Hello. I'm Eliseo "Cheo" Torres, administrator and instructor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. This is part of a series on Traditional Medicine of Mexico and the Southwest, and we're honored to have another excellent curandera and practitioner of holistic medicine, Leticia Amaro Velazquez from Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. Leticia has been studying and teaching traditional medicine for about 19 years. For the last 15 years, she comes to the University of New Mexico to teach a course on traditional medicine of Mexico and the Southwest. She's a holistic healer working with plants, working with bodywork. She's an acupuncturist. She's a therapist. She works the total body. Today, she's going to talk about plants for the nervous system. With her, we have Alex Jackson who will receive a facial massage. Alex is from Kansas City in Missouri. Alex will be here. When I said Kansas City, you would think of Kansas, but this is the Missouri part, just to explain where Kansas City, Missouri is. Also, translating today will be Antonia or Tonita, and Tonita Gonzales is from the North Valley of Albuquerque. What is the nervous system? It's basically a computer for your body. Everything that's going to happen in our body, we have to remember that first it starts with our brain and our emotions are super important to everything that happens within our nervous system. That's why we have to program it with positive things. Instead of saying "Oh goodness! I'm sick. " You need to say "I feel good. I'm happy. This is going to be the best day of my life. " To live in today and to let all those emotions fill and embrace them all. Hug at people, and say "I love you," and to enjoy. This is going to be the best day for my body, and so that's where I have the best conditions, the most optimum conditions for all of my body in every sense of the word. There are a lot of illnesses specifically that work towards the nervous system. One of them that is very common that affects the nervous system is insomnia. Those have a lot to do with a lot of the problems that we have during the day that we never brought resolve to. Instead of, at night, sleeping, our mind begins to think of how are we going to resolve the problems that we didn't get to during the day so then our mind gets tired and our body starts to feel for the lack of the necessary rest. Another important disease that we would look at is like Parkinson's, maybe even Alzheimer's. Those are all that developed chronically. It helps us go from whether chronic to genetic chronic, which we get to a point where we forget everything. It's really, really important for us to maintain our health and our mental health. We can do that first starting with a positive thought. For this, the marvelous mother nature can give us exceptional plants, and this helps us to maintain our nervous system so it continues to work the way it needs to. For example, we have here lavender. This plant with its aroma helps to tranquilize our nervous system. It helps when somebody feels really nervous or has a lot of anxiety. You could always just have just a stem close to you, perceive the aroma, and I naturally become more tranquil. Another tranquilizing plant is the beautiful rose. Apart from looking at its beauty, the aroma as well helps to relax the body. One plant that is very important for us, you guys have a lot of this here, it's the beautiful rosemary. This is a liver protector. (Hepato: Liver) It also helps regenerate, but it's also a stimulant, and apart from its aroma, daily, I could eat one leaf, and this would help maintain my brain so that there's fluidity. It's really excellent when people have problems of anxiety or depression. When somebody has depression, they lack their breath, and they no longer have the desire to go forward. Their energy has become very weak. So, this plant is a stimulant, and it helps recuperate your energy. Now for problems that are a little bit more accelerated, we have this beautiful plant, which is Ginkgo biloba. Ginkgo biloba is a brain oxygenator. It is excellent to prevent an accident in the cerebral brain. It really helps you when your own memory is failing you. This plant is going to help. Another excellent plant that we have, that works similar as gingko, is beautiful oxygenater or of the brain, it's Gotu Kola in English. This helps to avoid headaches, it helps to oxygenate your brain but also helps to circulation to all of your body. Unlike most of the illnesses that is most common with the system is insomnia. I'm going to give you a demonstration right now of the facial massage. He's going to help us today. He's going to permit me to touch his face. I'm going to show you how to do this, but I want you to know this is something you could do to yourself. If you sleep at night and you realize that you're not able to go to sleep, you could give this marvelous self-massage and you're going to complement it with by also giving your own massaged in your wrists of your hands. See, with this little massage you're actually making your heart more tranquil. But you're also tranquilizing your lungs. It would be the best natural medicine, so that you could then sleep. This is why I left this plant as the last because this is also excellent for insomnia. This is basal. You could take up a tea using normal just one leaf in a cup of tea. One leaf per cup, and you could take it right before you go to bed. Now have good dreams. I'm going to use a little bit of massage oil, but just very very little, just a drop. This has the aroma of lavender. As you're inhaling, you've already started to begin to tranquilize your nerves system. You're going to rub your hands together so that she could provoke warmth in your hands. I deposit my hands just a distance from the eyes, on the face to the person that I'm going to massage. I'm going to initiate on the front. I'm going to do this movement to simulate, to move the energy on his face and his body. Little pinches over the eye and the eyebrows. These movements I'm going to do for about three minutes in each point. The lateral sides of the face, very softly you'll do that on top of the eyelids. This needs to feel rich and delicious. The base of the nose to the cheekbones. We continue with every point on the face, in this case where the lips end on to the top of the mouth. I go underneath the lip. On the chin, very softly I'm running my hands. After I have finished with the ears. Specifically, on the ears you have points that connect directly to your nervous system. So if I stimulate these points, then I'm relaxing the nervous system. But I'm also stimulating all of the organs within the body. Here I'm going to pull a little bit up, down. Up, back and down. I finished with the neck and I remove. Then I'll finish with a head because I didn't want to leave an uncompleted job. I do a little shampoo stimulation and after I go with my thumbs pressing. Do not worry the cranium is hard. Absolutely, nothing will happen if I pressure the pressure on the lateral side of the head. Then I go and I remove sweeping the head. I start to rub my hands and I continue by giving energy from the universe to the head. Okay, thank you. How do you feel? Very relaxed, thank you. I hope that this was useful, what we've demonstrated and I hope that this will help you in the future be able to relax. Thank. The teacher was able to demonstrate a holistic approach to healing with medicinal plants for the nervous system but also doing a wonderful facial massage on Alex Jackson. Alex thank you so much. Alex is also a healer. He studied Mayan massage, abdominal massage and we're glad to have you here. Thank you for excellent interpretation. Thank you.
