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Menopause and stress don't mix. I mean, our lives are stressful enough right? We have problems at work, unruly children and tetchy parents all demanding our attention. Our lives have become more and more stretched and we just can’t find space to think, let alone relax. And them, wham! Our hormone levels start to change. We’ve been riding the oestrogen dragon successfully for the best part of 30, sometimes 40 years, and suddenly it’s doing crazy things. Our mood fluctuates, we can’t sleep and we …

“Hot flushes are bad enough in the day time but I also had them at night which meant I had very disturbed sleep. I used to wake up from these night sweats literally dripping wet.”

It can be normal to wake up feeling a little damp if your bedroom is too hot or you have a fever. But the kind of night sweats that many of us feel as we transition into menopause can be debilitating. We can wake with our pyjamas feeling like we’ve just stepped out of swimming pool and our bed so wet it’s like a n…

What to wear when your hot flushes take over

"I felt an overwhelming heat that spreads through my whole body.  I remember stripping off layers of clothing and being desperate to open the window during my hot flushes.  Of course, you end up having to apologise to those around you who are all freezing!" 

Many women who are approaching menopause suffer with hot flushes. For some they are mild and infrequent. For others they are intense and embarrassing – particularly when we are at work. Ther…

As we get older we notice our bodies start to change.

From greying hair and sagging boobs to not being able to read our phone any more without the help of glasses, getting older takes its toll. But aside from “where are my glasses?” one of the questions I am asked most frequently is “how do I know I’m in menopause?”

What is Menopause?

Let’s start with the basics....

Technically, we are classed as ‘in menopause’ exactly 12 months after the date of our last menstrual period. At this point our …

I won't lie. It's been a bit chaotic here at The Living Herb over the last few months.

The annual family holiday was swiftly followed by dealing with serious family illness and the stark realisation that I had taken on too much.

We all do it.

Even the most careful planners among us have lapses where we double book, realise we've planned things for multiple weekends in a row, or seem have so much going on in our lives that we feel overwhelmed. I

t's easy to get sucked in too.

When we are dea…

I recently had a Facebook discussion with a fellow herbalist. We were both shocked by some of the things a so called herbal medicine page had posted. The article in discussion was advocating treatment that was outright harmful if not potentially dangerous in the guise of science.

It got me thinking about how people without medical knowledge choose a therapist.

These things are not specific to herbal medicine, so whatever type of therapy we are considering they are questions to bear in mind.

 …

I'm a chocoholic.

I love chocolate so much, it's an addiction .

It's the one thing I really miss on a low carb diet. 

So undeterred, I have explored many options for getting a chocolate hit without the high carb sugar badness.

This recipe is one I've invented based on other recipes out there. They are quick and easy to make and as the amounts aren't exact you can play around with them. I hope you enjoy. Warning though - you will want more than one at a time! 

Ingredients

• 150g ground almo…

Rosemary is a beautiful herb that has a lot more uses than flavouring lamb..... which it does pretty well.

Traditionally it was used to strengthen the memory - hence the old adage.

The nice thing about rosemary is that just the smell is enough to have an effect - ask any invigilator in a herbal medicine exam and they will tell you the room smells fragrantly of rosemary.  

Recent research is providing the evidence supporting this traditional use (I always like it when science catches up!).

In…

It's Easter weekend and me and Mr LivingHerb have just returned from visiting my uncle.

My uncle is a priest and for many years has worked as a chaplain in various hospitals. This weekend he was planning a funeral so inevitably our conversation turned to not only death but life. After all, spring is the time when natural comes back to life after its long winter sleep.

It got me thinking about how our lives ebb and flow.

When we are young our minds are filled with great dreams and plans, like …