10 Dec A Naturally Healing Tea for Every Time of Day

Staying healthy through a season of cold, flus, and stubborn respiratory viruses doesn’t have to mean staying isolated from people or taking a handful of supplements every day with a wish and a prayer. It can be as simple as pausing throughout the day for a cup of tea.

When your co-workers are sneezing, coughing, and calling in sick, and the kids are home from school with the flu, you can stay well just by enjoying your own blends of gentle herbal tea.

Herbal teas can keep your digestion on track, even out the stresses of the day, and help you get better sleep, all of which have a major impact on optimal immune health.

The rhythm of taking herbs throughout the day is a practice that smoothes out the edges of structured, over-scheduled lives, releases tension, introduces subtle flavor, and gently heals you before you’ve gotten too far out of balance.

Start your morning with a fermented tea like pu erh, with it’s rich, earthy scent that clears the morning’s mental fog, stimulates metabolism, and gets a sluggish gut gently moving. It’s a nudge to the digestive system to wake up, stretch out, and get moving.

Late morning, when you’re well into the day’s projects, steep some holy basil (you might know this one as tulsi) or green tea to keep your thinking clear and the mind alert to new ideas. Green tea has hundreds of health benefits, one of which is the ability to gently energize without over-stimulating. Treat yourself to a high-quality tea that’s organically grown and ethically harvested.

A second cup of green tea is a mild mid-afternoon pick-me-up, especially when it shares a saucer with a snack of nuts or dried fruit, just enough to hold you to dinner and not enough to spoil it.

When you’re home and settling in after dinner, encourage good digestion with chamomile, orange peel, fennel, ginger, and peppermint teas. Later, whether it’s time for a favorite hobby, catching up with a friend, or supervising homework, make a family tea to wind down the mind with linden, lemon balm, and lavender.

There’s an herbal tea for any time of day, all year long. Winter is the ideal time to add warm herbs like sage, cinnamon, and thyme to any blend you’re infusing. Keeping your body warm protects against the chill that makes you vulnerable to fatigue and illness.

Directions: To make a healing cup of herbal tea any time of day, scoop 1 tsp. of a single herb or your favorite blend into a tea infuser, pour hot water to cover, let it steep 4-5 minutes, then remove the herbs and slowly sip, sniff and close your eyes for a moment.

If you’d like to try your hand at blending your own teas, start by ordering ¼ lb. of a few herbs that sound appealing to you.

My favorite infuser is the Celestial Tea Strainer. It nestles snuggly inside my favorite tea mug and lifts out easily without dripping or leaving loose herbs floating – though I really don’t mind floaty herbs – watching the leaves swirl in my cup is kinda Zen….

The blend I’m sipping one or two times a day right now is a mix of red clover, oat straw, lemon balm, lavender, motherwort, hawthorn leaf, and rose petal. My favorite packaged tea blends come from Good Earth, Yogi, Numi and Pukka.

What’s your favorite herbal tea blend? What time of day do you drink tea? Who taught you about the joy of drinking herbal tea? Share your comments below.

Ok, go get your tea on! And have a very Herbal Holiday!

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