Good Night is a new oil that will be coming out right shortly.  The purpose of this blend is to assist with sleep issues. So Good Night, to help you have a good night's sleep.

Over the years I have worked with a number of different formulations to help with the whole sleep deal.  Some have been pretty good; others,were just mediocre. A while back Dave Briskie asked me if I could work on an essential oil blend for sleep, as a number of people that he had talked with had requested this type of blend. Since he requested this blend, I asked him to do the honors in naming it, which he did, so thank you Dave.

I looked at what I had already been done and went to work. When the dust settled, we ended up with this particular blend. You will not find this blend or a blend like it anywhere else, at least for now. Down the road you will be able to find it; but for now, this is an exclusive type of oil. The base oil in this blend is our Earth Scent EO blend that we already have. Then...

In going back through the 3 parts that I posted I found that maybe, just maybe I wasn't as clear as I would have liked to have been or should have been on a few points.  So I will sort of clear up a few areas.

One of the biggest challenges to a good night sleep is stress. Plain old stress.  In fact stress is at the center of almost every disease that a human being can end up with. Again, it does not cause it but it makes it far worse than it would be on its own.  So in working with sleep we look at stress as a factor in the whole. Some may say, well the stress is just in your head.  Well most stress is, but since it is in your brain, it is real, as real as anything in life. It has to be worked with just like anything else.

We talked about the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems and their roles in sleep and stress associated with sleep. What we need to keep in mind is that if the source of the stress is more or less driven by the parasympathetic...

First off there are 4 main lines of thoughts with aromatherapy. The German method. says that you are only suppose to smell essential oils. Never do you apply topically or ingest. If you do they freak out. Then you have the English Method. With this one you can smell and apply topically. Then you have the French Method. With this one you can smell, ingest and apply topically. Then lastly you have the American Method. With this one anything goes. I guess at YGY they have chosen to follow along the lines of English Aromatherapy. The FDA has basically come down on just about everyone in the American and French lines of thinking, they say, NO you do not follow or teach certain parts of those. They started with the 2 main big companies following the American and French methods. Because of this misuse and misapplications of the American and French Methods, it is deemed best to follow the English Method of Aromatherapy. It tends to be safe and yet allow more applications to be served than...

In this we will be trying to tie up some loose ends and end up with the bottom line.
I hope that all of you can see that based on some of the information already presented is that the 2 nervous systems play a huge role in sleep. In the discussion I hinted at the many roles that sleep has on the brain and how the brain has to have the sleep as part of its ability to function. I say hint at because if one were to go into detail and lecture on the topics that we have skimmed over we could easily find ourselves into 30 to 40 hours of lecturing to properly cover the subject.

We have looked at the role of essential oils in helping with sleep. But to review here, we use the oils to help with the sleep cycles. We have learned that Lavender works great on the parasympathetic system function yet only works moderately well on the sympathetic system. Another oil that works better on the sympathetic system is the aroma of Rose., Actual Rose oil is at times a little harsh, so it has to be diluted...

Here we go for another round in explaining some aspects to one of the most important things in our life. In this part we will have to build some ground work for the next few parts.

Many of you have heard of the terms, Parasympathetic Nervous System and the Sympathetic Nervous Systems, correct? These two systems are at the very core of sleep.
The parasympathetic system for the most part runs the systems of your body that you don't have to think about to induce function or action. The Sympathetic system is largely the one that you have to think about to induce or cause to function or bring about action. Both of these functions somewhat together, but in some areas one will take the role as lead and the other as follower. This role many times will switch back and forth during a single tasks. Sleep is highly involved in both of these systems. During slow wave deep cycle the parasympathetic is running the show. This is why it is easy to fall asleep, falling is the operative word. It is...

Today I want to discuss sleep related issues and sleep in relationship to the oils. I recently made a post concerning a new oil, Good Night. The purpose of that oil is to deal with sleep issues. Now why is sleep an area that we should be concerned with? That is what we are going to be looking at. So here goes.

The brain consists of about 3% of your body weight. But it uses a tremendous amount of energy, figures of 25% or even more of the energy requirements that you might use on an average day, is used for brain function. During the day you take in all sorts of stimulus, numbers per second is a huge amount on this incoming data, figures of into the thousands per second is normal activity. Only a small amount is actually used. So the brain automatically sorts and keeps or discards much of that data. For the most part that data is stored in short term memory in the Hippocampus. There are other brain parts involved, but this process is very sensitive to stress. So as the data come in,...

Hello again everyone!

Hope you all had a great weekend. Lets get into this final part of my 4 part series.

In part 1, I mentioned how I used forest soil with disastrous results.  This is because the soil was not yet conditioned for the crops that I was growing.  How many of you have looked at "soil" at the store, saw this black gunk and thought,"Ah, good soil."  Anyone?  Most of that soil is made with or has a base of wood.  Bad news.  Why?  Because it is not properly digested for use on the plants that you are growing.

Here is the basic cycle of nature: when you have some soil that has been abused in some form, has no plants growing, etc., and nature takes its first step, what does nature begin to grow?  Weeds, and woody shrubs.  Weeds help in ground cover and to promote an atmosphere where soil bugs can grow.  The woody shrubs are there to develop and start the soil healing in these acidic soils.

In short, the acidic soil, is...

I'm a runner. It's not for everyone, but I love it. It's cheap, it's a form of therapy, and it keeps me fit and healthy. With summer coming, for me, that means getting off the treadmill and outside to enjoy those runs. And where I'm from, I get to pass hundreds of Birch Trees.

What's the correlation?

Birch tress are known, in general, for all things "bones". And for any runner, athlete, HUMAN...bones are kind of important. Birch trees are absolutely beautiful and one of my favourite trees. And the oil that is extracted from the bark of these tress is pretty amazing too.

Some of the typical properties of birch oil include:

• Analgesic - relieves pain
• Anti-inflammatory
• Anti-rheumatic - relieves rheumatism
• Antiseptic - assists in fighting germs and infections
• Antispasmodic - relieves spasms
• Diuretic
• and more!

The aroma of birch is lovely as well. It doesn't have the same "woody" aroma as other tree oils, like Cedar wood or Black Spruce. Instead it smells minty, like...

Hi Everyone,

With this part I would like to take a slightly different approach than I did in part one and two.  So maybe it will be more reader friendlier with some applicable ideas.

There are a lot of myths out there, some are right and some are questionable. But what is interesting is when they are both right and wrong, the difference is when they are applied, making them right or wrong.   The first myth I would like to discuss is "high elevation is better, low elevation is bad for quality of the plant or the food it produces".

Here goes, as plants grow in the higher elevation they have a shorter growing season, so when considered over many years you end up having a low of crow cycles rotations as compared to lower elevations.  Lets use these figures, as these are figures that I know for a fact to be pretty accurate.  At the 6500 ft. to 7000 ft. elevation a person might be lucky on a year in and year out comparison have about a 75 to 80 growing cycle....

Welcome back everyone,

This is the second part from last weeks blog post. So without further ado, lets get back into it.

Albrecht discusses the need for the plant to grow its own organic material. Now I want you to think long and hard on this subject, that being what he says, that crops must grow their own soil organic matter.  Now this part and the concepts here really threw me for a loop.  The one most important concept that has been drilled into my head as a farmer is this, crop rotation.  Why?  You have to rotate in order to prevent disease and to rebuild the soil.  Here Albrecht shows why that is a wrong concept.  But why?  In brief, when we clear cut the land, we take everything.

In nature/the natural setting this is not done. The crop that is left dies down and mulches naturally back into the soil. The plant has adapted and built up its own immune system and the old and dying plant returns that to the soil and thus prevents the diseases from...