Echinacea: To Help Keep Your Chin Up

Soothing echinacea, or, the cone flower, gets you out of its namesake: the pressure you feel with a cold and stuffed sinuses from the tension of a cone of congestion. When you are congested and need relief for your air passages, echinacea can reduce the impact of sickness with potent anti-inflammatory and immuno-increasing effects for your defense. Let’s explore the benefits and how these blooms perform their miraculous healing actions, to help you get out of the cone of stuffiness, and back to healthy real quick.

‘Panechinacea’

Echinacea was regarded as a panacea, or cure all, among the Europeans that learned from the herbalism of indigenous Americans who had used the plant for centuries to heal wounds, relieve pain, clear cough, and, especially, to help defend during colds and illness. The benefits of the plant lie in its phytochemical profile, rich in antioxidants and compounds for anti-inflammation, as well as in their eponymous echinacoside content, a PHG known for even more whole body benefits, with abilities to reduce nervousness and anxiety to help you improve more quickly from sickness in times of stress, to promote circulation and heart health to rid the body more readily of toxin invasion, and to even help with neurodegeneration, as a botanical whose properties promote increased circulatory flow and anti-inflammation within the brain.

Among this cure all ‘panechinacea’ with so many benefits, the most known and utilized is immune defense. Recent studies have shown echinacea can reduce the time of a cold by as much as half. The robust antioxidant profile helps fight against oxidative damage that stresses the body in the midst of combating infection, and more directly, contains antibacterial elements to increase illness fighting action, promoting the release of white blood cells to work against infection, all while reducing inflammation to ensure your body does not overheat in the process. Echinacea covers every front on the battle for your recovered wellness, synergistically supporting with the offense of increased immune response with the defense of antioxidant supported anti-inflammation to cool and back up an overworking immune system in the process. Wonder herb? Yes.

More Than A Cool Cold Soother

As mentioned, this powerful cold helper also shows powerful healing potential with PHGs, to heal cardiovascular ailments, help with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s—with increased antioxidant activity and reduced inflammation which contributes to the degeneration of neural cognition—and shows incredible potential for cancer protection. Not only for soothing the body during treatment and radiation, the bloom itself also promotes the apoptosis (destruction) of dangerous cells in the midst of malignant propagation.

Combinations For Maximum Benefits

The power of echinacea to reduce and help clear toxins and bacteria from the body are robust alone, but can be enhanced through a few popular botanical combinations. Taken with goldenseal, the pair work as demolition and clean up in the midst of illness. According to herbalist Dr. Christopher Hobbs, the echinacea works to break down dangerous bacteria cells through antibacterial action, while goldenseal in combination then supports this active offense process by clearing out the harmful bacterium as extra defense through the support of our various immune membranes, promoting circulation to rid toxins with faster exit pathways, as well as ‘cooling’ the body, as a cooling herb according to ancient Chinese herbalism, to further support the anti-inflammation benefits of echinacea while your body is generating a great amount of heat fighting the infection and producing the cells necessary to take the bacteria away. Another synergistic combination is with elderberry, which across medicinal traditions has been used to help heal sickness with incredible amounts of antioxidants, and is especially rich in vitamin A content that can be used to only enhance echinacea’s effects.

For Some Help To Keep Your Chin Up

Echinacea can be utilized in so many forms, from capsules, tinctures, to teas. The extract is an especially potent and efficacious form, as the water soluble nutrients with the most desired benefits can reach the body most easily through aqueous delivery routes/methods. So the next time you are feeling an oncoming cold, or are feeling anxious and upset, try some echinacea. To take you from the cone of congestion, back to the sweetness of a bloom, or a cone of ice cream—sorbet if you’re vegan. Chin up with echinacea, to take on illness with the power of botanical antioxidants.

Resources:

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3941201/

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4

- https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/71678

- https://www.christopherhobbs.com/library/articles-on-herbs-and-health/echinacea-and-goldenseal-the-dynamic-duo/

- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/echinacea#side-effects

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC

- https://mountainroseherbs.com/echinacea-purpurea-root

- https://mountainroseherbs.com/echinacea-angustifolia-root

- https://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/5-facts-about-goldenseal-extract/

- https://whatsgood.vitaminshoppe.com/immune-supplement-combos/

- https://www.mothersmarket.com/blog/echinacea-vs-elderberry-fighting-infections-and-improving-health