Sitting with Plants is Good Medicine The next time you reach for the echinacea bottle for the sniffles, cold or flu, think about a less-expensive and gentler way to get your herbal medicine, encourage healing and relieve symptoms. Did you know that plants not only contain a potent brew of active chemicals to stimulate your immune system in their cells to help you fight an infections, they also breathe out many active compounds into the air around them. Scientists at the Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO measured natural volatile organic compounds (VOC) from 3 U.S. woodlands. They found that plants and trees exhaled 78 different compounds that they could measure, including hexanol derivatives, isoprenes, and monoterpenes from plant essential oils. They found that emissions were highest in the afternoon, and lowest at night. (1) The next time you find yourself reaching for the tissue to mop up the mucus, consider a healing session with echinacea right in your garden. Simply sit by your plants for 5-10 minutes and breathe in the essence the plants exude. Take two sessions/day for up to a week and email me in the morning. C. Hobbs (1) Guenther A, Greenberg J, Harley P, Helmig D, Klinger L, Vierling L et al. Leaf, branch, stand and landscape scale measurements of volatile organic compound fluxes from U.S. woodlands. Tree Physiol 1996; 16(1/2):17-24. other health news
|