Overcoming the pressures Christmas brings

The Christmas season can be an emotional rollercoaster, with festive cheer mixed with much stress and worry. Many of us can feel the pressure in relation to decorating the house, buying presents, attending all the pre-Christmas get-togethers, managing any family tensions, and so on. The joy of the moment and watching happy memories being created can help override any negativity where it might exist, but not always.

Christmas can be a painful time for a variety of reasons, with increased feelings of isolation for some, stress of the in-laws coming to visit or feeling anxious about socialising. Medical Herbalist, Lara Jonasdottir of Dr. Clare’s Apothecary & Clinic in Galway explains how the right lifestyle and the help of relaxing herbs can come to the rescue. “As a medical herbalist these are the things that crop up in clinical practice as individuals have a full hour to discuss their concerns during their first appointment. A distinct pattern seen is that existing medical conditions including chronic stress and anxiety can flare up during the Christmas season.”

Buy the Dr Clare Relax Time Hamper (pictured above)

“It is therefore helpful in the approach to Christmas to manage expectations all round and to focus on the smaller positive things that do not involve major commitments. Time invested in oneself at this point including regular exercise, eating healthily, having relaxing baths, and getting more sleep can help to build up the energy needed to face the world and navigate through any expected or unexpected choppy waters.”

“Herbal medicine can also be helpful with many relaxing herbs available such as chamomile (Matricaria recutita), passion flower (Passiflora incarnata), linden flowers (Tilia europea), lavender (Lavendula angustifolia) and lemon balm (Melissa officinalis). These can be taken as teas or tinctures.” (links go to Dr Clare's Shop product offer)

Many of us have a laundry list of symptoms and a central role of the medical herbalist is to take the time to listen and help to make sense of these with a view to providing a beneficial course of action. For some this might involve a combination of more straightforward lifestyle changes and useful additions like herbal teas, creams, or other off-the-shelf products. For others this might involve an individualised herbal therapeutic plan in combination with a comprehensive review of potential contributing factors to ill health and any follow-on referrals. The aim in all cases is to find an appropriate level of intervention that delivers sustained improvement without causing any additional problems. 

So when approaching the stresses that unfold this Christmas think about yourself first, without looking after you, you cannot look after anyone else.

For more information on stress free Christmas go to drclare.ie or call Lara on 091 583260.

Mindful Eating for Health and Wellbeing

Mindful eating for busy families.    

Mindfulness is the current buzzword that is the supposed answer to everything but what does it mean?

My definition includes thoughtful eating that bears in mind all the things we want our food to nourish. This includes nourishing our bodies, giving and experiencing pleasure, being sociable and even calming our souls.

It includes the blessings of gratitude in being so fortunate to have such abundance.

Above all else it is paying attention to the experience of eating. Tasting, chewing and swallowing food is an experience to be savoured.

We do this best by sitting down, choosing good food, switching off all distractions and ignoring everything that beeps, rings and disturbs our awareness.

Unfortunately we can’t switch off the children, so we need to teach them to pay attention too. Set time for regular meals, put everything you need on the table and sit down. Imaginary glue sticking you to the chair means you do not move from the table for anything short of medical emergencies!

For mums who eat left overs remember you have eaten your meal so step back from the leavings on others plates. They are not yours.

Before you eat check out how hungry you are, repeat this question before you reach for seconds.

Family meals where mother is up and down like a jack in the box or when meals are rushed increases your adrenal stress and leads to poor digestive function with too much stomach acid and speedy digestion with poor assimilation of nutrients (symptoms common with Irritable Bowel Syndrome).

Pay attention to the quality of the food, the welfare of animals you eat, the chemicals in the food chain and added chemicals in processed food and make the best choices you can within family budget constraints.

Include 7 fruit and vegetable portions per day on a regular basis and oily fish, a few nuts and seeds and avocado for Essential Fatty Acids (link to the leaflet on my website if you like)

The benefits of eating mindfully include more satisfaction, quality family time, better behaved children and a calmer household.

Herbs for calm and happy digestion include Chamomile, Fennel, marshmallow, Meadowsweet and Peppermint. These are in the Digestion Blend of Tea available online.

Open access , online series of talks including herbs for digestion and stress available via the website healthandherbs.ie

Clinics in Dublin, Sligo and Galway.

Herbal antibiotics, antifungals and antivirals are anti-infection superheroes

How does one herb save millions of lives?

The worldwide crisis on the emergence of superbugs is unfolding. It appears that genius microbes are outwitting our ability to eradicate them with single constituent single action super-chemicals made in factories. Maybe the drugs are too simple and the bugs not all that clever. In comparison herbs are multi-constituent and multi-action complex vegetation that have co-evolved with microbes over millions of years.

Complex herbs match the less than genius bugs.

Many common ailments such as sinus problems, sore throats, simple urinary tract infections and superficial wounds do not need drugs in most cases. Many times, these can be effectively treated with the right lifestyle changes and herbal medicines. More complex disease may need professional treatment form a well qualified herbalist. This is not a modest claim, the time for underestimating and playing a modest hand for herbs is over. Witness the role of the plant Artemisia annua for malaria which I have been using in my clinic for almost 20 years. The current Nobel Prize Winner Dr Tu Youyou has rediscovered the role of this plant in the teeth of a worldwide malaria crisis due to super-drug resistance.

The 2015 Nobel Prize winner TuYouyou rediscovered the use of Artemisia in the treatment malaria, According to the Nobel committee, her work saves more than 100,000 lives in Africa alone every year. The World Health Organization says modern malaria treatments — which include some form of an artemisinin have saved more than 3 million lives since 2000.

Figure 4: Youyou Tu searched ancient literature on herbal medicine in her quest to develop novel malaria therapies. The plant Artemisia annua turned out to be an interesting candidate, and Tu developed a purification procedure, which rendered the active agent, Artemisinin, a drug that is remarkably effective against Malaria.




Youyou Tu was born in 1930 in China and is a Chinese citizen. She graduated from the Pharmacy Department at Beijing Medical University in 1955. From 1965-1978 she was Assistant Professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, from 1979-1984 Associate Professor and from 1985 Professor at the same Institute. From 2000, Tu has been Chief Professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

In my next blog I will talk about my top Antimicrobial herbs.