Flowers as Ayurvedic Home Remedies

Ayurveda uses flowers to cure certain diseases. Flowers play an important role in our lives. Flowers of various hues and colours soothe your mood and relax your mind. The fragrance of certain flowers cools you down. Certain flowers can cure diseases when eaten. Following are some flowers used for treating diseases.

Rose

Even though many colours of roses are available the original roses are the best ones suited medicinally. This alone has the enchanting fragrance. Rosewater prepared from rose flowers is used as eyedrops to keep away all eye related infections. Kulkund made from rose cures ulcers of the stomach. The powder of dried rose petals acts as excellent laxatives.

Jasmine

Jasmine falls under the category of herbs which cure diseases just by inhaling them. For example, most of the mental disorders decrease in severity on inhaling jasmine flowers. It calms your mind.

Sunflower

Oil obtained from the seeds of sunflower can be applied on acne. This promotes healing without suppuration. When applied on swollen joints it is found to reduce inflammation. Sunflower oil is used in preparing various dishes.

Shoe flower

The red five petaled shoe flower has excellent medicinal value.

5-10 petals of the shoe flower are chewed. Drink a glass of water. This is found to cure ulcers of stomach. Also white discharge or leukorrhea can be treated this way.

The petals of 4-5 flowers are ground into a paste and mixed in buttermilk. Drinking this buttermilk cleanses your blood. It also strengthens your heart.

For hair fall, premature graying, and baldness etc a preparation made of shoe flower has proved to be beneficial. This is how you prepare it. Put petals of 50 shoe flowers in linseed oil and put this oil in a bottle. Wrap it with a thin white cloth and place it in sunlight for 10 days. Stir the oil once morning and evening. Filter the shoe flower out from linseed oil and mix coconut oil of equal quantity. This should be applied everyday on the scalp to prevent hair fall.

Plantain flower

Known for its excellent diuretic property dishes made of plantain flower are good in curing most of the stomach problems. They are also good at curing hemorrhoids. Some excellent dishes can be found here.

Neem flower

Gather neem flowers during the flowering season, clean and dry them. Powder the flowers and store them. This powder can be used in preparing rasam etc, to cure pitha and vadha related diseases. It also protects the liver.


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A Simple Ayurvedic Home Remedy for Bloated Stomach

Ayurveda emphasizes the importance of diet and lifestyle to lead a disease free life. By diet it means intake of fresh as well as cooked vegetables and fruits and avoidance of non-vegetarian food. By lifestyle it means observance of certain basics like exercise, yoga etc.

Even intake of vegetarian food is to be in moderation, Ayurveda insists. If not, it leads to indigestion, bloated stomach, improper assimilation of food etc.

One simple ayurvedic home remedy for simple bloated stomach, indigestion etc is given below.

Take 20 drops of lemon, 20 drops of grated ginger juice and 7 drops of honey. Mix them together and keep it ready. Now take a spoonful of cumin seeds and chew them thoroughly. Swallow down the chewed cumin seeds and immediately drink the lemon, ginger honey mix. This will clear the bloated stomach and indigestion due to overeating in minutes.

I will give below one traditional remedy for bloated stomach.

Take 100 gm of coriander seeds and 25 gm cumin seeds. Powder these seeds to a fine consistency and mix them thoroughly. Take a spoonful of this powder and add it to a glass of milk. This is an excellent remedy for a bloated stomach.

Ashta choornam is an Ayurvedic preparation for gas and bloated stomach. Half teaspoon of ashtachoornam is mixed with a bolus of hot rice and taken before the main course. A bit of ghee can be added to this. This is found to stimulate appetite. It helps in proper bowel elimination. It arrests diarrhea due to indigestion. It prevents accumulation of gas in stomach.

One way to prevent formation of gas is to take food based on one's intake capacity. One rule of thumb is to have solids half the stomach, 25% water and the remaining 25% be left empty. This should be found out through personal experience. Ayurveda discourages eating to full.

One of my earlier posts details ways to make some Siddha choornams for gas and indigestion.

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A Simple Ayurvedic Hair Oil for Hair Care

One formula for hair growth used from time immemorial is given below. It has both external and internal components.

The four main ingredients needed to prepare this concoction are

1. Juice of henna leaves 200 ml
2. Juice of karisalankanni leaves (false daisy or swamp daisy) 200 ml
3. Juice of adukku chembaruthi (hibiscus flower and buds) 200 ml
4. Juice of kariveppilai (curry leaves) 200 ml.

Add all the juices to 800 ml of coconut oil and heat the combination.

Anjana kal is a sort of black stone available in local herbal stores in South India. 40 gm of this is ground to a fine powder and sieved using a fine piece of cloth. Also 40 gm of ashes of coconut shell is sieved and stored.

The oil is heated to the required level (one way to test this is to see whether a grain of paddy when dropped into the oil turns to a puffed one).

Place the anjana kall powder and coconut shell powder in a wide mouthed steel vessel. Cover the mouth with a cotton cloth to filter. Pour the hot oil into the vessel and let it cool. Store it in a cool dry place.

Regular application of this oil helps in hair growth. It can be used by people of all ages.

To further strengthen hair growth, ‘lohasavam’ 15 ml can be taken twice a day (morning and before bed).

‘Narasimha Rasayanam’ 1 teaspoon twice a day also helps.

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