Reader,

The problems of disconnection

In school, a lot of us got an education that was divided by “subject”: Math, science, history, and so forth. These divisions left many of us feeling like the information we were being taught wasn't relevant to our lives.

In reality, of course, these subjects aren't separate at all. Math is related to music and art, and music and art are related to history, and history is related to science. Seen this way, it's hard to find it boring or irrelevant.

When we understand subjects or systems as separate from one another, we're really getting a paltry, one dimensional view. Everything is related, and learning one thing can provide us insight into a thousand other things. This is just as true of our bodies.

Depression is a gut problem??

There's been a lot of good research done in recent years on the connection between digestive health and mental health. The evidence shows that the root of a lot of mental and emotional issues may in fact begin not in the head, but in the gut!

Someone close to me, who also happens to be a client of mine, experienced this acutely. For over a decade, he suffered from a host of debilitating, but mysterious, symptoms. These included severe fatigue, body aches, poor digestion, and serious issues with stress and depression.

For years, doctors had no answer for these problems, attempting to address each symptom individually. Therapy and SSRIs were prescribed for the overwhelming depression, but they were largely ineffective.

Connecting the dots

Finally, a doctor ran a simple panel of blood work, and diagnosed him with celiac disease. Celiac is a serious autoimmune disease. It causes the immune system to attack the lining of the intestines when someone with the disease ingests even a trace amount of gluten. And depression is a known and documented symptom of celiac.

Though the symptoms eased shortly after going gluten free, my client continued to have issues. It took a lot of herbal work to repair the damage done to the gut before his health really started to improve. Over time, though, his celiac symptoms have abated, including the depression, without therapy or anti-depressant medications.

This isn't the only time I've seen this in practice in my clinical work. Clients diagnosed with IBS have seen their anxiety resolve after taking herbs for a gut infection. These are the kind of things that are possible when we stop trying to treat symptoms individually, and start addressing the body as a whole.

Understand your body

This is why a thorough knowledge of how the body works is so important, for an herbalist, or any health care practitioner. When we know how one system affects the others and are willing to look deeper, we can find and address the source of health complaints.

That's what the upcoming Organ Systems classes are all about: Giving you the basis to understand your body, and how you can work with herbs to improve health. Learning how the systems in our body work is the first step in finding strategies to feel better.

Herbs for Digestive Health!

We're kicking off the organ systems series this Thursday, with Herbs for Digestive Health. You can sign up here. In this 8 class series we will cover a different body system each month. If you are interested in learning about all of the systems, the student membership is by far the best deal! I'm keeping registration open until the end of this week. You can find more info and join here​

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See you soon,

caty crabb Clinical Herbalist & Instructor ​araliaschoolofherbalmedicine.com​

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