“Supporting your loved one should be more than just one day a year.”
Did you know, you can you support and optimize heart and cardiovascular health with herbs as medicine?
Learn what herbs may be both in your garden, and spice cabinet, or local herb shop with a natural and functional medicine approach to a healthy heart. Below are a few of my personalized, easy, homemade recipes to keep on hand year round for cardiovascular support for you and your loved ones.
What is Naturopathic or Functional medicine?
These forms of medicine take an individualized and personal approach to identifying and addressing root causes of imbalances within the body, including metabolic, circulatory, or cardiovascular health, and many more. Where do you start you might ask? The therapeutic order is our guide, addressed in another blog, but for the purpose of this blog, our focus will be on the foundations for optimal health such as:
Nutrition: Dietary changes can have drastic impacts on the health and functioning of the body, such as eating foods with nutrient density, including organic, grass fed ruminant proteins, healthy fats, bold colored fruits and vegetables, while avoiding inflammatory foods (preservatives, colorings, refined sugars, processed foods, and unhealthy/inflammatory fats).
Lifestyle and Behavior Modifications:
-Nutrition: While most people think this is “key”, our daily habits and lifestyle can be the biggest obstacle to health, contributing to 50% or more toward outcomes of disease or disease prevention. Organic, nutrient dense foods that are bold in color, higher in antioxidants, and phytonutrients are known to have more anti-inflammatory, and cardioprotective effects.
-Movement and exercise: Both have been studied to largely reduce hypertension and stress, and improve glucose levels, hormones, metabolic, and cardiovascular health.
-Sleep: is critical for restoration and repair of the body every night, including production of healthy hormones, blood pressure, and lower heart rate
-Stress management: such as breathing exercises, meditation, or use of heart rate variability devices (Aura ring, Fitbit, Garmin, Apple watch, etc.), may also help create awareness to listen to the “cues” our body is telling us to support a healthy nervous system.
Nutraceutical Supplementation: While I tend to put this on another level of the therapeutic order, sometimes there can be gaps in our nutrients, which we may not be able to get from our food. To bridge this gap, therapeutic supplements may be recommended by naturopathic or functional medicine practitioner to support various systems in regaining homeostasis or balance. Some of my favorite for heart health (Electrolytes, Magnesium, Taurine, L-carnitine, Omega 3 fatty acids, and CoQ10), or botanicals used as alternative therapies (1). These products are selected by practitioners, are pharmaceutical grade, and tested by a third party for contamination, consistency, quality, and purity.
In addition, Testing and Evaluation: Naturopathic and Functional practitioners may recommend screening tools such as the ASCVD+ risk score to determine the level of cardiovascular health or risk to provide individualized therapies.
But now, a few Heart Happening statistics…..
⦁ Did you know cardiovascular disease and cardiomyopathies are dramatically increasing in all age groups, more than ever before?
⦁ Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of death, medical visits and hospitalizations for both men and women throughout the US. Although, cardiovascular disease has many contributing factors such as diet, lifestyle, stress, sleep, smoking, weight management, and insulin resistance or diabetes, the most common cause is hypertension, which most often has no symptoms at all. While it is always a good idea to obtain regular checkups with your medical doctor or physician to see what therapies are best for you, there are various natural and lifestyle changes that can be made and done at home that are essential to preventing cardiovascular disease, supporting a healthy heart, and listed in the foundations for optimal health above.
Check out this recipe below for giving your heart a little “love”:
Healthy Heart Tea
⦁ 2 oz Hawthorne (Crataegus)
⦁ 2 oz Hibiscus
⦁ 1 oz Gotu Kola
⦁ 0.75 oz Passionflower
⦁ 0.5 oz Freeze Dried Wild Blueberries or Organic Frozen Wild Blueberries
⦁ 0.5 oz Freeze Dried or Organic Frozen Cranberries
⦁ 0.25 oz Ginger or Licorice Root pieces
Instructions:
In a 1 pint glass mason jar, weight out each herb, add to jar, cover with tight lid, and mix well. (Store in cool, dark place to prevent herbs from losing potency).
Place 1 TB of dry herb in a pot with in 8 oz boiling water, turn down to low, cover, and simmer for 10 min. Strain with fine colander and Sip to enjoy. (Bulk prep is 3-4 TB dry herb to 3-4 cups water, and can be placed in glass jar and stored in refrigerator up to 3 days).
Note: If using Frozen Berries, omit these in the dried mixture and add 2 TB each frozen wild blueberries and cranberries when simmering tea. Multiply by number of servings for Bulk Prep.
Consume 1-3 cups daily
Disclaimer: The content of this site is for informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice or consultations with your health care professional.
Resources:
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29957236/
- https://www.naturalmedicinejournal.com/journal/hibiscus-hawthorn-and-heart
- https://wisewomanherbals.com/collections/heart-circulatory-system