Today, thanks to modern science, we generally regard the heart simply as a powerful muscle to pump blood around the body. Traditional medicine has a rather different view: to the Chinese the heart controls the life process, co-ordinates the activities of all the other organs and manages mental activities and consciousness. It stores Shen — a sense of appropriateness and right behaviour — so that what we term mental illness is often seen in Chinese medicine as due to disharmonies in the heart upsetting Shen.

Ayurvedic medicine puts the heart in a similar central role: it is the dwelling place of the atman — the divine self or spirit of immortal life — controlling consciousness and affected by spiritual weakness. Western Ayurvedic experts like David Frawley argue that the high level of heart disease in Western society is due to our over-preoccupation with personal achievement and material wealth — we die of “spiritual starvation”, causing a broken heart.

Like modern allopathic medicine, much Western herbalism is rather more concerned with symptomatic relief of cardiovascular problems than with the spiritual aspects of the heart and few would consider heart problems as suitable candidates for home remedies. Self-help is, however, possible — either from an orthodox standpoint using herbs to improve circulation or reduce cholesterol levels or adopting a more traditional approach and feeding the heart on more spiritual remedies.

Herbal Beauty

High blood pressure

Until the invention of the sphygnomanometer we had no accurate way of measuring blood pressure and so problems with high blood pressure passed under a variety of other names. Today, DIY blood-pressure machines seem to have taken over from the “speak your weight” scales that used to lurk on every railway station and passers-by can be suitably terrified by instant readings which declare them to be “high”. Isolated blood pressure readings really mean very little: several consistently high ones are needed before applying the label “hypertension” and mild cases can often be controlled by simple dietary measures.

Coffee, for example, contains caffeine which stimulates the heart to beat faster, pumping blood through the vessels and kidneys more energetically. The result — even in the healthy — can be an abnormally fast pulse, irregular heart beat, raised blood pressure and increased desire to urinate. Often simply cutting down on coffee — along with tea and chocolate, which contain similar chemicals — is all that is needed.

Herbal infusions make an ideal alternative for those prone to hypertension: use relaxing or mildly hypotensive herbs such as skullcap, passion flower, celery seed, yarrow, vervain, hawthorn, self-heal, valerian or linden flowers. Diuretics can also help if the heart’s performance is weak and fluids tend to accumulate in the system. Dandelion leaf is ideal because it contains a good supply of potassium which can be lost when urination is increased by the use of diuretics. A typical infusion for raised blood pressure is:

  • 2 parts hawthorn flowers 2 parts lime flowers
  • I part dandelion leaf I part yarrow
  • I part vervain

One teaspoon of the mixture infused with a cup of boiling water to be taken two or three times a day.

Modern advice for maintaining a healthy heart usually includes cutting down on fatty foods which could increase the blood’s cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is a complex fatty substance which is essential for physical health. The average body contains about 150 g of the stuff and it plays an important role in maintaining membrane fluidity, as well as providing the raw material for manufacturing many hormones and bile acids. This useful substance can, unfortunately, encourage fatty deposits to develop in blood vessels, which in turn leads to hardening of the arteries and increased blood pressure. Numerous herbs can help to reduce the levels of cholesterol in the blood and encourage its excretion; much research has focused on garlic, which has been proven to help reduce the risk of a further heart attack in those already suffering problems with cardiovascular damage and atherosclerosis. Daily doses of 1-4 cloves per person have been suggested as ideal — which is no more than one could easily use in cooking. German trials suggest that 2 g a day of powdered garlic is sufficient to achieve notable therapeutic effects.

Other foodstuffs which have been shown to have a similar cholesterol- lowering action include chickpeas, kidney beans, navy beans (the sort that go into cans of baked beans), lentils, soya beans and alfalfa sprouts. Useful cholesterol- lowering herbs include nutmeg, sage, linden, thyme, garlic, liquorice and ginseng. Also important is tea: research suggests that green and oolong teas are the most effective at lowering cholesterol levels. Traditionally the oolong tea Pu Erh has been regarded as a good digestive remedy after rich meals. In the early 1980s French researchers reported a reduction of 25% in cholesterol blood levels in a group of high risk patients after a month of Pu Erh drinking. The tea needs to be taken without milk, since milk precipitates the tannins which are believed to be mainly responsible for this cholesterol-lowering property

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