Customer Reviews

Natural Energy: A Consumer's Guide to Legal, Mind-Altering and Mood-Brightening Herbs and Supple ments

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Mayell's "Natural Energy" is a normalizing, de-pathologizing discussion of human desire to experiment with its consciousness and a methodical, encyclopedic review of legal, socially-sanctioned mind-altering and mood-brightening herbs and supplements.

As such, the book is a wonderful resource for any substance use/drugy and alcohol providers interested in designing "natural highs" clinical curricula for clients struggling to find psychologically healthy over-the-counter self-medicating options. Let's face it: there will be people who don't like to go to doctors. Whether we call them "resistent," or Stoic, they have and will self-medicate. For some users (or, shall we say, "chemical copers"), drinking and boozing is self-psychiatry. Mayell offers a no-nonsense guide to this kind of herbal/supplemental self-management.

In my work with substance use population (in the correctional setting), I found this tome to be of great value (along with Weil's and Rosen's "Chocolate to Morphine") in designing a "natural highs" treatment curriculum for offering clients an exploration of non-addictive self-medication alternatives.

Perhaps, more valuable than the specific herbal prescriptions, is Mayell's thesis: non-addictive responsible self-medication is a possibility.

Pavel Somov, Ph.D.

Author of "Eating the Moment: 141 Mindful Practices to Overcome Overeating One Meal at a Time" (New Harbinger, Nov. 2008), "Recovery Equation: Motivational Enhancement/Choice Awareness/Use Prevention: an Innovative Clinical Curriculum for Substance Use Treatment"

www.drsomov.com

www.eatingthemoment.com

Now over a decade old, Natural Energy addresses each supplement individually and exposes the myths surrounding each one. Curious about the body of research on gingko? The side effects of melotonin? This book has it all. The herbs are also compared to each other, giving the reader an idea of what herb(s) are ultimately right for him (with a doctor's approval). This book is as interesting for truths you learn about herbs as for the myths and pharmaceutical-industry-driven half-truths that are cleared up. Loved it.