The Herbmonger

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Eye Health Remedies

City dwellers have to cope with various kinds of air pollution -- dust, smoke and traffic exhaust. Residents of the countryside suffer those pollutants (though perhaps not as profoundly) in addition to pollen and chemical sprays. Eyes are not immune to their environment, so this month we thought we'd look at simple ways to can ease the irritation, dryness, and tiredness of your eyes.

Eye bath Ingredients

2.5 ml (1/2 tsp) sea salt
120 ml (4 fl oz) distilled water

Method: Dissolve the salt completely in the water. Use the solution to bathe and rinse your eyes.

Fennel seed (Foeniculum vulgare), German chamomile (Matricaria recutita), and Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) make good herbs to use in eye baths.

Chamomile a beneficial ingredient for a herbal eyebath

City or country, today's living creates tensions in the body. Is tension behind your eyes moving into a headache? Are you tired or having trouble focusing? Your eyes, and you, need to relax. These kitchen remedies are simple things you can do at the end of your day to ease your eyes, and ease your body, for a better, relaxing evening and sleep.

Eye Compresses

Ingredients: Save your teabags! Get twice as much as out of your cuppa, tea leaves (Camellia sinensis) can make a soothing compress for the eyes when cold. Put the teabags in the refrigerator. At the end of the day close your eyes, rest your head and neck, and place the cold teabags over your eyes. Cold chamomile tea calms irritations and allergic reactions. Parsley and tea clear and tone the eyes.

Method:Soak a cotton wool pad or a flannel (washcloth) – damp but not dripping. When they get hot, resoak, squeeze out and replace over eyes. Slices of cucumber (Cucumis sativus), can revitalise eyes in seconds. There are a few herbs that are outstanding for certain eye troubles. Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis), for example, but you need to purchase this dried herb or the tincture from a herb or herbal remedy supplier. Pot marigold (Calendula officinalis), is another, and we have used this wonderful skin herb in many of our remedy recipes. In fact, marigold ointment is the best remedy for dry and itchy eyelids.

Marigold tea is soothing for sore eyes. So it's worth having some dried flowers on standby in your kitchen.

We'd like to end on one of our favourite thoughts about marigold's effect on the eyes. It comes from Macer's Herbal , a medieval poem about the virtues of herbs, written in Latin, probably in the 10th century. The poem was translated into English by John Lelamoure, a schoolmaster from Hertford, in 1373.

Golde [marigold] is bitter in savour
Fayr and yellow in his flowur
Ye golde flour is good to sene
It makyth ye syth [sight] brythe and clene
Wyscely to lokyn on his flowris
Drawyth owt of ye heed wikked hirores [humors] (as published in Eleanour Sinclair Rohde's The Old English Herbals . Dover 1971)

Eyebright

Marigold tea is soothing for sore eyes

Coming Next Month.....

Learn how to make a vervain flower remedy, and what the connection is with vervain and the druids.

This recipes above are courtesy of Christopher Hedley, AHG and Non Shaw. The Herbmonger first appeared on the Herb Society website in 1998 and continued until about 2002. It is the creation of Christopher Hedley AHG and Non Shaw. And reappears back on the Herb Society website with the kind permission of Chris and Non.

Both are practising medical herbalists in London and have co-authored Herbal Remedies: A Practical Beginner's Guide to Making Effective Remedies in the Kitchen. Parragon Press, 1996 ISBN-10: 0752577514 .

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