The Fastest Pain Relief in the Wild! ~ How to Make and Use Willow Bark Tea

if you're ever out in the wild and you need to find a painkiller quick it'd be important for you to know how to identify what your options are and there are a couple out in the wild you'll find one are the opiates and one of the salicylates and today we're gonna talk about the easiest one I think to identify and find and get quick relief for that pain that you might be experiencing so stay with us so we've got a lot to cover in this video but I'm getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes so we're going to talk really fast I want to tell you about one of the easiest things to identify if you're ever out in the wilderness whether you planned it or not and you're needing to find some sort of painkiller I want you to look for willow trees any kind of willow tree and even a couple of the different aspen trees that are out there the quaking aspen and the large mm those are also related they've all got this wonderful salicin in them that is one of the ingredients that make up what we know as aspirin so if you have a headache if you have a backache or muscle aches or whatever it is that you're going through out in the wild and you've got to find relief quick this is the answer and I would just also say this if I was ever stranded out in the wild and I was trying to find water one of the easiest ways to find water is to look up and find willow trees in the distance and if you can find willow trees you can probably be guaranteed that there's probably some water nearby because willows love to grow near water all the different species there's like 350 or more species of willow trees all of them have this in it so you can you can make this makeshift aspirin from any of them however if you find white willow that is known to have the highest content for you so if you if you can learn how to identify white willow that's what you want to look for first however weeping willow is one that even the most naive forager can probably identify from a distance with a beautiful weeping way that it carries its branches and of course you want to learn how to identify it well learn about these long leaves that are very pointed and very very slender know what you're looking for so you don't get the wrong thing thankfully it's a pretty distinct looking tree and so once you've got it you don't have to worry too much about that but let me talk you through a few things that it's important to to recognize aspirin actually is a siedel salicylic acid and when I did my research it's so interesting as far back as Hippocrates in 400 BC it was known that willow trees made this salicin or salicylic acid that is able to be used as a painkiller so this has been centuries that we have known about this but aspirin is actually a modern way that they have been able to take that ingredient that we find in willow trees and put it into a form that's able to be measured so that you know exactly how much of a dosage you're getting also it's mixed with a type of vinegar that releases it that's that acetyl part of it so it's really interesting I'm not telling you to take willow tree with vinegar but I've heard of people doing that and so I think it's interesting to just research it do your own research and do lots of it this is so cool even back as far as 1763 the very first clinical trials were done on willow and found it to be a very effective painkiller so learn that this is a tried-and-true method also everything that you use right now that has salicylic acid in it is going to be benefited by this willow tea that you're making if you have dandruff or sabor and dimmer dermatitis or eczema or you have a lot of acne you remember that often the treatments for those contain salicylic acid and that's what you're finding in this tree so it's really worth you making your own fresh natural willow bark tea and having it on hand so you could even use it as a toner for your face or as a cleanser for your hair if you have problems with your scalp this is going to be one of the best trees for you to know about in the future salicylic acid can be hard on your stomach so if you take too much of it you'll regret it and those of you who are allergic to aspirin just forget this this isn't for you don't don't try it and also if you make this it's very difficult to measure exactly how much you're getting so they do recommend that if you make like the willow tea that we're going to make today you only take about 4 cups of that per day before you stop and that's enough you don't want to overdo it especially if you're on an empty stomach it really can exacerbate like any kind of stomach ulcers that you have or anything like that it's just hard on your digestive system and that's normal that is what is to be expected from any kind of aspirin but this is no exception so you want to do your due diligence and and follow the rules that you're at least aware of ok also I've heard so many different things but just know this it's not for children anybody under the age of either 12 or 15 or 18 depending on which reports you read and which doctors you listen to you can decide how old a child is and what to do in your situation so any warning that you would have in aspirin you would also know is for willow trees okay so now this is how we make it and this is the cool part there are so many different ways to handle it once we have harvested the willow but let's start by just harvesting some of these branches of willow and you generally want the the thin green branches that you're finding not the tree bark even though it's in the entire tree and if you had to you could actually carve out a section of that old-growth tree bark and and harvest the inner layer however that is really hard on a willow tree and we want to do our very best to not be hard on the willow tree so these thin little green branches you want to you want to harvest them about the size of your thumb or smaller those are kind of the best ones and they're really easy to peel so let's do that right now and once we've got that I'll show you how to make willow bark tea once you've got that inner bark all scraped out nicely and it's fresh and you're right in the moment needing it if you have cold water only and that's dangerous if you're in the wild because you know you need to be boiling all of your water but if you have no chance of boiling and you're just happening to take it from a very fresh mountain stream right at the source and you're going to use that water you'll want to steep this about one tablespoon of this willow bark shavings to about one cup of water you put it in there and you're gonna let it steep for about an hour before you strain it out and then drink that tea also if you by chance have anything to sweeten it with you'll be thankful and I would say throw it in there if you've got a little bit of either honey or sugar with you or something you'll be glad that you did because it is kind of a bitter aspirin type taste if you have hot water boiling water with you which is ideal you're going to take about two teaspoons of the willow bark shavings to a cup of water and then you're going to steep it in that boiling water for about ten minutes to get the same effect and that's going to be very effective as a nice hot tea again remember it's going to taste bitter when you drink it so any kind of sweetener you can come up with you'll want to throw that in there and it would be good it would help you can also do a couple of different things with this that are so wonderful you can make a tincture with this that's going to last up to three to five years in the cabinet if you can bring some home with you the tincture is made by taking a one to five ratio so perhaps about a tablespoon of the willow bark shavings two about five tablespoons of vodka you're going to let this steep for at least two weeks but up to a month and of course I like to do things as strong and as much as I can so I'm going to let mine steep for a whole month and then you'll have a wonderful little tincture that's concentrated and you just want to store it in kind of an Amber glass bottle with a dripper that you can just use and dispense it that way and that is a wonderful way to treat other different things with that tincture as well as make tea in the future you can also make an extract with it you can make an infusion in oil if you wanted to do it that way where you're just putting it in oil you can also dry it in your dehydrator and then grind it in your little coffee grinder or your mortar and pestle and then put it in the little capsules and take it just like you would aspirin now I don't know exactly why you would do that unless you're trying to do the all-natural route aspirin the nice thing about it is often it's buffered so it kind of has a coating that keeps from hurting your stomach and it's a measured dose that you know what to expect so if you have aspirin take the real thing at least that's my recommendation but you can actually dry this grind it up and put it in your little capsules and that's another way to do it I should also mention this in a desperate situation and you have pain right then if you find a willow tree you really can even though it's a stringent in your mouth go ahead and chew on the inner bark and it will give you relief in a little bit of time takes a little while little longer than aspirin does to get into your system but once it does the effects are actually longer-lasting than regular aspirin before I let you go I have to tell you one of my favorite memories about willow trees my grandma up in Iowa had the most wonderful weeping willow trees in her yard that as children we would always have a fort to go play under every time we would go to visit and it was so much fun later as an adult to find out that my grandma had planted those weeping willow trees in her yard that were huge and so so magnificent and all she had done was just taken a little piece of the willow stick right off of a tree where she was and stab it in the ground near water and that's all it took for that willow to grow these are a wonderful way to start another tree so if you've got any water nearby I would say in the name of Krista's grandma go out and plant a willow tree today just by taking a little stick start and stabbing it in the ground and see what happens until I see you again go out and be a blessing to someone today and if by chance you're new to the channel and haven't subscribed yet will you do that subscribe and hit that Bell so you know every time we've got a new video coming we love hearing from you and I have to say from my heart thank you thank you thank you to those of you patrons who are supporting our channel every little bit helps and it's all because of you that we're able to do this god bless you and I'll see you next time [Music] we've come to my favorite part this is out of Isaiah chapter 42 verse 16 it says this and I will lead the blind in a way they do not know in pass that they have not known I will guide them I will turn the darkness before them into light and rust places into level ground these are the things I will do and I will not forsake them now go spread the word [Music] you [Music]

Channel: PREPSTEADERS

Views: 78,092

Keywords: Survival, Homesteading, Prepping, Preppers, prepsteaders, wisdom creek, willow bark tea, weeping willow, aspen, aspirin, white willow, salix alba

Id: aDV2LFCyc2M

Length: 12min 42sec (762 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 21 2018