One of Nature’s Most Powerful Stress-Busters
When it comes to overcoming the daily challenges of life, we can all use a little help. It’s the culmination for all those little frustrations that we encounter every day that can subtly take their toll on your health. Being stuck in traffic, whining kids, demanding jobs, challenging relationships, never-ending household chores, can make us feel like our batteries are running down. Because these frustrations are continuous, our body never gets a chance to really unwind and relax.
The sum total of all these demands moves us into the danger zone of chronic stress. While “stress" is a word that has been bantered about a lot, the fact remains that these daily annoyances and upsets contribute to a great strain on the body. One way to think of stress is to imagine your house being slowly undermined by termites’ eating away at the foundations. Chronic and unrelenting stress will quietly begin to erode our health. We may feel fatigued, experience interrupted sleep, feel impatient or angry, notice short term memory loss, or have various aches and pains appear. Stress impairs digestion, puts hormones out of whack and slows metabolism.
In fact, for just about any health condition or, for the matter, just feeling emotionally out of sorts, you can bet stress is a contributing factor. The symptoms are many. But “stress” has a cumulative effect of all those niggling events and experiences that are taking a toll on our body, emotions and mind out of balance.
The Amazing Ability to Adapt
Our body actually has an extraordinary ability to adapt to stress. It is designed to return to a balanced state of wellbeing, called homeostasis, if given some assistance. Homeostasis is the way the body’s innate wisdom is able to continually adjust and respond to both internal and external stressors.
Given the right assistance, our body cannot only manage to successfully navigate those stressful events but can also restore optimal health and vitality. One of the best natural solutions to reverse the debilitating and aging effect of stress come from very special medicinal plants. These plants have been used for hundreds of years by cultures throughout the world to mitigate the effects of stress, so the body then has the ability to repair and regain health.
These very special plants are known as adaptogens. They are the true allies for creating and maintaining homeostasis, no matter how much stress we may be experiencing. One exceptional adaptogenic plant is called Morinda Citrifolia, better known as Noni. The fruit of the Noni plant is renowned throughout the world as a powerful and safe healing natural medicine. It has been described as a traditional medicine to combat stress in both ancient Chinese and Indian texts as well as in Polynesian healing wisdom.
Noni is truly a miraculous plant.
As a powerful adaptogen, it has been proven effective in resolving a wide variety of stress-related disorders, including blood sugar imbalances, constipation, circulation, blood pressure, inflammation, ulcers, indigestion, weakened immunity, chronic fatigue and asthma. There is no doubt that stress can have a negative impact on our memory and brain functioning. One of the most disconcerting symptoms of ongoing stress is the loss of mental acuity. We may be more forgetful or be at a loss or remember words or names.
The good news is that numerous studies have proven that Noni’s stress-mitigating ability can support our brain health. Noni has been shown to be especially good at protecting the brain from cognitive decline. Stress can leave you feeling tense and uptight. So it’s great to know that Noni offers a great solution to help you to naturally wind down and relax. Because Noni is known for regulating the release of endorphins, your natural “feel good” inner chemistry, it can calm down an overactive nervous system. When your nervous system is able to once again return to a calm state, you will once again sleep like a baby and reclaim an overall sense of wellbeing.
Stress is notorious for robbing the body of key nutrients. These nutrients are vital to ensure that your body is resilient to stress. Noni is such a superstar adaptogen because it is endowed with extraordinary and essential nutrients. Noni has been found to contain many different kinds of phytonutrients. It contains a rich assortment of vitamins and minerals, especially potassium, vitamin C, carotene, vitamin A and fatty acids.
Let’s talk about stress and vitamin C for a minute. Vitamin C has been shown to support the cardiovascular system, skin, nervous system, teeth and bone density, it is also an essential immune-supporting nutrient, which is found in high amounts in the adrenal glands and is released in response to stress. While stress accelerates vitamin C depletion in all the tissues in the body, the adrenal glands are especially affected, which must respond to every stress experienced. The adrenals glands are the heavy lifters to combat all forms of stress. When the adrenals are depleted for adequate amounts of Vitamin C, they begin to fail.
So, of the many nutrients required to reduce the harmful effects of stress, Vitamin C is essential. As an example of Noni’s superior nutrition profile, the Noni fruit has twice the naturally occurring levels of the vitamin C in an orange! Noni juice is really a game changer when it comes to protecting you from the debilitating effects of stress. But even more importantly, as a powerful adaptogen, this amazing fruit has great healing, recuperative and restorative capabilities.
The Top Ten Benefits of Noni
There are over 770 published studies that have confirmed the many positive health effects found in the Noni fruit. They include the following benefits.
Promotes Well-Being
All the systems of the body are optimized to be able to repair, regain balance and maintain healthy functioning. This benefit translates into so many important benefits which include balanced hormones, sustained energy, improved sleep, reduced inflammation and pain, improved clarity of thought and mental focus, balanced moods and much, much more.
Optimizes the Immune System
Noni is a fantastic immune-modulator. Research has shown that Noni juice intelligently supports a balanced immune system response. It has proven to be effective in improving conditions that the immune system directly impacts such as rheumatoid arthritis, allergies, cancer, auto-immune diseases (such as psoriasis, Hashimoto’s disease, etc.) and chronic viral infections, etc.
Increased Physical Endurance
The daily consumption of Noni juice not only gives athletes the extra edge in their sport but will also support greater energy and stamina throughout the day.
Pain Reduction
The Noni fruit has another healing secret. For over 2,000 years, Noni has been used in traditional folk medicine for its pain-relieving effects. In fact, one of the traditional names for Noni in the Caribbean was “pain killer”!
Fights Inflammation
Noni fruit has a very powerful anti-inflammatory action which was found to be five times more effective than aspirin, which is an NSAID. That makes Noni a logical choice when dealing with chronic inflammatory conditions. It is powerful in its anti-inflammatory actions but without any side effects, especially serious internal bleeding.
Brain Function
Recent studies have shown that Noni protects the brain from stress-related impairment of cognitive function by ensuring good blood-vessel density in the brain. Noni also improves brain energy metabolism as well as demonstrating neuro-protective effects, leading to reduced cognitive impairment
Heart Health
Noni juice has been proven to provide impressive support for overall cardiovascular health. Not only is Noni able to improve the blood flow in the arteries but it also has powerful nutrients for regulating healthy blood pressure.
Restful Sleep
Noni was renown as an herbal cure for insomnia because it contains two sleep-inducing neurotransmitters, melatonin and serotonin. Each one is necessary to promote deep, restorative sleep.
Improves Digestion
Noni has long been known by traditional cultures, as well as recent investigations, to improve nutrient absorption, to stimulate the release of digestive enzymes, to insure regularity, to cleanse the colon and to strengthen overall digestion.
Healthy Cholesterol and Blood Sugar Levels:
As a natural free radical scavenger, research showed that people who consumed Noni juice on an everyday basis had improvement in their lipid profiles — with reduced LDL (bad cholesterol) and improved HDL levels (good cholesterol). From ancient times, cultures around the world recognized the very special healing properties found in the Noni fruit. Now, confirmed by hundreds of studies, people are experiencing what their ancient ancestors discovered. The Noni fruit is truly a gift given to us to help heal so many of the health challenges that we are facing in our modern time.
Dr. Sherrill Sellman, N.D. is a Naturopathic Doctor, educator, women's natural health expert, psychotherapist, best-selling author and journalist in the field of holistic health.