Health Benefits of Ginger and Ginger Tea with Lemon for Colds and
Answered by: Christine Dennis
Question from: Sharon
Posted on: January 19, 2008

What is ginger good for pertaining to health?

Ginger, Zingiber officinale, is an excellent peripheral stimulant which means it has the ability to stimulate the circulation throughout the entire body in addition to the heart. It is used to warm up/stimulate the digestive system, warm tense and stiff muscles, thus reducing tension and pain. It also helps to repair injured or damaged tissue by bring good circulation thus repairing nutrients to an area. Ginger is often used in combination with various herbs for various ailments for its circulatory stimulation facilitating the transportation of the rest of the herbs throughout the body. Ginger is also considered to be a diffuse diaphoretic. This means it helps to open the pores to facilitate a sweat and by doing so aids with elimination. This is an important process for stimulating a fever which helps to turn on various aspects of the immune system.

What is ginger and lemon tea good for?

Lemon juice is high in vitamin C which has long been used to fight colds, but is also warming and stimulating. As such, the combination of both ginger and lemon juice stimulates the entire body including the various fluids.

What kind of tea is good for colds of the upper respiratory and lots of mucus which makes you cough all night and you can’t sleep from coughing?

The ginger and lemon combination is an excellent drink for someone with a cold as well as a cough. It helps to stimulate the circulation and fluids so that the body can eliminate them, cough them up, as well as stimulates the immune system as stated above via the fever response. One of the main causes for night time coughing with a cold is that the nasal discharge trickles down the back of he throat which then tickles and triggers the cough reflex as the body is being told that a foreign material (mucous) is where it should not be and heading towards the lungs. Herb decongestants such as a combination of nettles, sage, goldenrod and a small amount of ephedra can be used to reduce the excess mucous production at night. It is important to note that the cough reflex occurs for a good reason and to suppress a cough can often make a cough worse allow the mucous to enter into the lower respiratory areas leading to bronchitis and pneumonia. However, I do understand for the need to get a good nights sleep as that also facilitates healing. Be sure to keeps things in balance. A daytime expectorant tea make from thyme, agrimony, licorice, mullein, and hyssop would help to do this.

Back to Medicinal Herbs and Their Uses | Q & A Index

Copyright © 1997-2024 Otto Richter and Sons Limited. All rights reserved.