Winter can be tough.

When you suffer from long term or ongoing illness winter can feel extra hard on your mind and body. Aches and pains become more pronounced, the cold can be an extra layer of exhaustion, and the lack of daylight has a tendency to affect our mood and immunity…

It’s so important at any time of year to have a routine that helps you not only feel and stay healthy, but also gets you excited to start the day & means that you approach every day with the best mindset, energy, and intention possible.

That doesn’t have to be the same routine all year round though. Your routine should shift and change to naturally align with the changing seasons and the changes these being about in your body, health, and wellbeing needs.

There are many elements contributing to a woman's monthly cycle and bleed that can make it uncomfortable. Most of these are caused by an imbalance of hormones. Treating period pain can be approached in a few different ways — dealing with the immediate discomfort from both an internal and external approach, AND dealing with the underlying root causes and imbalance.

Natural remedies for period pain

There are a number of supplements you can take, as well as massage techniques you can use with essential oils and in your baths that relieve period pain.

Cramps and painful periods, known medically as Dysmenorrhea, plague many women. Sometimes so severely that it can disrupt even the simplest of day-to-day tasks. Treating symptoms naturally and gently using the natural remedies for period pain here, is better for you and your body than using chemicals and over the counter pain killers.

Menstrual cramps should be treated like any other muscle cramps. Your aim is to relax the muscles as much and as quickly as possible…

Sometimes hormones are the underlying root cause of our ongoing health problems and we don’t even realise it.

Because hormones work with and affect every system of our body, and work in such delicate balance they can negatively impact so many aspects of your health, life + wellbeing…

Welcome to part two of this hormone series, covering the general aspects of your moon cycle + using herbal medicine as a natural cure to treat all your hormone imbalance as a whole to improve problem symptoms.

Rosehips are abundant at this time of year, their ruby red skins a welcome burst of red brightness as we head into autumn.

Once we’ve had the first frost they are perfect for picking. The birds and wild animals like eating these sweet berries too, so don't forget to be mindful of leaving plenty for them too...

Rosehips are full of vitamin C as well as bioflavonoids, vitamin E, and a few other compounds that are good for you. The rosehip benefits are many and varied.

Healing Rosehip Benefits

The contents of rosehips mean they have a lot of healing properties for you any your body, especially during the autumn and winters seasons.

For more on Autumn health + wellbeing read my last blog post.

As with everything in nature Mother Nature is very clever, and everything has its season for a reason. The things that grow naturally in each season of the year contain all of the vitamins and essential nutrients your body needs at that time to be health and strong! Including rosehips.

I’ve written a lot about stress recently not just because it’s a huge cause of cfs/me + burnout. But also because it’s one of THE biggest causes of illness and health struggles in our modern world. Previous posts including:

The different types of stress

6 Steps to reduce and manage stress

What happens to your body when you’re stressed

Stress is NOT meant to be a long term situation, and adrenaline and cortisol are dangerous hormones to have in your system for an elevated stretch of time.

The good news is there are plenty of ways to help reduce the effects of stress and support the body as it deals with the effects of stress.

As well as lots of holistic ways to support the body nature has also provided us with beautiful plants that work to support your body as it deals with stress, AND heal the negative effects of stress.

Today is the 21 September and marks Autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere or Mabon. The Celtic celebration of the first day of Autumn.

As a season autumn is the season of shedding + releasing what’s no longer serving us and the life we want to live, or bringing us joy.

Seasonally there are many themes that come up for autumn. If you wish to learn more I recently wrote about seasonal living through autumn.

For many years I struggled through autumn and winter, struggling with the turn in weather + darker days, especially the cold weather. It was only once I found the path of holistic health + living that I found things to appreciate and enjoy in every season. Even in the darkest days, there are little sparks of light + joy that you can find if you take the time to look.

There is so much more to herbalism and the health of the body than purely symptom and root cause treatment. As with everything in our world, humans and plants have their own energetics + energetic frequencies. There are frequencies that can work in harmony to balance and support each other, or, like magnets, repel each other!

You can think of energetics as characteristics. Similar to the energies of the seasons or the four elements; earth, air, fire, and water. We all instinctively know what to expect with each of these substances, even if that is mostly subconscious and not something we can specifically put into words…

These characteristics and elements are present in all of us, but in different combinations and concentrations for each of us. This means that different seasons, different medicinal plants, and different illnesses will affect each of us in a completely unique way.