Tea is world’s second most popular drink after plain cold water.  It has been enjoyed by the Chinese for many centuries, and by the rest of us for 300 years. In fact, the Americans felt so strongly about their right to enjoy tea that it triggered a revolution!

The four types of tea you’ll find in the supermarket are black, green, white and oolong.  They are all made from the leaves and leaf buds of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, and the different styles are created in the processing.

Black Tea: Manages Blood Sugar Levels

Back in the 1950s, about 7.5 hours of sleep a night was the norm for most Americans, according to a USA Today article. These days, the average American sleeps for around 6.5 hours a day, and if you’re a full time student chances are you get even less. So how DO we all function with so much less sleep? That’s a whole night of sleep, missing from our lives each week.  Unfortunately, cutting back on sleep seems to have become the norm in our society.

Studies have shown, however, that we need 7-8 hours of sleep a night to be high-functioning during the day. It is a common belief that sleeping in on week-ends will somehow balance out the sleep debt incurred during the week. However, once one starts cutting sleep during the week again, there is a significant effect on alertness, mood, and performance. A study in 1995 found that there is significant sleep loss in 1/3 of American adults. This state of perennial sleepiness has been estimated to cause about 2-56 billion dollars in sleep-related accidents on the road each year, and even more in lost productivity, medical illness, or shortened lifespan secondary to sleepiness or sleep pathology.

Because of both the normal aging process and modern societal pressures to succeed, our hours in the sack are continually sacrificed.

As we mentioned in previous articles, infertility is defined as the inability of a couple to conceive after 12 months of unprotected sexual intercourse. It affects over 5 million couples alone in the U. S. and many times more in the world. Because of an unawareness of treatments, only 10% seek help from professional specialists. We have spent most of the time in this series discussing conventional and Chinese medicines in treating fertility. I believe, it is the best time to change the subject by discussing how to treat infertility with Chinese herbs–cistanche.

I. Definition
Cistanche is also known as rou cong rong. It is a holoparasitic desert plant belonging to the family Orobanchaceae. It has been used in tradition Chinese medicine for replenishing blood and Kidney-Jing.