Cinnamon Girl

My first experience with the medicinal use of cinnamon occurred when I was about twenty-one years old, living and working in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The small, family owned Evelyn’s Middle Eastern restaurant was one of my favorite spots for lunch. One wintry afternoon I visited the restaurant in search of some hot soup to help ease the flu symptoms that overcame me that cold, blustery morning. The oldest brother of the Iranian family greeted me with his usual warm smile and asked, “How are you today Juliette?”

“Oh I amb nod feeling so well,” I answered thru my congested nose and scratchy throat, tissue held in my gesturing hand. “I breally need sumb ub your dad’s famous chicken soup to help my cold go away.”

He promptly sat me at a warm table far from the door. Within minutes a steaming bowl of chicken rice soup, which my stuffy head could only imagine smelled delicious, appeared before my watery eyes. As I gazed into the wide bowl I noticed an ingredient I had never seen before in Dad’s famous chicken rice soup, a cinnamon stick.

I asked the waitress/owner Evelyn, why there was a cinnamon stick in the soup. She told me, “It will help cure your cold.”
“Oh.” I replied with a smile. As I sipped the soup its cinnamon brought warmth and relaxation to my deeply aching muscles. The added spice opened my sinuses, my senses and my curious mind about other cultural herb remedies.

Fast forward about five years, I am twenty-six years old and suffering from another bought of the flu while living in the cold, damp winter climate of Seattle. On my regular weekly visit to the local acupuncture school’s clinic, the student intern, Julie, told me she could give me an herb tea to cure my cold. Having taken many of her Chinese herbal decoctions for other complaints, many of which tasted gross but helped me tremendously, I said, “I’ll take it!”

I was delighted to taste this tea because it tasted like cinnamon, and I felt significantly better after the first couple of doses. Within two days I felt 90% better and cured by the third day. When I went back the next week I asked the intern, “What herbs were in that tea? It tasted so good.” She said, “Oh, I only know the names in Chinese but one of them was cinnamon”. I nodded, “I thought so, I really liked it and it worked so quickly!” Soon thereafter, I was suffering from menstrual cramps which had been medicated with the birth control pill for about eight years. But recently, The Pill stopped alleviating my cramps and my previous relationship ended so I wanted to stop the medicine.

Nervous that I would go back to suffering the debilitating cramps I had before starting The Pill, I asked Julie if she could help. She gave me another decoction, also containing cinnamon. Much to my amazement, the tea was effective enough for me to bear the cramps. I began a regimen of taking the tea one week before my expected period and by about the sixth month cramps rarely afflicted me. Eventually, I didn’t even have to take the tea anymore. By this point I loved cinnamon, I had become a Cinnamon Girl (Neil Young, where are you?).

To read the rest of Juliette's article click here:
http://www.amazinghealing.com/cinammon