This tea is about comforting and nourishing YOU. Balance in this busy life is a bit of a holy grail for many people coping with myriad demands and challenges. It seems to me that Nature provides many herbs specifically to help women (including our non-binary siblings) through life and just smooth the road a little bit.

The Balanced Woman Tea is a delicious, gentle blend of herbs that have been known down through the ages to help balance female hormones, regulate the menstrual cycle, nourish the female reproductive system ad calm the nervous system. The herbs are renowned to help reduce uncomfortable symptoms of hormonal imbalance such as:

* erratic or heavy bleeding
* irritability and mood swings
* insomnia
* dysmenorrhoea

We know that environmental factors disrupt the healthy balance of female hormones. Pollution, stress, fake oestrogens in meat or poultry, or from plastics, artificial hormones such as the Pill, HRT, syntocinon etc, caffeine and sugar all contribute to hormonal imbalance.

Sugar is a major factor. If insulin is "the Mistress of the Hormones" then it makes sense that over-loading our system with sugar is going to knock our the hormones off kilter. White pasta, bread and rice are sources of refined carbohydrate which is just another name for "sugar" as far as body metabolism is concerned.

Nature made sugar really hard to get, but these days most of us are suffering under a toxic overload of far more sugar than the human body was ever meant to process.

This has implications for all humans, but with respect to women: consider that many ailments, discomforts and diseases that are often regarded as merely womens' lot in life, are in fact caused by hormonal imbalance ... and sugar is not going to help with that. At all.

Most of us are over-sugared, under nourished (particularly in Magnesium) and under-exercised.

So be sweet to your dear self: as you try this tea, see what you can do to by-pass the "sugar-in-this-form" and "sugar-in-that-form" packaged food that is marketed to us so aggressively, and instead nourish yourself, body and soul, with living cell food that nature intended for our health and healing.

The best explanation I ever heard of the connection between pollutants, stress, sugar, female hormones and female health came from Naturopath Barbara O'Neill in her DVD lecture, The Dance of the Hormones.

OK back to the Balanced Woman Tea.

It includes the following herbs:

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) -a richly nutritious herb with phyto-oetrogens that support hormones balance.

Blessed Thistle (Cnicus benedictus) - an emmenagogue herb that helps regulate the menstrual cycle. Renowned for its help in relieving painful periods and curbing heavy bleeding.

Chastetree (Vitex agnuscastus)- an adaptogen considered to support hormonal balance. Helps to regulate the menstrual cycle and reduce PMS.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) - has a mild diuretic action which can be helpful for water retention and bloating that contributes to PMS. Dandelion is also richly anti-oxidant, alkilising and anti-inflammatory.

Liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) - has oestrogenic properties, helps normalise and regulate hormones and help alleviate mild depression.

Red Clover (Trifolium pratense)- supports and balances the hormonal system and helps relieve menstrual discomforts

Red Raspberry Leaf (Rubus idaeus) - long considered a tonic for the female reproductive system, strengthens and tones the uterus, richly nutritious.

I suggest drinking the Balanced Woman* tea freely throughout the month. Close to the time when you expect your bleed, you could switch to the Moon Cycle Bliss tea. And treat yourself to a Moon Cycle Bliss herbal bath!