Chopra Center Herbal Handbook Forty Natural Prescriptions for Perfect Health

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The Lord created medicines out of the earth, and the wise do not reject them. --Book of Sirach 38:4 The Herbal Renaissance We are witnessing an unprecedented resurgence in natural healing. The search for holistic approaches to enhance health is permeating every aspect of our culture and society. Why is there such an explosive interest in natural medicine? It is certainly not for lack of success from our scientific approach to illness. Major advances in physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, and genetics have exponentially expanded our understanding of disease, and we have developed previously unimaginable new ways to diagnose and treat the afflictions of humanity. Within the last fifty years we have eradicated smallpox, minimized the risk of many life-threatening childhood diseases, performed sophisticated brain surgery, and transplanted organs. In view of these obvious successes of our modern medical system, we might imagine that the status of the institutions of medicine would be at an all-time high. And yet we know there is pervasive dissatisfaction and frustration with our health care. How can we explain this paradox? It is the nature of life to strive continually for more evolutionary solutions to the endless challenges that arise. In this information age, every intelligent person has access to a vast body of facts and opinions on any subject of interest. People facing health concerns no longer depend solely upon their physicians for advice and information on the management of their illness. Whether or not you have a healthcare background, you have unprecedented opportunities to learn about your problem. Through the Internet, books, journals, newsletters, and support groups, more and more people are formulating their own view of their illness and how they want to approach it. Patients are no longer passive and are not inclined to be as patient as they once were. There is a powerful movement of self-empowerment and consumerism in the world today that grew in part out of the sixties mindset of challenging authority. Thalidomide, DES, Fen-Phen, and other highly publicized drug recalls over the past generation have dampened our unbridled enthusiasm for consuming every new pharmaceutical product as the shortest distance between sickness and health. With expanding information on the role of diet, stress, and activity on health and disease, many people are asking these new questions of their health providers:What should I be eating to help my body heal? How can I better manage my stress? Is there a role for nutritional supplements in the treatment of my condition? Such questions reflect a deeper one, which we hear each day at the Chopra Center for Well Being:What more can I do to be an active partner in my healing process?Unfortunately, most of our medical colleagues are ill-prepared to answer these questions, and often discourage their patients from asking them, directly or indirectly. Consequently, more people are seeking alternative sources of information. The now well-known report of Dr. David Eisenberg showed that more than two in five Americans sought out "unconventional" medical treatment in 1997, while other studies have put the number at closer to one in two. What needs are being fulfilled by these unorthodox modalities? In our experience at the Chopra Center, most people have not rejected medical care; they simply want to explore other, less toxic alternatives before resorting to a potent drug or procedure; they want to be more than passive receptacles of physician-prescribed drugs; they want to go beyond compliance to active partnership. It is here that herbal medicine can make a contribution to the well-being of individuals and of our community. According to Ayurveda, India's ancient medical system, human beings are not merely thinking physical machines frozen in time and space. Rather, we are networks of intelligence in a universe of en