First thing’s first. I need to make a very important point about taking herbs as a way to help your immune system. I want to make this as plain and simple as I can. Herbs are not going to cure you from a severe infection. Herbs are extremely good for mild to moderate cases of colds and flu like symptoms when you catch them early but if the symptoms last for more than a couple of days and are not getting better, you need to see a medical professional. Also, never neglect the importance of things like sleep, nutrition and common practices like staying out of crowded places if something is “going around” and if you can’t stay out of those places, you can absolutely wear a mask. None of these measures, the herbs, the social distancing, the keeping yourself reasonably healthy will on their own be a perfect way to avoid getting sick. But combined, they can absolutely make a difference.
And now, back to our show.
We here on Team Herbalogic have created an herbal system of immune boosters. We named the third formula Support System Booster Restore. But her friends just call her Restore.
If you read part 2 of this series about our formula Support System Booster Defend, you might remember that I said that we had such a deep reverence for the exact formula that we kept it largely intact. This next formula is a great lesson in how you can still really like a formula but add quite a few herbs to change the original function of the formula.
Infection and our body’s response to it is often talked about like a war- we talk about invasions and battles and winning or losing the war, but we almost never talk about the rebuilding and restoration. I used this very language earlier in this series drawing a comparison to marauders in your lands. Well, congratulations, you won, but man did they leave a mess and now you have all this work to do to get back to normal. We almost never give ourselves the time to heal properly. Instead we drag ourselves to work and try to soldier on like nothing happened and, you know… that nagging little cough will eventually go away. Right?
Restore is based on a classic formula called Sha Shen Mai Dong Tang. It is considered to be a nourishing and moistening formula for both the lungs and the stomach. One of the more confusing things about Traditional Chinese Medicine is that it often presents overlaps that don’t seem to make sense. This formula is good for both dry cough and constipation. What?? Well, they are both considered to have dryness at the root of the cause. We are choosing to add herbs to focus on the lung dryness and herbs to strengthen the body on many levels from the fight it just had. Let’s take a look under the hood.
We add Balloon flower root and peach kernel. Balloon Flower root (Jie Geng) is a widely used herb in TCM as what is called a guide herb. It is intended to focus the effects of the formulation toward the lung. Peach Kernel (Tao Ren) is traditionally indicated for stopping cough.
The rest of the herbs we add are all considered tonics which are all focused on rebuilding. We add Salvia root (Dan Shen) and Schisandra berry (Wu Wei Zi). Both of these herbs would be at home in a formula for cardiac health and circulation. We use them here to aid in circulation, because good blood flow is often the route into organs and tissues for the things those organs and tissues need and the route out for the things they are trying to get rid of.
We add Gynostemma (Jiao Gu Lan), Pine Pollen, and Cordyceps sinensis (Dong Chong Xia Cao) to help recover your energy and stamina.
When to take Restore
You know how when you are starting to recover from an upper respiratory event, how there is a period when you start to feel like today was better than yesterday? Then you have a day when you actually are starting to feel human again, not great mind you, but better, heck you are past being contagious and you think you might be able to get back to work. This is the time to start rebuilding what was damaged during the infection. This is the time to take that one extra step to really take care of yourself. This is the time to start taking Restore.