I’m not a gym bunny. I suffer from what is grandly termed ‘exertional headaches’ – which means that every time I go to the gym, or run, or do Zumba etc., I get left with a stinking headache. I’ve tried drinking more and more water in case it was due to dehydration – but no good. I found the actual term on Google, so it must be a thing…
But exercise I must and will, so it’s either walking, cycling or swimming. I don’t really feel that yoga qualifies as exercise but I may be wrong. That leaves [for me] walking, cycling or gardening. And since I don’t feel safe cycling when it is pouring down with rain, or gardening in puddles, I have been walking a lot. The great advantage of walking everywhere is that you see things you don’t otherwise notice, and one of the things I like to notice is what is growing around me.
What have I found recently? Well apart from dandelions and nettle, on the way to the post office there is English ivy, pilewort, viola, cleavers, ground ivy, and ribwort. All these plants give us medicines to treat us kindly when we are ill and have no major side effects apart from making us pee a lot if we drink too much of them.
The plants listed above can help our bodies deal with: constipation, urinary tract infection, swollen glands, water retention, spots, coughs and colds, itchy skin, anaemia, allergic reactions and haemorrhoids. And that is just scratching the surface. In the old days, people used to know what to do with these plants, but nowadays it is left to herbalists and people who actually go out of their way to study herbal medicine. You can’t expect your GP to have any knowledge of the healing capacities of herbs AT ALL, they have enough to think about.
I did notice on an NHS page this warning: ‘GPs will not advise treatment with herbal medicine as it may cause side effects’. I had to smile, as the list of medications they were recommending had these side effects;
| lowers blood pressure rapidly after the first dose, dizziness, weakness, fainting, ejaculatory problems, headache, drowsiness, palpitations |
| nausea, vomiting, weakness, confusion, anxiety, insomnia, increased heart rate |
| Impotence, lowered libido |
| Abdominal pain, allergic dermatitis, emotional disorder, fluid retention, headache, hyponatraemic seizure, vomiting, weight gain |
I seem to have drifted off my subject of exercise. But you get my drift…
