may not resonate with others or may even subject them to a mild side effect like stomach upset. If an herb’s side effect is mild, you may want to try taking it a couple of times (perhaps with a meal?) to see if the symptoms pass or if perhaps they were unrelated to the herb. No matter how much science or folk use is out there for a particular plant, ultimately only your body can tell you whether or not the herb is working for you.

3. Confirm the Plant’s Identity

If you’re harvesting your herbs from the wild or garden to make medicine, be sure you’ve correctly identified the plant. Don’t take anything for granted. Even if you grew the plant from seed or someone identified it for you, mistakes happen. Keep some comprehensive plant identification guides on hand. Field guides focused specifically on edible or medicinal plants aren’t sufficient; their exclusion of plants not deemed edible or medicinal makes it difficult to guarantee the identity of the plant in front of you. The most effective identification guides are organized with botanical keys such as flower color and shape as well as leaf structure and include a range of plants.

Plants are best identified while they’re in flower, and secondarily when in fruit or seed, so you may need to watch a plant for a full cycle before going back to harvest the following year.

It’s important to develop good identification skills before you start harvesting plants from the wild. Though most plant misidentifications are benign (e.g., dead nettles for stinging nettle), some plants are mildly toxic and others are downright deadly (e.g., foxglove instead of mullein). Don’t get overwhelmed, though — you don’t need to know the identity of every plant in the universe, but you should know the one you’re harvesting, as well as the deadly plants common to your area. And watch out for hitchhikers — errant leaves, stray bugs — in your harvesting basket.

4. Ensure Herb-Drug Safety

If you use pharmaceutical medications, be aware of the potential for herb-drug interactions. While we have used herbs for millennia, and pharmaceuticals for about a century, we have been combining the two for only a few decades, and the potential for combinations are endless. It’s difficult to be 100 percent sure that an herb and a drug won’t interact, but the truth is that actual cases of herb-drug interactions are relatively few and far between.

Most of the drug interactions we know about are theoretical, but I still err on the side of caution. When there’s the potential for a negative interaction, you can usually find an alternative herb with a lesser chance of interaction.

Be cautious when using herbs that affect digestion or detoxification, especially if the drugs you are taking are metabolized by that particular pathway. For example, fiber supplements and mucilaginous herbs may slow drug absorption if taken in the same gulp, and liver or kidney detox herbs may clear drugs from the system too quickly. Diet, lifestyle, and dilute remedies like homeopathics and flower essences are the least apt to interact with medications.

You aren’t expected to know every possible side effect. Talk with your doctor and ask your pharmacist before adding a new herb to your regimen. Pharmacists are now equipped with extensive databases to look for herb-drug interactions. You may also want to seek the assistance of a qualified herbalist or naturopath who can recommend herbs with the least likelihood for interaction. My go-to reference guide is Mosby’s Nursing Drug Reference, which is updated regularly and includes detailed information about each herb-drug interaction as well as drug side effects and how each drug is cleared from the body. The Botanical Safety Handbook offers more measured, realistic guidance, whereas the online database WebMD tends to list every possible interaction, even if it’s not likely.

Don’t reduce or stop taking your pharmaceutical drugs without talking with your doctor. If you find that your medical team is unwilling to work with your holistic interests or that they don’t seem to listen to and respect you, find a new doctor and pharmacy.

The good news is that serious safety issues rarely occur when people take herbs. However, the more informed and proactive you are, the healthier you’ll be and the more you’ll feel confident and comfortable with the herbs you choose.

Common vs. Latin Names

We often refer to herbs by their common names because they are easy to remember. But sometimes multiple plants have the same common name — for example, the names “brahmi,” “betony,” “hemlock,” and even “oregano” and “rose” can each refer to different plants, some with very different uses. Also, a single plant often has multiple common names, especially if it’s used in different countries. In contrast, in the scientific nomenclature, each plant is assigned a unique Latin name.

Though the nomenclature may evolve over time, you can generally assume that each plant has just one botanical Latin name and shares it with no other plant. (Botanists sometimes update and change Latin names, most recently as a result of genetic research. While this renaming confuses things for the humble herbalist and herb student, it’s important to note that whether or not you’re using an outdated Latin name, it still refers to the one plant. Wikipedia comes in handy for providing both the up-to-date and the old name to clear up any mysteries.) The Latin names provided in the herb profiles and in appendix I will help ensure that you know exactly which plant the text is referring to.

Most Latin names have two parts: the genus (capitalized) followed by the species (lowercase). The genus refers to a group of closely related plants, and the species describes exactly which plant in the genus we’re talking about. For example, roses are in the genus Rosa. The Latin name for dog rose is Rosa canina, whereas the Latin name for apothecary rose is Rosa gallica.

If you really want to tend to your inner herb geek, look up the meanings of the different Latin names. They may refer to where the plant grows, who identified it first, what it looks like, or even its medicinal uses. For example, angustifolia means narrow leafed, and officinalis means that the plant was once considered the official medicinal species. As you get to know the names, your understanding of plants and herbal medicine will deepen.

Part 1

The Foundations of Good Health

Introducing plant medicine into your life brings joy and empowerment as you connect with the plant world and your own body. But this book is more than a list of which herbs to use with X disease. In the following chapters, you’ll learn how your body is meant to function from a holistic perspective, why things go astray, and which herbs and natural therapies help strengthen and heal each body system and your overall health.

In this section, you’ll learn about your body’s basic needs, foundational body systems, common patterns of disease, and some of the most beneficial herbs for a broad range of conditions. As you become intimate with your various body systems, you’ll begin to notice a lot of overlap in the patterns of disease and the healing actions of herbs. For example, many of the same soothing, wound-healing herbs that we use to repair damage in the gut are equally useful for a sore throat and topically for your skin. Our stress-busting adaptogens pop up in almost every chapter because stress relief helps with fatigue, longevity, libido, brain function, immune health, and more.

If the information seems overwhelming at first, know that you will have an opportunity to become familiar with these herbs and patterns again and again as we move through the body. One of my greatest joys as an herb teacher is watching the faces of my newbies light up as we work our way from plant to plant. It will all begin to click and becomes quite exciting!

Chapter 1

Your Body’s Basic Needs

To really make vital changes to your well-being, look beyond a simple “take some herbs” approach. While herbs alone can dramatically improve health and alleviate disease and discomfort, they work much better as part of a multifaceted, holistic approach. Diet, lifestyle, and mind-body balance are the pillars of health, and no amount of tinctures or capsules can take their place. Attending to these key areas will resolve or improve almost any health concern.

You Are What You Eat: Diet and Nutrition

Everything you eat or drink influences your body. Your digestive system breaks food and drink down into tiny bits and absorbs or eliminates them. The bits that enter your bloodstream serve as the building blocks for skin, bones, organs, blood, hormones, neurotransmitters, enzymes, glucose your body uses for fuel, and so on. Specifically what you consume — and how it’s balanced in the context of your overall diet — in large part determines your overall health, good or bad. Sometimes the effects are immediately noticeable, and sometimes they accumulate gradually and don’t become apparent until years or decades later.

Aiming for dietary perfection may be futile, and fortunately the human body can handle a surprising amount of junk. But strive for good habits, and listen to your body to figure out what your body likes best. No one rigid diet works for everyone. Your constitution, taste buds, food sensitivities, cultural training, budget, and food availability will all play a role in which diet makes you feel most vital. That said, let’s talk about some general “good diet” principles to keep in mind.

Balance Your Plate

Enjoy good-quality produce, protein, carbohydrates, and fat at every meal and ideally at snack time, too. Avoid dietary ruts — which get boring and can cause you to miss out on essential nutrients over time — by eating a rainbow of (natural) colors and mixing things up regularly. In general, your plate should comprise the following:

Add Herbs for Nutritional Punch

Adding tea, herbs, and spices to your daily cuisine amps up your antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and other key compounds that help keep you healthy. Everyday seasonings and tea blends can improve digestion, fight inflammation, fend off cancer, enhance the benefits of other foods you eat, and even counteract some of the detriment of certain foods like sweets and grilled meat. So enjoy herbs liberally, fresh or dry, in teas, in salads, in smoothies, as seasonings for your meals, as flavorings for your beverages.

Keep It Real

As much as possible, work with foods in their whole, unprocessed form. Limit or avoid flour, sugar, artificial sweeteners, artificial flavors, anticaking agents, preservatives, monosodium glutamate (key words that reveal its presence include “hydrolyzed,” “glutamate,” and “natural flavors”), and ingredients you can’t pronounce. Purchase seasonal, fresh, local ingredients when you can.

Select Better Animal Products

If you eat animal products like meat, dairy, and eggs, opt for pasture-raised, wild, or organic sources that have been treated humanely. This improves the nutrient profile dramatically while minimizing the problematic fats and chemicals associated with “factory farm” production. Limit grilled meats (grilling causes cancer-causing compounds to form), and marinate them when you can. A homemade watery marinade based on tea, wine, beer, honey, or vinegar can reduce carcinogen formation in grilled meats by up to a whopping 90 percent. Why watery? Watery marinades do a more thorough job (compared to thick marinades) of penetrating the meat to deliver antioxidant compounds throughout. An antioxidant-rich marinade — with plenty of herbs and spices — is even better.

Take a Hint from Healthy Traditions

The diets most closely linked with disease prevention and longevity include the Mediterranean diet, Indian and Asian cuisine, and the vegetarian or (especially) vegan diet. But we’re not talking chain restaurant fare here. Instead, opt for the traditional cuisine consumed by long-lived common folk. There are a lot of great cookbooks and blogs focusing on healthy cuisines. (One of my favorite sites for recipes is www.eatingwell.com.)

Hydrate Wisely

Adequate water intake keeps everything running smoothly. Aim for half your body weight in ounces daily — so a 130-pound person should drink 65 ounces of liquid, or about eight 8-ounce glasses. Focus on water, unsweetened all-natural seltzer, tea, herbal tea, soup, broth, and juicy fruits and veggies. Drink juices (especially high-sugar fruit juice), alcohol, and coffee in moderation. Avoid or limit drinking from plastic containers, which can leach toxins, in favor of glass, stainless steel, and ceramic containers.

Why Hydrate?

We know we should drink plenty of water, yet 75 percent of Americans are chronically dehydrated. Water — mixed with sodium, electrolytes, and other compounds — constitutes 60 percent of your body, including 75 percent of your muscles and 85 percent of your brain. As my teacher Michael Moore would say, “There is an ocean inside of you,” and you need to regularly replenish it with plenty of clean water.

The color and scent of your urine will give you a hint to your level of dehydration. It should be light and straw colored (if you take a multivitamin or B vitamins, it might be bright yellow in the hours afterward). Here are some symptoms of mild to moderate dehydration. Severe dehydration can be dangerous and may require medical attention.

Dark, scant, stinky urine
Dry, sticky mouth
Chapped lips
Thirst (but not always!)
Headache
Fatigue
Joint pain
Brain fog
Skin that is dry or lacks vitality
Constipation
Dizziness or lightheadedness
Weight gain
Ulcers

Listen to Your Body

As mentioned, no one diet fits all people, and no one food is friend or foe to everyone. You might do better with more or less protein, vegan or flexitarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, raw or cooked veggies, and so on. The perfect diet for you will depend on your health issues, your constitution, and even your genetics. Don’t get too stuck on diet dogma and trends. Simply eat a balanced healthy diet based on whole foods; then listen to your body to determine what specifically works best for you. Keep a food diary to help you sleuth things out. Pay attention to how you feel after you eat a particular food, or a food prepared in a particular way. Do you feel more or less vibrant? Do you have digestive distress? Mood, inflammation, energy levels, and specific disease markers can all serve as clues. Some effects are immediate, while others take time to build. And of course, your needs and food sensitivities may change with your health status and as you age. (See Common Food Allergens and Sensitivities for more discussion of food sensitivities.)

You Are How You Live

Lifestyle is more than an important piece of the health puzzle; it is the table you piece the puzzle together on, the foundation upon which all aspects of well-being are built. You can take all the herbs in the world, and you can work with the finest doctors in the land, but if, for example, you never get outside and are chronically stressed out, you still won’t feel well.

Basically, lifestyle is what you do, day in and day out. Fitness, sleep, work, relationships, activities, point of view, your connection with nature, and the environment you live in all play a role in determining your overall lifestyle. Even your spiritual practices play a role because they affect how you spend your time, think, feel, connect to others, and find spiritual solace.

Improving your lifestyle habits can yield significant improvements to your health and energy levels. Some people plunge right in, letting the momentum of big life changes carry them forward. Other people find lifestyle changes overwhelming, and they may prefer to start slowly or to tackle different aspects of their life one by one. Small changes can lead to more small changes that, over time, build up to new perspectives on life and living and well-being. But whether you’re making big leaps or taking baby steps, focus on the following biggies.

Daily Movement

Exercise — or lack thereof — has an enormous effect on your overall well-being, equal to or surpassing diet. Human beings were meant to move, yet modern culture has made it tricky. Most of us don’t have to physically harvest our food, wash clothes by hand, walk around the village to do our daily errands, or make our living from manual labor anymore. Unfortunately, our bodies weren’t meant to sit in front of a screen and push papers around a desk all day. Enter exercise. Setting aside specific times to move and working activity into your daily routine help compensate for a more sedentary lifestyle.

The advantages of regular movement go beyond a slim physique and increased muscle mass. If you need motivation to take that midday walk around the block or plan a more physically active weekend, consider the following perks of regular activity:

Exactly how much time should you spend moving around? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends 2¹⁄₂ hours of moderate physical activity (e.g., walking) each week — for example, 30 minutes 5 days a week — plus muscle- strengthening activities (e.g., weight lifting, lunges, sit-ups) twice a week. That’s about as much time as it takes to watch a movie, once a week. For more vigorous activity like jogging and running, you can cut that time in half. Doubling your fitness time beyond the recommendations provides even more benefits. You still reap the rewards if you break it up into 10- or 15-minute blocks.

Also remember that some exercise is always better than none. Use the recommendations as a guide, not a guilt trip.

Forest Bathing

We can learn a lot from Japan, a country so obsessed with work productivity and long hours that karoshi, or death by overwork (both work-related suicide and stress-related diseases like heart disease and stroke), has become a major problem. The solution? Forest bathing. The Forest Agency of Japan introduced the concept in 1982 and, with dedicated research, has shown that walking, meditating, exercising, and playing among trees in a forest-like environment has physical and emotional benefits that surpass those of the activities alone. Even sitting in a chair gazing at forest scenery has merit: in one Japanese study, just 20 minutes spent staring at a natural vista decreased stress hormones by 13 percent compared to those in a city environment. A view of water — such as a lake, pond, river, or other water feature — improves the effect. Other benefits of forest bathing include the following:

Improved cardiovascular health, including blood oxygenation and heart rate variability (which also relates to nervous system health), along with decreased pulse rate and blood pressure
Reduced levels of cortisol, a stress-triggered hormone related to blood sugar balance and metabolism
Improved mood, improved self-esteem, and decreased stress, resulting in fewer symptoms of depression, less hostility, and increased liveliness
Decreased brain fatigue and attention deficit; improved cognition, focus, and creativity

Sleep

Sleep is the ultimate panacea. During a good night’s sleep, your body has the chance to relax muscles, repair damage, detoxify, fortify your immune system, balance out hormones and neurotransmitters, and restore itself. If you’re coming down with a cold, dealing with a stressful period in your life, or trying to diet and lose weight, your day will go much more smoothly if you slept well the night before. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true, and at least one-third of Americans live in a bleary-eyed state of sleep deprivation.

We deteriorate with chronic sleep deprivation: heart health, blood sugar metabolism, libido and reproductive health, psychological health, and skin appearance all go to pieces. Just one or two nights of sleep deprivation diminish your cognition, mood, and immune function. Sleeping less than 7 hours a night triples your risk of viral infection. On the other hand, if you get extra rest when you’re sick, you’ll recuperate more quickly. Sleeping for just 5 hours per night can cause you to up your calorie intake, make it harder to stick to a healthy diet and make good self-care decisions, and cause you to gain a whopping 2 pounds in a mere 5 days compared to sleeping 8 hours a night. Worse, British researchers found that workers who slept 5 or fewer hours per night had double the risk of death from all causes versus those who averaged 7 or more hours.

The flip side of this dismal scenario is that getting adequate sleep (which is really quite enjoyable and free!) improves almost every aspect of health. Aim for 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. You’ll begin to reap the rewards almost immediately. Having a hard time getting to sleep and staying there? In chapter 4 we’ll discuss sleep remedies and good sleep hygiene tips.

The Healing Power of Nature

One of the remarkable aspects of nature is its ability to nurture and heal the human body. Herbs and good food are elements of nature, but so are sunlight, clean air, and beautiful restorative vistas. Forget taking herbs — sometimes all you need to do to feel better is sit under a tree for 15 minutes, walk by the river, or dig your hands in the garden.

Studies now suggest that many of the ills of our youth trace back to “nature deficit disorder” and lack of unstructured playtime in natural environments. Stress, depression, anxiety, and attention issues creep up when kids go from school to screen or an endless stream of lessons. I’d argue the same is true for adults.

The natural world calms, intrigues, and challenges us. Temperature fluctuations in your environment give your thyroid (which regulates your body temp) a mini workout. Sunlight helps your body make vitamin D and keeps your endocrine system in sync with the day’s cycle. Exposure to minute amounts of bacteria and soil organisms refocuses a wayward immune system, reducing the tendency for autoimmune disease and allergies.

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