Sleep & Stress

Nearly all of us have spent a night wide awake and willing for sleep to come. Hops has traditionally been used in Western herbal medicine to relieve sleeplesness and assist in a good night’s sleep.

Ziziphus (Ziziphus spinosa) plant originates from China with a history of over 4000 years. The seed has been used medicinally for more than 1700 years.

We all dream — even animals have been shown to dream. Humans dream a lot, even if they don’t remember it the next day. Dreaming occurs four or five times a night, almost every 90 minutes while we sleep. Even though experts can only theorise on why we dream, technological advances are helping us unde

All of us have to deal with stress. It occurs when we are faced with adverse or demanding circumstances and is a natural response to anything that disrupts our life and regular routine. Stress can also trigger some anxiety when we feel out of our depth or are placed in a challenging situation such a

St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum) is a herb that has been used for centuries in Europe to treat a wide range of conditions. It has been referenced by the Dioscorides, the Greek of the 1st century AD and the Greek doctor of the 5th century Hippocrates, where it was known by its Greek name ‘Yperic

Unfortunately, it is near impossible to avoid stress completely. Life gets busy and unexpected events occur. Stress is the body’s natural reaction to anything that disrupts our life as usual. We all experience it in our work and personal lives, but it is how we respond that can make all the differen

Mild anxiety is characterised by feelings of fear and worry, but it’s much more than that. While feeling stressed is a common response to situations of heightened pressure or expectation, anxious feelings don’t necessarily go away once the situation is resolved. Anxiety is very common, with data ind

Our brains and our guts are more in sync than you may realise. You may have noticed an uneasy feeling in your abdomen during stressful periods. Perhaps you felt “butterflies”, nauseous, bloated, had looser bowel motions or abdominal pain. That’s because the digestive system is intimately connected t

We all know the magical, restorative power of a good night’s sleep. Waking up feeling refreshed and ready to conquer the day is a sure sign that you have had some quality ‘zzz’ during the night. If you’ve missed out on getting enough sleep, it’s getting through the day is undeniably much harder: you

Children have much greater sleep needs than adults as sleep directly impacts on their physical and mental development. In fact, sleep is so important that by age two, most toddlers will have spent more time asleep than awake and children will have spent about 40% of their total childhood sleeping.

Tired. Grumpy. Irritable. Unable to concentrate. We all know those feelings and they usually appear when we’re sleep deprived. We’ll also probably have dark circles under our eyes and want to throttle the next person who says “you look tired”.