Salicin - A natural painkiller

Salicin is a natural compound that is well known for its pain-relieving properties.

If you suffer from pain of any kind, pay attention to salicin instead of your usual go to a pain-killing medicine.

Salicin is found in several plants and trees, notably in the bark of white willow trees.

When consumed, the body converts salicin into salicylic acid, which acts in the same way as aspirin or ibuprofen.

The good news? It reduces both pain and inflammation. So if you stub your toe and it becomes inflamed, it will not only reduce the pain but also the swelling.

So how would you take salicin naturally?

Boiling the bark or using it as a tincture has been the common method of consumption for years. Tincture is a concentrated form of the ingredient.

To make white willow bark tea, you need to simmer 1–2 teaspoons of the bark in water for 10–15 minutes. This tea can be consumed up to three times a day.

It is commonly found in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir or Himachal, for example.

There are several sources. Poplar trees, meadowsweet, wintergreen leaves, birch bark are some of the other sources.

Wintergreen oil, for example, is the ingredient in several commonly used topical balms. You can consume the oil as tea too.

So can you throw out your medicine and switch to natural instead?

There is a tendency to imagine something that is natural to be harmless. Water is also natural, but too much would be harmful. It is the same with salicin.

Switching to a natural alternative might seem to be better than the medicine. But you need to be caution about dosage and turning into a habit.

In the case of a stubbed toe, you know what happened. If you are trying to solve a headache, try and solve the reason you got a headache.

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