Most people just want something to take care of the discomfort as fast as possible. A cream for the rash, a pill for the headache, something to really make that bloating go away. The problem with those approaches is that they usually don’t deal with why something might’ve manifested in the first place. Natural health products want to do exactly that.
The difference is more significant than most people realize. When something keeps coming back despite help, it usually means that the initial cause was never addressed. That’s when people can really appreciate the difference between covering a problem and correcting it.
Contents
Covering vs. Correcting Symptoms
Conventional approaches usually want to block a specific reaction. They suppress inflammation. They stop pain signals. They artificially adjust hormone levels. These treatments are effective and immediate because they do the exact opposite of what the body is trying to do.
Plant-based products have a different approach. Instead of blocking what the body does, they provide what the body needs to correct its process. A natural progesterone cream doesn’t force the body to change hormone levels. It provides it with plant-based compounds that can allow itself to be regulated better. An herbal anti-inflammatory product doesn’t stop inflammation from happening. It provides the body with antioxidants that can resolve the inflammation instead of just covering it.
What’s the downside to this approach? It takes longer than most people are accustomed to. When the body is correcting an imbalance rather than having it covered, it takes time. People have to use a product for a couple of weeks before they should expect real change.
What Makes Certain Problems Continue to Return
Hormonal imbalances are an excellent example of how this works. Someone with crippling PMS could take a medication to reduce prostaglandins, which would make their cramps feel better. The problem, however, is that when the issue is low progesterone or estrogen dominance, this will only help temporarily. The exact same problem will happen every single month because it’s not correcting the problem; it’s just covering it.
The same goes for skin conditions. Topical steroids can suppress inflammation better than anything else on the market. The problem is that if the inflammation is arising from a disrupted skin barrier or something similar, it’ll continue to return as soon as the treatment stops. It’s more beneficial to help the skin with its barrier function with plant oils that can repair the lipid barrier instead of repeatedly suppressing the inflammation.
The digestive system works the same way. Antacids treat heartburn by neutralizing stomach acid. The problem is that if heartburn happens because the stomach acid is too low to begin with (which is more common than people realize), neutralizing it will only make the problem worse.
How Plant-Based Products Help the Body Correct Issues
Natural health products work with the body instead of against it. Companies like Naturally Linda have designed products that the body can use to correct issues such as hormonal imbalances, skin barrier disruptions, and digestive function without using any synthetic ingredients.
What does that look like in practice? A wild yam cream contains diosgenin, which the body can use to create progesterone precursors itself. This won’t flood the body with fake hormones. It’ll allow the body to be balanced as it should be.
Plant-based digestive support works the same way. Instead of being filled with enzymes or chemicals that might not even work, these products contain herbal extracts that the body can use to release its own digestive secretions at a healthy level instead of being pummeled with unnatural products. Bitter herbs can stimulate bile flow while demulcents can soothe the digestive tract lining.
Plant-based immune support works in a similar way. Echinacea doesn’t kill pathogens, it helps the immune system stimulate a response to it. Elderberry provides antioxidants to immune cells that can help them do their job better. The immune system becomes more robust because it’s working, not because something else is doing it for them.
Why Time Is a Factor When Switching to Natural Products
The hardest thing for people to learn when switching from synthetic products to natural is how long it takes for them to get results. Someone who’s used to NSAIDS will be very frustrated when an anti-inflammatory product takes weeks of consistent use to show effects similar to theirs within 30 minutes.
But there’s a good reason for this. The synthetic product blocks enzymes that produce inflammatory compounds. This provides an immediate solution but doesn’t help the body do what it should’ve done in the first place. The plant-based anti-inflammatory product provides the body with compounds that help resolve inflammation through its natural processes, which might take longer but works better.
The time difference catches people out over and over again. They might try a natural product for a couple of days and give up because they don’t see results instead of sticking with it long enough for their bodies to get used to functioning differently. Practitioners usually recommend at least 4-6 weeks of consistent use before they decide if something is working.
The Quality Factor
Not all natural health products do what they claim. Many companies have found ways to come up with formulations that are low enough that they might as well be placebo products with clever marketing.
There’s one more thing to consider when using products that claim to have an effect on physiological processes:
Quality matters more than anything else. An effective natural health product gets its formulations right, the right concentrations, the right carrier systems to get absorbed, and synergistic combinations with other products.
Companies that take natural health products seriously invest time in proper formulation and testing instead of cutting corners with marketing hype.
They pay attention to where their plants come from. They use extraction methods that keep their active ingredients. They provide formulations with realistic concentrations of ingredients in them, enough for them to work on human systems instead of just look good on a label.
