Cool it now

It sucks when you have heartburn. Your chest physically feels on fire. It can actually make you irritable and impatient. Who wants to argue when they feel like a fire breathing dragon?

It is a common belief amongst expecting mothers that when pregnant if you experience consistent heartburn, your baby will be born with a head full of hair. Well I was pregnant with twins-that's two babies. I carried my twins to full term from February to October, by the willing grace of god and the strength of the d.n.a in my blood and bones. I'm not here to dispute that old wives' tale... both of my babies had heads completely full of hair. I was sick constantly. I don't remember eating. I don't understand how the babies grew. I was throwing up until September. I only remember eating Crème of Wheat, crackers, cereal, toasts, bagels, and tea.

I resorted to Tea, Peppermint, to be exact. There's a reason why the original Pepcid AC, and Maalox are Mint flavored. Mint is well known to have a cooling effect. Mint scent is used in most anti-inflammatory, as in anti(against) in-flames. A lot of the times of pain, discomfort muscular strain is caused by inflammation. It's not just the pain. It's the reaction the nerves in our body have to the pain. It's the brain, the central nervous system sending emergency signals throughout our nervous system to alert of distress. Our pain creams, our anti acids, all contain cooling aids. When we burn ourselves in the kitchen we are told to run our hands under cold water. If you injure yourself you get ice, you cool it down. It seems that everyway that we heal ourselves we first must cool the reaction than we treat the injury or cause.

So, when you need to put out a fire in your chest- when you feel that heartburn or if you actually just need to cool your jets-Mint is your go-to herb. Calm your temper. Cool your jets. Ease the heartburn. Cool the pain. That is the magic of peppermint.

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Here, I had Celestial Seasoning Peppermint tea. In the eight months of pregnancy I found that I like their blend of peppermint tea, best. For peppermint tea, I use honey or sugar. In the Celestial Seasoning box for Peppermint tea, there are individual sealed tea bags with tags attached. All you have to do is boil your water and wait for the herbs to disperse, adding your sugar/honey while hot to dissolve.

In this photo I added an actual Mint stem. I love smoothies and the aesthetic of herbs and fruits. Fresh mint stem actually gives a great added scent-it's not necessary but it is "cool".

Each tea bag is intended for apprx 8 ozs ounces of water.

If you're like me, and you want a stronger herbal impact I pour:

16 ozs of water and 2 tea bags.

If you want to turn your hot brewed tea into an actual Iced Tea, you'd use:

3 tea bags into 8 ounces of hot water.

Then, after it steeps and disperses for 7 minutes, drain squeeze the tea bags for fullest flavor.

By then your water will have full flavor of all 3 tea bags, it will be strong enough to keep the healing impact when you add in the ice.

Add as much ice as you want. If you do this while its still hot or warm the ice will melt first and it will cool the water, any additional ice will hold form.

Now sip on that tea.