Tag: herbs

An Introduction to Attribute Based Herbalism

Posted on by Dan Marion

I find the topic of herbs to be one of the most interesting and exciting topics in the world.

Simultaneously, I find the vast majority of content related to the topic of herbs and herbalism to be utterly dull and boring.

That seems contradictory, how can that be so?

This contradiction can be understood with a single word: Paradigm.

 

A paradigm is the frame for a set a views.

Most paradigms related to herbalism occure within the framework of medicinal applications.

In other words, they’re all geared toward the goal of fixing a health problem.

Ultimately the goal of medicinal herbalism is to get back to normal.

That is great if someone has a specific ailment and a specific herb relieves that specific ailment.

Unfortunately if someone doesn’t have an issue that an herb is good for, it’s simply not very compelling.

There’s also the fact that having normal as your goal is pretty boring.

 

My personal paradigm is very different than this more traditional approach.

I want to be as powerful as possible.

I want to be smarter, faster, more energetic, happier, wiser, stronger, and so on.

Probing the limits of what’s possible is far more compelling and exciting than just normal.

To the goal of becoming as powerful as possible, there are few things better than certain power herbs.

 

Attribute based herbalism focuses on herbs that build you up toward new heights that far exceed the normal baseline.

Remember, we don’t want to be normal, we want to be as powerful as possible.

This requires unique nutrients and compounds to build very specific qualities within ourselves.

There are herbs that provide these unique components that can help fuel your growth towards increasing almost any attribute.

 

Defining this concept of “attributes” is critical to understanding the value of this paradigm.

I’m using attributes to mean various qualities of human experience or output.

Things like strength, speed, stamina, intelligence, calmness, happiness, charisma, drive, motivation, vitality, compassion, etc.

Almost any component of your existence or experience of life could be subdivided or categorized as an attribute.

It’s the combination of all attributes that forms the fullness of what we are.

 

Breaking down the complete being into specific attributes makes things much easier to get a handle on.

A goal of “being better” is very vague and doens’t do much to help orient us in any specific direction.

Wanting to be better in a specific way such as “having more motivation” is far more useful in providing a roadmap or a least a direction in which to head.

This provides us with the steps to take in order to reach our destination, or a least head towards the destination.

 

This also synergizes with the herbs themselves.

That’s because each “attribute based herb” has one or more human attributes that it bolsters.

For any attribute you can think of, there’s an herb that supports or bolsters it.

In this way, you can pick out and select herbs based on the specific ways in which you’d like to grow.

Want more energy, drive, motivation and happiness? Take Ginseng.

Want more calm, stronger immunity, and deeper meditation? Take Reishi mushroom.

Want more physical vitality, deep vital reserves, and exercise performance? Take cordyceps.

 

This unique paradigm for understanding herbs allows us to to grow and empower ourselves in a way that’s totally personalized for our own unique goals.

If you’ve ever wished to be or grow a certain way, now you have the fuel to help you get there.

Vitality Defined

Posted on by Dan Marion

Vitality is a centrally important, yet little understood, concept.

Quality of life, health and happiness, and all revolve around and utilize vitality.

But what is vitality?

 

Vitality is a concept, often vaguely used, in many health-oriented circles to describe various things.

The specific and precise definition for it I’ve come up with is:

Vitality is your body’s available health reserves.

So what is a health reserve?

 

Every form and function of your body requires resources.

Every tissue, gland, cell, organ, twitch, turn, and movement of your body requires materials in order to exist and function.

Every different component, and many different actions, require different types of materials.

A cell wall requires cholesterol, your muscle requires glucose, your brain requires fats, your liver requires b vitamins, and your pancreas needs enzymes.

You could consider all of these different materials required to live to be your health resources.

Your vitality.

 

But don’t we get and replenish these items from food?

In the case of most materials, we do replenish them by eating.

After all, the whole point of eating is to provide fuel and building blocks for the body to function.

However, there are some things which are clearly not fully replenished, refilled, or repaired.

This lack of complete refill and repair is, in essence, aging.

Perhaps if there was a way to identify and correct these depleted reserves, people could significantly extend their age.

That discussion will be for another time, but the core concept there is highly relevant to the discussion at hand.

 

The essential understanding here is that while much of our vitality (health reserves) is replenished with a good diet, it’s not completely replenished.

Substances like the great tonic super-herbs, have demonstrated an ability to replace and replenish aspects of health that are rarely benefited by standard food.

While all of the isolated components required for complete revitalization are yet to be identified, it’s easy to observe the potent effects that many power herbs have in increasing vitality.

This observed increase in vitality is likely due to unique compounds found in the herbal substances.

Naming each of the specific compounds involved is beyond the scope of this article, but a broad, intuitive theory takes shape rather easily.

The body requires a range of different chemicals and compounds, some of which are not available in the standard food supply.

Herbs have been identified specifically for their ability to supply the compounds people don’t typically obtain otherwise.

This makes herbs essential to optimizing health and increasing vitality.

 

Let’s recap.

Vitality is the available health resources of the body.

These resource build and fuel every aspect of your life.

Having more vitality thereby, allows you to be stronger and do more, because you have more resources at your disposal.

These resource requirements are not entirely fulfilled through standard food consumption alone.

In the case of needing or wanting greater vitality, other components, such as tonic herbs, need to be consumed as well.

 

You could think of vitality as your health bank account.

If you deposit into it, you can build up a great reserve fund that you’re able to draw upon when  you need or want to something.

Perhaps if you build it up enough vitality, you can truly reshape your life.