I sometimes think that I have the perfect job. Any day of the week, I could be harvesting chamomile, digging up dandelion roots, dehydrating leaves, making tinctures, weighing out teas, seeing patients, writing articles, teaching students, researching, and from time to time, doing courses to stretch my mind. After I qualified, I took two years to do post-degree teacher training, two years […]
24
Jul
Jul
What the Evidence Actually Shows “I have 48 tomato plants!” This may have been the first comment that came out of my mouth in a light-bulb moment, but you will have to watch Bendy Brain Episode 5 on YouTube to find out why….. 1 The thing is, in my MSc in Mental Health Science I am primarily researching […]
10
Jul
Jul
The mental load of trying to be healthy… Hands up if you are over middle-age and can remember the days when you rarely saw a really obese person, and there were no kids with allergies in your class at school, and when our first concern about buying a bottle of squash was the cost and […]
03
Jul
Jul
How’s it going? Back in 2022 I mentioned that blood tests had put me in the pre-diabetic range, and I really, really wanted to avoid Metformin. There is a slew of articles I wrote about the embarrassment of being in the diabetic range, [Dec 2022 up to April 2023]. It was embarrassing because I teach students how to construct management & dietary plans […]
26
Jun
Jun
A Metabolic Dysfunction? Yes, yes, I know. Parkinson’s is an incurable, progressive condition that needs to be managed rather than ‘cured’. But what if we could ‘manage it’ better? I treated my husband solely with herbs for several years, until he decided to accept the Madopar he had been offered. He hoped it would improve his fatigue […]
19
Jun
Jun
I don’t know how many people think that herbalists just hug trees and sit with sage leaves, but the result of that would be, understandably, a low level of trust concerning medical matters. Speaking of someone who was taught Biochemistry from Lehninger [if you know, you know], and Clinical Medicine from Kumar and Clark, I […]
12
Jun
Jun
A Tale of Loss and Persistence Visits to Kew are spectacular; the glasshouses, the architecture, the sheer number of plants, the curated beauty. Visitors take away impressions of the huge leaves in the tropical palm house, the exhilarating experience of the Treetop Walkway, or the interesting Hive structure. My lasting impression was about two trees. One is already gone from the world. […]
05
Jun
Jun
There’s a particular kind of tiredness that comes from trying to be healthy. Not the tiredness of a long hike or a day spring cleaning, but the mental fatigue of constantly navigating a world that makes health feel like a full‑time job. It’s the exhaustion of being told that wellness is simple; “Just eat better, move more, stress less”… ..while living in a system […]
29
May
May
Thoughts on Medical Credibility One of the more revealing features of contemporary medical discussion is not that people disagree about evidence; although I think that disagreement is frequently productive. Rather it is that they usually apply different standards to identical kinds of evidence, and that this asymmetry almost always runs in the same direction. This is not a problem of dishonesty. It is a problem of worldview. Mention that […]
Health, Herbal Medicine, The School of Herbal Medicine
Bringing Herbal Skills Back Into the Community
22
May
May
There’s a particular kind of energy that appears when people gather around a table covered in jars, leaves, roots, and the warm steam of a freshly brewed infusion. It’s the energy of people remembering that health isn’t something handed down to them. Rather, it’s something they can participate in. When we had our last trustees’ […]