I’ve been struggling to even out my sleep schedule. Last night I suddenly knew what I needed: a cup of reishi mushroom tea.<\/p>\n
Reishi grows in the forest, and\u00a0abundantly on dying hemlocks. I photographed the one above in the Chattahoochee National Forest.<\/p>\n
It’s a large, hard mushroom, with colored bands and a red waxy cap. As with all mushrooms, it’s important that you are certain of the identification before harvesting.<\/p>\n
Reishi has been used for two millennia in Asia, part of traditional Chinese medicine known for its anti-aging properties. It’s prescribed by herbalists to treat\u00a0viral infections, lung ailments and heart disease, boost the immune system, and ease tension.<\/p>\n
It’s generally safe<\/a> if you brew tea from it (rather than taking as a powder). Most people\u00a0can drink large\u00a0quantities of it without feeling any ill effects, except maybe a little bit stoned because you’ll be so relaxed – it can lower your blood pressure. But it’s not addictive.<\/p>\n Health Line notes<\/a>, “Reishi mushrooms can cause blood thinning, however, so you should avoid it if you’re taking any medication for your blood pressure, anticoagulants, or antiplatelets.”<\/p>\n Costs about $45 a pound, but because the dried mushroom is very light, a pound will last you months.<\/p>\n Buy it sliced and snip up the slices into smaller pieces. Put a few tablespoons of it in a pot of water, bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain and drink.<\/p>\n Lots of people don’t like the taste. It is a little bitter, but doesn’t taste like a mushroom. It has a tang similar to tannin in black tea or red wine, but to me this is part of reishi’s charm.<\/p>\n I made myself a large mug of it, brewed to a very dark strength. As soon as I took the first sip, my whole body smiled and said Yes<\/i>.<\/p>\n Just what I needed.<\/p>\n Slept like a baby.<\/p>\n Today’s penny is a 2012, the year I went to the Southeast Women’s Herbalist Conference and attended a session about fungi and mushrooms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been struggling to even out my sleep schedule. Last night I suddenly knew what I needed: a cup of reishi mushroom tea. Reishi grows in the forest, and\u00a0abundantly on dying hemlocks. I photographed the one above in the Chattahoochee National Forest. It’s a large, hard mushroom, with colored bands and a red waxy cap. … read more Magic mushroom<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[321],"tags":[52,1370,1207,654,181,112,537],"class_list":["post-10109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tress","tag-52","tag-chinese","tag-herbalism","tag-medicine","tag-mushrooms","tag-sleep","tag-stress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10109"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10208,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10109\/revisions\/10208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}