Essential Drink for Every Empath

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Thursday, 31 October 2024

Because most Empaths are affected by emotional stress, in some way or another, we are prone to having higher levels of cortisol.

As I’ve discussed in many past posts, cortisol is an essential hormone that, amongst other things, regulates the body’s stress response.

However, when we regularly experience heightened cortisol levels, through repeated stress spikes, it can cause cortisol resistance. This means our hormone signals don’t do the job they should, and the adrenals go into overdrive pumping out more and more cortisol, which can lead to problems such as depression, anxiety, brain fog and memory problems, insulin resistance, inflammation, or weight gain.

This is a subject I keep coming back to, both in posts and books, because it is so important for our health and wellbeing and is a subject many Empaths are unaware of.

The thing is, everyone experiences stress. It is part and parcel of life. Yet, as Empaths, we are at a disadvantage because we can pick up on stress from others as well as having our own to deal with.

One sign that you may have a cortisol problem, is if you have a pot belly or have trouble shifting weight, no matter how much you diet or how hard you exercise.

There are several ways we can lower cortisol levels, here’s a post with more info, but one super-simple way is to drink more herbal tea.

There are many types of herbal tea I can recommend for calming stressed emotions, which in turn helps to lower cortisol. Here’s a post I wrote several years ago with 11 different types beneficial for an Empath.

However, there’s a common tea known for lowering cortisol levels.

Green tea.

Now, I’m sure you’ve already heard of the benefits of green tea. It is antioxidant rich, and known to improve memory, aid in weight loss and more, but apparently, green tea contains something called EGCG, which is a phytonutrient known to lower cortisol.

According to Dr Berg, you only need about half a cup of the tea to get the benefits. Which is good considering green tea can contain caffeine, (which in itself is a cortisol trigger).

I must say, I am not very partial to the taste of green tea on its own but I found a great way to get its benefits is by combining it with another tea.

When I make any type of herbal tea, I like to mix different herbs together; not only to get a more interesting flavor but also to get the benefits from the different herbal teas.

A great healing combination I found for green tea is to mix it with lemon balm tea.

On its own, lemon balm has several known benefits, such as soothing the digestive tracts, helping with sleep problems, stimulating cognitive disorders, boosting the immune system, detoxifying the body, eliminating anxiety and soothing PMT; but when combined with green tea you get all the above benefits, plus the cortisol lowering effects.

That’s a win-win situation in my humble opinion, and I write that whilst slurping down a cup of lemon balm and green tea.

Here’s the combination I use

1 tsp of lemon balm, or 1 teabag
1 tsp of green tea, or 1 teabag
Brew for 5 minutes then remove tealeaves or teabags

Essential Drink for Every Empath

To describe the taste, I would say it has a real earthy note, which is also quite soothing. Should you prefer a sweeter tea, you could always add a teaspoon of honey into the mix.

If you are very caffeine sensitive, avoid drinking the above blend late on in the evening, or opt for decaffeinated green tea. But be aware that the decaf version is known to have less antioxidants and healing benefits.

Green tea is usually obtainable in local shops and supermarkets, lemon balm tea, however, is not always so easy to come by. At least not here in Manchester. I order lemon balm tea online from both eBay and Amazon, but it can sometimes be quite pricey.

Obviously, you can just drink green tea on its own, if you like the flavor. There are also lots of other great fruit or herbal blends you could try, to get the cortisol lowering benefits, lemon and mint being quite popular.

Although I have not yet tried it, I suspect green tea would work really well with ginger. The are endless combinations to try.

If you have a favorite green tea blend, please feel free to share in the comments below.

Ok, that’s it for me today.

Hope everything is keeping well in your world.

Until next time.

Diane.

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Diane lives in Manchester, UK. She spent the past twenty years researching everything from human anatomy to the law of attraction. She is a qualified colour and crystal therapist, massage therapist, reflexologist, aromatherapist, healing practitioner, yoga and meditation teacher, and has done in-depth research into diet and nutrition and how it affects Sensitive people.. ©Diane Kathrine