Ladies Blend Blog

Stress-Less Herbal Tea Recipe

This is a delicious blend of beautiful, fragrant herbs that are good for you anytime, but especially nice at the end of the day to help you to relax, unwind and sleep better. The ingredients can be found at your local herb shoppe (which is where a very nice woman shared this recipe), or harvested and dried from you own herb garden.

Ingredients:
1 part dried:
Lavender Buds
Peppermint
Rose Petals
Catnip
2 parts dried:
Chamomile Flower
Lemon Balm

Directions:
Gently mix all of the herbs together in a bowl, store in a glass jar or zip lock bag. Steep one heaping teaspoon or more per cup of tea; unwind and enjoy. This tea is refreshingly delicious served chilled with a couple sprigs of mint.

This recipe may also be used as a relaxing Bath Tea.

Gift Giving Ideas

After mixing, add tea to pretty glass jars with a homemade gift tag attached

Fill a small basket with the tea, tea ball, tea cup & saucer, decorative tea spoon, lemon cookies, honey sticks, pretty tea napkins or anything you think your recipient would like.

To give as a bath tea, you could make a basket with the tea and a few mini muslin drawstring sachet bags, just adjust the gift tag instructions to say something like "fill the muslin bags with the aromatic bath tea and toss in the tub for a natural, healthy soak.  Add a relaxing CD, a candle and some bathing accessories if you like.

Filling the individual sachet bags or tea bags is also a nice option for the bath tea.

Have fun and be creative! 

Herbal Foot Soak

Fill a bowl/basin with warm to hot water, add fresh herbs/botanicals that you have on hand, such as Rose Petals, Mint Sprigs, Lavender Sprigs/Buds, Rosemary, Chamomile, Lemon Balm, etc. Throw in a handful of Sea Salt and/or a drizzle of your favorite oil if you like, relax and soak until soft.

The art of Sleeping, naturally

  Falling into bed and drifting off to sleep after an exhausting day is easy, sometimes the hard part is actually staying asleep. There is a natural awakening that is totally normally, and if you can handle this with ease, still feeling rested enough to fall back asleep, then you probably are doing well. But if you awaken, and begin to think about your to do list for the following day, or something you forgot to do at work the previous day, then you may benefit from some tips to lend you a better nights sleep.

Women more so than men tend to take stress to bed with them. Joyce Walsleben, Ph.D., associate professor at New York University Medical Center and author of A Women’s Guide to Sleep suggests keeping a worry book/journal and write down your thoughts a couple of hours before bed. When those thoughts enter your head later in the night, tell yourself, that “I cannot improve upon it right now, so I am not thinking about it.” Other experts suggest physically taking the journal to another room and leave it until morning.

Yoga Life Magazine says that planning and enjoying a ritual that you do before bed can ready your brain and give it the time it needs to relax and help your mind to calm and unwind. A couple of years ago I wrote a natural sleep ritual which was added to an area of my website, I’ve added to it and changed it around a bit:

Natural Sleep Remedies

Before retiring for the evening you may like to select one or more of the following ideas to assist you in getting ready for a peaceful nights sleep:

Sip a cup of a natural decaf tea, Chamomile tea or my recipe for Stress Less Herbal Tea Blend are two of my favorites.

While you are having your tea, you may also like to dim the lights and spritz the air with a relaxing room spray and put on a nature/relaxing/soothing sounds CD.

Take a stroll outside and have your tea with nature, the nighttime sounds can help to relax and soothe.

Draw a nice warm bath and relax with your tea in the tub. The Stress-Less sipping tea can also be used as a Bath Tea. Step out of the tub and into a nice big fluffy towel.

Apply some nice natural balms to your hands and feet.

Set the room temperature to your liking.

Think good, positive thoughts as you drift off to sleep, continue those thoughts as you naturally awaken throughout the night, and feel refreshed, happy and content in the morning.

Some nights you will have more time than others for some sort of ritual, but if you can, try to do something, even if it is for a short time, that is just fine, and so much better than nothing at all.

Use Caution
This applies to anytime, but especially at night when you are tired: You may like the thought of lighting a scented candle for your nighttime ritual, but in this case, please consider the scented room sprays as an alternative. The added flicker of the candle light is not worth taking the chances of you falling asleep and leaving the candle lit, this is VERY dangerous, remember, you are striving for no worries or stress. Hydrosols are a lovely option, as they can be used to add beautiful scent to your room, you can spritz some on your pillows and sheets and use them on your skin. Lavender is my favorite nighttime hydrosol; it is beneficial for children too.

Kiwi-good for you in more ways than one

Did you know that one kiwi packs as much vitamin C as an orange? They're loaded with vitamin E, potassium and fiber, and help thin the blood. Best of all, kiwis have low pesticide residue.

Foliage & Blooms for an Evening Garden

This time of year, it can be quite relaxing and beneficial for ourselves, at the end of the day to sit outside on our porches or patios and take in all the natural sounds and scenes. Having an evening garden to gaze at while you are sipping a cup of stress-less tea (recipe will follow this posting) is a lovely way to wind down and watch the subtle setting of the sun, and the peaceful glow of the moon.