KAVA KAVA
Name: Kava Kava
Scientific name: Piper Methysticum
The other names: Kava, Kawa, Kawa Kawa, Awa, Waka, Lawena, Yaquon
Summary: Painkiller, antistress, favor sleep and increase dreamlike activity.
Description: Bush with evergreen leafs. Fleshy branches, leaves in shape of heart. (Can grows 3 metres high). Reproduction: Kava does not produce seeds, it reproduces itself by its roots (roots cut themselves). It needs a lot of humidity, heat and shadow. It grows to streams' bed in climates warmly as Hawaiian Islands.
Environment and culture: Kava is a shrub which grows in Polynesia. It is a part of the family of pepperpots.
Used parts : Root
Constituents: kavalactones (among whom the kavaïns), pipermethysticin.
History: Oceania's aborigenes use Kava during certain cultural and social rites, and also to communicate with their divinities because of kava's psychotropic properties.
Information: Kava and relaxing properties has the advantage to act on the spinal gristle column and not on the brain.
Manners: to calm and stimulate. It acts as an antistress. When one chews the root, it relieves the troubles of teeth and gums thanks to its painkiller action. Used also as exhilarating. It is also pleasant to drink a cup of kava before going to go to bed because it facilitates the sleep and increases the dreamlike activity to the majority of the persons.
Effects: painkiller, anesthesic, anxiolytique, soporific, stimulating, exhilarating, aphrodisiac, narcotic, relaxing, aphrodisiac.
Warnings: Regular use limited to 4 weeks. Disadvised during the pregnancy. In strong dose (> 20g / nobody): state of euphory and aphrodisiaque, possibility of poisoning with very strong dose.
Preparation: 20g of root for 30cl of water at the rate of 2 cups a day (it's better to cut water with some milk for a more effective action, on the other hand some people drink their kava with a ball of ice as a milk-shake!). It is possible too, to chew the root.
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