health tonic imageEach winter is it rather hard to stay on top form, especially if you happen to have to use public transport and work in a crowded office or school where exposure to pathogens is inevitable. Usually our bodies are equipped with an awesome immune system that is constantly at war with the baddies that invade us all the time, however when we are run down from lack of Vitamin D. Exercise and movement help to keep our immune system working well as our immune cells travel around the body through a circulatory system called the lymphatic system, which unlike the cardiovascular system has no heart to pump it around. The lymphatic system depends on skeletal muscular contraction for movement, you can see how important being active is for optimal immune health!

However sometimes we are a little run down, bad sleep due to stress at work, exposure to a particularly virulent cold virus, some slightly rubbsih food that doesn’t give us the nutrients we require to keep on the right track, an emotional trauma, a physical trauma, so many different factors. When this happens many people might reach for the lemsip, night nurse or even antibiotics if you have a doctor who is that way inclined however the downside is there are often ingredients in these medications that are less than helpful having an impact of the eliminatory organs.

Most if not all modernmedications are based on natural compounds so I like to go back to the basics whenever possible, of course if you are very seriously ill allopathic medication is essential so please be responsible.

This is the recipe for my “Dawa” as so many people have asked how to make it. In a good blender add teh following:

juice of 1 lemon

100ml warm water

1 inch fresh ginger

1 inch fresh turmeric

3 or 4 sprigs of rosemary

3 or 4 cloves of garlic

Blend all the ingredients until you have a smooth-ish paste and store in a glass jar in the fridge. If you are using it as a profilaxis simply have a heaped teaspoon of Dawa three or four times a day, if you are unwell have a teaspoon every hour until the mixture is finished. If you prefer you can add the teaspoon of mixture to 50ml warm water and drink as a shot. You should feel a great deal better within 36 hours đŸ™‚

There is so much on the internet about  the health benefits of turmeric so I decided to reference an abstract of a research paper to show I’m not merely regurgitating unsubstantiated claims. The paper focuses on the anti-inflammatory effect of curcumin AKA turmeric. The vasy majority of Western diseases are over reactive inflammatory processes within the body so one can see why it is so important to reduce inflammation and there reduce risk of disease.