10 Natural Healing Properties of Lavender
Lavender is a beautiful purplish herb that inspires a feeling of calm. Just smelling it can put you into a more peaceful state. But, lavender is more than a pretty flower. This herb has natural healing properties that people have been using for centuries.
Lavender is a component of compounds used for herbal and alternative medicine and aromatherapy. Its sweet essence has made its way into shampoos, oils, and lotions. However, that is not the best way to get its healing benefits. It is best used in tinctures, as an essential oil, in teas, salves and other preparations. Here are ten facts about the natural healing properties of lavender:
1. Lavender oil has antiseptic properties. The oil of lavender is extracted from the actual flower and not the leaves or seeds. It is good for cleaning scrapes and cuts that may contain foreign material. Use lavender oil to clean surfaces in your home to lower your bacterial count.
2. Linalol is an active substance in lavender that heals sores, burns and other wounds. Pain and inflammation are reduced at the site of pain.
3. Lavender reduces anxiety and other nervous conditions. Create a sachet with soothing leaves and tuck it into your drawer or under your pillow. Add essential lavender oil to your bath water for a calming bath. Use water infused with lavender leaves to soothe painful joints and muscles.
4. For headaches, apply lavender oil to a cotton ball or your fingertips and massage slowly into your temples. The smell will relax you as the oil eases your headache.
5. Lavender is used in aromatherapy massage as a muscle relaxant. Massaging the oil into the skin unknots the muscles of the back and reduces a spasm, which can be helpful during a woman’s menstrual cycle.
6. Using lavender in an oil diffuser helps with insomnia. The sweet woody smell of the lavender oil helps you to fall asleep and stay asleep.
7. Lavender has also been used as an expectorant. It breaks up the mucous from nasal and chest congestion that accompanies a cold. It is also useful in remedies for other respiratory conditions.
8. Lavender can be used as a tincture to treat fungal infections such as vaginal yeast.
9. Lavender can be taken as a diluted essence. One or two drops of the essence in a glass of water can be taken internally for many conditions such as depression, hysteria, and fainting.
10. Inhaling lavender oil can help with pain management, especially after surgery.
Lavender is a lot more than just a pretty herb. Its medicinal properties have been known for centuries. Use lavender today to heal everything from headaches to fungal infections and anxiety to insomnia. Before using any type of natural healing therapy instead of or in conjunction with conventional medicines, consult your doctor.
Making Memories More Memorable With Creative Scrapbooking
People are such nostalgic creatures. Keeping souvenirs of important, and even not-so-important events in life is a universal past time. Who doesn’t have a mom, dad, aunt, uncle, grandma, or a grandpa who keeps on lugging a camera around to take pictures of practically any occasion whether it be as significant as a graduation or as mundane as one’s 234th Quarter Pounder? People like keeping as many memories as they can.
Unfortunately most mementos go to waste. Photographs just keep piling up on boxes and drawers (or in the hard drive, to be digitally appropriate). Luckier pictures may end up in stacks of albums but most people rarely care to view them. As much as most people want to reminisce about important milestones in their lives, keeping tokens becomes so much of a routine that their value sometimes end up forgotten. This defeats their purpose.
Luckily, such a situation can be avoided with an emerging hobby called creative memory scrapbooking. Mementos are given back their significance, keeping the memories alive.
Creative memory scrapbooking is basically an inventive approach to keeping memories. Creative memory scrapbooks are beyond typical photo albums. They are hybrids of albums, journals, and scrapbooks. The combination of these kinds of memoirs makes personal stories and reminiscing more interesting. This makes sharing treasured moments to others or just recalling them alone more fun and exciting.
Normally people just collect pictures and souvenirs randomly. Once they pile up, they end up in the attic or the basement and then they are completely forgotten. The rare chances that they might be viewed could be just as boring as they are nothing but random clips of memory that do not tell anything. With creative memory scrapbooks, memories come back to life when the books are viewed. Pictures make more sense as they are paired with words or laid out in an organized fashion. Reliving moments preserved in the scrapbooks could be a good way to keep family ties and strengthen bonds. Additionally, well kept books could serve as heirlooms that would keep a family’s legacy throughout the coming generations.
Making creative memory scrapbooks is quite easy. Nowadays most craft stores have creative memory sections dedicated for the making of such scrapbooks. There are also some scrapbook-making kits available in bookstores and online.
Memories are special and their preservation should be special as well. With, creative memory scrapbooking, memories can truly be more memorable.
Grilled Salmon Sandwich
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 medium cucumber, sliced
½ cup red pepper, sliced
1 small onion, chopped
2/3 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 fresh and deboned fillets of salmon
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp dill weed
1 tsp parsley
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp oregano
2 tbsp olive oil
Instructions:
Heat olive oil in a large skillet and add rosemary and oregano. Fry the salmon fillets until nice and golden. In separate pan, heat 1 tbsp olive oil, then sauté red pepper, cucumber slices and onion.
Mix yogurt, mayonnaise, lemon juice, dill weed, parsley and coriander in a bowl.
Serve the cooked salmon on your choice of bread or bread roll, top with the dressing and sautéed vegetables. Top with another piece of bread or the top of the bread roll and enjoy this delicious salmon sandwich.
