Sleep Like a Baby Elixir Smoothie Recipe

Serves: 1-2

Prep Time: 4 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup lemon balm or chamomile tea or a combination of both (sometimes I'll use Montmorency cherry juice or concentrate)
• 1/2 ripe large banana, or if it's a small one - use an entire banana
• 8 - 12 fresh or frozen, pitted, cherries
• 2 packets fresh dry AFA powder or 1 tsp. Blue Majik
• 1 - 2 teaspoons of chia seeds (sometimes I substitute flaxseeds)
• 1/2 stalk celery

Directions:

In a blender, put all of the ingredients and blend until smooth. If you would prefer it thinner, add some more tea. Sip this delicious and relax-enhancing smooth about 60-90 minutes before bedtime. This is an stupendous, surefire sleep remedy that I recommend often in my private practice and everyone wonders how they ever slept or lived without this recipe.

I always keep a pitcher of freshly-made chamomile-lemon balm tea in my refrigerator to enjoy as a chilled tea any time I feel stressed or want to relax, or to use as a base in smoothie recipes. For nutritional tips, continue reading.

You will marvel at how it helps you to drift into sleep effortlessly, stay in a deep sleep, and awaken in the morning feeling refreshed and ready to start the day with gusto. Additionally, this health-reviving smoothie will also help you in having a very easy and satisfying bowel movement upon awakening. In other words, you'll experience sound sleep and elimination.

Nutritional Tips:

• Cherries: Fresh and dried cherries are one of the only natural food sources of melatonin, the chemical that controls the body's internal clock to regulate sleep. Researchers who tested tart cherries and found high levels of melatonin recommend eating them an hour before bedtime or before a trip when you want to sleep on the plane. Look for Montmorency juice or juice concentrate in your natural food store. It has the highest levels of melatonin of the cherry products.
• Bananas: Potassium and magnesium are natural muscle relaxants, and bananas are a good source of both. they also contain the amino acid L-tryptophan, which gets converted to 5-HTP in the brain. The 5-HTP, in turn, is converted to serotonin (a relaxing neurotransmitter) and melatonin.
• Blue Majik is an AquaBotanical, a pure, organic phycocyanin product (pictured to the right), and I take a teaspoon of it daily in powder or capsule form.  
• Lemon Balm: This tasty herb (aka: Balm or Melissa) makes a wonderful tea, which helps to comfort the mind, sooth the nerves, and ease tension in the body.
• Chamomile: This fragrant tea soothes stress and irritability, relieves upset stomach, and is very calming to the skin. Alone or combined with lemon balm tea, this is the perfect elixir tea to enjoy before bedtime or used as the liquid base in an evening smoothie.
• Celery: Celery can be traced back to the Greeks and Romans. In fact, they thought so highly of celery that they used it to crown the heads of distinguished guests. Low in calories and a good source of fiber and natural sodium, celery is also one of the world's greatest and most natural tranquilizers. It is an excellent tonic to soothe one's jangled nerves. (Maybe we should supply the leaders of all countries with a few stalks of celery every day!) Because of its calming effect on the central nervous system, celery makes a great nightime tonic for insomniacs. Keep in mind that the celery leaves are the most nutritious part of the plant, containing more calcium, iron, potassium beta-carotene, and vitamin C than the stalks.
• Chia Seeds: Chia seeds have a very mild, nutty, pumpkin seed-like taste. And here's a bonus if you want to lose weight. Chia seeds expand in the stomach and can give you a feeling of fullness, which helps you feel less hungry. Eating one tablespoon of Chia seeds about 15-20 minutes before a meal with a large glass of water does wonders for preventing overeating. I also like the color of these black seeds on different foods and even sprinkle some of the seeds on a white plate surrounding other foods for some elegance, dazzling eye-appeal in your meal. To read more about the health benefits of Chia seeds, please click HERE.