Schizandra

Schizandra

Scientific Name: Schisandra chinensis

Native to: China

In a word: The All-in-One Healer

Uses: Chronic liver disease, respiratory illness, high blood pressure, lack of energy / endurance, digestive complaints

schizandra has been a well-kept Asian secret, but not for much longer. I have a feeling that once people start discovering its virtues, the imports from China will go straight through the ceiling. I don’t have much cocktail party trivia to amuse you with about this one. However, it is such a great plant that I had to include it in our tonic. Take a look at some schizandra facts.

The fruit of the schizandra has been proven to stimulate the spinal cord and brain and to strengthen and quicken the reflexes; when people were fed it, they worked better and more efficiently. Though stimulating, it does not have the twitchy side effects of caffeine. It wouldn’t surprise me if major corporations started dropping the berries in their water coolers.

Schizandra is used to treat a lot of different things, including coughs, premature ejaculation, chronic dysentery, and insomnia.

It has also been shown to stimulate breathing by affecting the central nervous system. The exact process is not yet understood, but it works so powerfully that the plant is used in morphine overdoses to counteract the respiratory paralysis that often leads to death in such cases. With a 76 percent success rate in treating certain types of hepatitis, schizandra has likewise proven an effective cure for chronic liver diseases.

When taken intravenously, it decreases blood pressure, and in alcoholic solutions, it acts as a vasodilator. It has been shown to stimulate rabbits’ uteruses before, during, and after pregnancy. Specifically, it strengthens rhythmic contractions, and as such, it is used in promoting and procuring healthy labours.

What’s more, schizandra aids in the digestion and absorption of nutrients into the body. It increases visual acuity and the field of vision as well as the ability to discern different sorts of touches. In short, it improves the sensory perceptions. It also increases people’s ability to deal effectively with stress and improves their endurance. Once again, this was proven with mice in a lap pool. Taking the plant makes animals and people alike better able to deal with their environment.

There are two kinds of schizandra plants, one producing red berries and the other black. The red berries are the fruits you see at the Chinese herbalist’s shop; the black ones rarely make it out of Asia.

The fruits are said to have five distinct flavors: sweet, sour, pungent, bitter, and salty. This feature of the plant gave rise to its name in Chinese, wu wei tsu, the five-flavored plant. Now, back to my theory that all tonic plants show off their specialness in some special way. Lemons are sour, dates are sweet, and any fruit with five flavors is mighty odd in my book. This fact alone would have hinted to early observers that something was up with schizandra.

As schizandra is a Chinese plant, to understand its medicinal use we must first learn through which channel the plant enters the body. If you guessed the lung and kidney channels you were correct. Schizandra first appeared in the Divine Husbandman’s Classic of the Materia Medica, which is to say that it has been around for thousands of years. The plant is used to treat a lot of different things, including coughs, premature ejaculation, chronic dysentery, and insomnia.

The thing I want to zero in on about schizandra is its role as what the Chinese call an adaptogen. This is the concept in Chinese medicine that Westerners have the hardest time grasping because the adaptogen is an herb category we don’t even have. Adaptogens are plants that help you adapt to your environment. Let’s take another adaptogen, garlic, as an example. People eat garlic in hot countries so that the heat doesn’t make them sick.  In high altitudes, it’s consumed to make breathing easier. It is also used to kill the unfamiliar bacteria folks encounter on trips. Garlic helps you adjust to any environment you happen to be in, and schizandra does the same thing. In essence, all of our tonic plants are adaptogens. That’s what preventative medicine is all about, helping the body to cope so that it never gets ill.