2 Wolves Herbal Apothecary

03/11/2026

Another reason to love Ashwagandha!

https://www.facebook.com/share/1b16sE8A6Z/?mibextid=wwXIfr

At the recent WHO Global Traditional Medicine Summit in New Delhi, India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, announced the release of a commemorative postage stamp honouring ashwagandha (Withania somnifera). In a closing address, Prime Minister Modi emphasised the importance of evidence-based and safe traditional medicine, and cited ashwagandha as a model for “advancing global acceptance through evidence-based research on safety, quality and usage.”

The three-day summit, which brought together global leaders, policymakers, scientists, and practitioners from across the globe, also featured an expert panel on ashwagandha adulteration, quality standards, and regulations: “Ashwagandha: From Traditional Wisdom to Global Impact.” That session organised by the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre and the Indian Ministry of Ayush, identified critical quality challenges and evolving regulatory frameworks that need to be addressed. AYUSH is an acronym that stands for Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy.

For example, Ikhlas Khan, PhD, the director of the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi, underscored the severity of ashwagandha adulteration, explaining that tests of 25 formulations showed that 60% contained high levels of ashwagandha leaf-specific phytochemicals. He emphasised the need for robust identification methods and appropriate extraction processes, while the experts on the panel asserted that the inclusion of leaves or non-root plant material constituted adulteration that alters phytochemical profiles, safety parameters, and therapeutic properties. Ultimately, the panel called for industry-wide adoption of root-only extraction.

The Government of India, Ministry of Ayush has previously issued an advisory to refrain from using ashwagandha leaves in formulations, stating that:

1) No substantial evidence and literature is available to endorse the efficacy of crude drug/extract of Withania somnifera leaves.
2) Considering this, it would not be appropriate to consider the Withania somnifera leaves as an ASU (Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani) medicine at this stage.
3) Extensive studies are required to establish the safety and efficacy of leaves of Withania somnifera for different indications. Till then, the use of leaves may not be considered for therapeutic purpose in ASU systems.

“In 2022, Prime Minister Modi recognized our commitment to quality manufacturing and raising global awareness about ashwagandha in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’, the monthly program where he addresses the nation on the last Sunday of each month,” said Kartikeya Baldwa, CEO, Ixoreal Biomed, in a press release.

“Today, as India positions ashwagandha as a flagship of evidence-based traditional medicine globally, our rigorous research on safety and efficacy, conducted at leading institutions worldwide, represents exactly the scientific foundation he's calling for. The commemorative stamp symbolises India's gift to global wellness. Our job is ensuring the substance matches the symbol.”

For more information see: https://www.nutritionaloutlook.com/view/panel-addresses-ashwagandha-adulteration-quality-and-regulation-at-recent-who-global-traditional-medicine-summit

03/09/2026

You’ve probably heard that you should eat antioxidants.

But your body is actually an antioxidant factory.

Cells produce their own internal defense systems, including glutathione—one of the most important antioxidant molecules in the body.

Glutathione acts as a major intracellular redox regulator, helping cells maintain balance while they produce energy.

It helps:

• neutralize reactive oxygen molecules generated during metabolism
• maintain mitochondrial efficiency during energy production
• detoxify reactive compounds in the liver
• regenerate antioxidants like vitamins C and E
• regulate immune and cellular signaling

In other words, every cell constantly runs a biochemical defense system.

But when oxidative stress exceeds the capacity of this system, cells experience what researchers call redox imbalance.

Because organs like the brain, muscles, and liver require enormous energy output, they are particularly sensitive to this shift.

When antioxidant buffering struggles to keep pace, cellular efficiency can decline.

In everyday life, this may show up as things people recognize:

• the fatigue that lingers after physical exertion
• slower recovery after exercise
• mental fog when the brain is under metabolic strain

The brain alone consumes about 20% of the body’s total energy, which is why it is especially sensitive to oxidative stress.

Glutathione also plays a central role in phase II liver detoxification, helping neutralize reactive compounds and environmental toxins.

At the cellular level, shifts in redox balance can influence regulatory systems such as NF-κB, a signaling pathway sometimes described as a master switch involved in inflammatory responses.

These experiences are not diagnostic markers of glutathione deficiency, but they illustrate how important antioxidant systems are for maintaining cellular resilience.

To maintain these defenses, the body relies on nutrients and plant compounds that support glutathione synthesis and recycling.

Examples include:

• Garlic and onions (Allium species) — rich in sulfur compounds used to build glutathione
• Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables — activate antioxidant defense pathways
• Turmeric (Curcuma longa) — influences redox signaling networks
• Green tea (Camellia sinensis) — provides catechins that interact with antioxidant enzymes

These foods and medicinal plants don’t replace your body’s antioxidant defenses.

They help support the biochemical machinery that allows those defenses to function.

Because one of the body’s most important protective molecules isn’t something you simply consume.

It’s something your cells are constantly producing, regulating, and maintaining.

03/07/2026

We are all stocked up and ready to help you “breathe easy”. Stop those sniffles in its tracks!! Allergies kicking up??
We have the perfect answer!
Breathe easy Tea! Better than a Claritin D and no side effects!! All herbal and made just for you!!!
What? Don’t drink tea?
That’s what tincture’s are for! And guess what? We have a breathe easy tincture for you too!! Throw it in your bag and go !!
What else do we have???
Oh my…..tons of good stufff!!!
So do yourself a favor and come see us 10-5 Saturday !!
Augusta Surrey Center top level
Helen right next door to Earth Momma’s Kitchen so come eat then shop and get a 10% discount!!! And we are Farm To Table so really good food too!!

03/06/2026

03/06/2026

Love this❤️☮️

As the year comes to a close, we'd like to share with you some reflections on the past three seasons of Spring Mountain Wellness. Thank you for taking this stroll through the woods with us.

All of the following updates have been made possible by your donations. Our gratitude is just about as tall as this mountain.

This past summer, we embarked on a journey to build sanctuary, respite, and refuge as Spring Mountain Wellness in Lowgap, North Carolina. Our small, all-volunteer board and team of volunteers dreamed of stewarding a place where people could rest, heal, connect with one another, seek their solitude, and temporarily stabilize after personal crisis, displacement, grief, or other hardships.

We jumped in the deep-end of these spring waters headfirst. From the moment we were first able to offer respite and refuge to people, we flung our doors open. Since the summer, we've been able to provide nearly 1000 nights of warm, safe refuge (person per bed per night) for people who would have had no housing or precarious housing. Nearly 3000 delicious (and nutritious) meals prepared to the specifications of a range of dietary needs and, just as importantly, preferences of the palette and the heart. Countless loads of clean laundry, countless miles of forest strolled, and facilities made accessible for people with a variety of physical needs. We’ve had people ranging in age from single digits to their 70s this year arrive either seeking respite or refuge, volunteering, leading projects, getting back on their feet, dreaming with us, making art, or some combination of the above and countless others supporting us from afar.

Some people who started this project were seeking a safe place themselves. Some people who arrived here seeking a safe place are now leading the efforts to take care of each other, new faces, and the land.

Some highlights:

Summer: We formally became a 501(c)3. We opened our doors to the first few people seeking respite, refuge, and sanctuary. The children’s room, library, and free store received loads of love, attention, and donations. We began the slow process of cleaning out cabins and restoring them to welcome many.

Fall: We hosted our first burnout retreat as Spring Mountain Wellness – a weekend program that helps us understand what's actually happening in our bodies and nervous systems while approaching and experiencing burnout and learn practical skills for prevention and early intervention. We looked at burnout as a physiological process, not a personal failing. And we learned… that we’re really burnt out! And we built a sauna!

Winter: The first snow fell. A small crew of us spent and are spending the holidays together, here on the mountain, taking care of one another the best we can through a time that is joyous for some and heavy for others – but always lighter when we hold it together.

All year round: Cakes were baked, people slept in warm beds, clothing and food and shelter were provided for those who needed them. Maps were drawn, poems were penned, lists were made, facilities were tended to and improved, and long hours were spent on the porch, gazing out into the forest and telling stories.

We’ve burnt the candle at both ends to prepare for the long winter ahead and every month is a scramble. In 2026, we’re looking forward to implementing arts programming, reintroducing the herbalist-in-residence program, hosting retreats for groups and organizations near and far, and keeping our doors open for those who seek a safe, quiet place to land for awhile.

Please do consider making a small, recurring monthly donation to help us keep our doors open through the winter so we can really thrive in the spring. Here: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/help-sustain-crisis-refuge-for-our-community

Just $5-10 monthly helps immensely. We’re stronger together and every little bit truly helps. Our nonprofit board is 100% volunteer, and we currently have no paid employees. This is a labor of love and a beginning. With each small recurring donation, we inch closer to maintaining this mountain, this forest, this sanctuary for months and years to come. We can't do it alone. We don't want to do it alone. We want to do this together. Please do consider chipping in as a recurring donor if you can.

Reach out to us at springmountainwellness@proton.me or springmountainwellness@pm.me if you’d like to:

- consider us for your next personal or organizational retreat
- explore a work-trade experience on the mountain (construction, groundskeeping, food cultivation, skillshare, and more)
- collaborate on respite and refuge for people experiencing personal crisis
- make an in-kind donation of winter supplies, cleaning supplies, shelf-stable food, and more
- stop by and wander the trails, say hello to the mountain, and see if the mountain says anything back to you

We cannot wait to see more of y’all in 2026!

Take care, give care,

Spring Mountain Wellness

01/30/2026

Did you know that we have over 43 tea blends? Sure many of them are problem focused but despite that they are good! Not just medicinally or organic, but with flavor in mind and tea rituals.

Yes we love tea rituals, it makes the whole tea experience meaningful and not just that but magical. It transforms a mundane day or a horrible cold, or even the flu, into a pampered moment of self love ..❤️

That’s what we mean by magical. Transforming plant energetics into something beautiful and quietly healing. Adding Honey or pure maple syrup to elevate and transform taste, with the incredible benefits of bees, or the stature and flavor unique to maple trees.

And no you can’t get that from a tea bag sitting on a shelf for perhaps years with artificial flavors added. It comes from hand blended herbs, sourced organically, from the regions they grow in naturally.

And yes we are quiet, and we don’t really advertise a lot, because we find magic happens when you let it …. As the wind in the trees and the rivers rushing to the sea….true healing occurs in that and in a steaming cup of tea on a cold winter’s day.

Choose your magic and we will help with quiet resolve, dignity, and support. Your path is sacred when it meets ours and we value that. So come in and shake off the cold, breathe in deep and slow, and know you are home with us. 💕

01/24/2026

We are open today in Surrey Center as long as it’s safe, and same in Helen.

Our employees safety is paramount so we will depend for n Nakia and Amber to make that call.

I will remind you of a few goodies that you can’t do without. Anti- viral tea or tincture along with fire cider of any kind to beat the flu, add breathe easy for the respiratory component and for that terrible cough.

When I got sick my sweet husband added a half a lemon squeezed and some honey to the tea and to the pain tea because my chest was hurting. The only thing I didn’t have that I wish I did was the facial steam. I feel like that steam would have been so beneficial to my lungs.

So speaking from experience, antiviral tea or tincture along with oregano oil or burdock or barberry root tincture , breathe easy, pain, and facial steamer teas.

Can’t beat herbal medicine! Be safe !

works

01/19/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18GE2XFeCo/?mibextid=wwXIfr

01/10/2026

It’s in the new year and I had a friend text me her symptoms : Belly bloating, Gas, face puffy, fatigue ,mood swings, feelings of being “stuck”, irritability or anger, pain in upper right quadrant or “tingling . Well, that rings a bell because I have suffered with that with no gall bladder.

It’s liver stagnation and it’s absolutely no fun. And primary causes are:

• a sedentary lifestyle
• poor diet
• stress
• emotional suppression

Strategies for Relief are perfect for a new year, new you and are healing keys to rebalancing .

• Movement - yoga, Pilates , walking, vibration therapy
• Dietary changes - eat green leafy vegetables, (stop white sugar intake, highly processed foods, and alcohol)
• 2 cups warm lemon water in the morning add 1 tablespoon fire cider to gently move stagnation
• herbal teas to support liver cleansing and to soothe liver energy
• Journaling to Encourage outward flow of stuck emotions for healing

We use:
Barberry Root
Burdock Root
Dandelion Root
Fennel Seed
Ginger Root
Licorice Root
Milk Thistle

This powerful herbal blend works synergistically to rejuvenate liver function by combining protective and stimulating properties. Milk thistle and barberry act as a shield, providing potent antioxidants like silymarin and berberine to protect and repair liver cells from oxidative stress. Dandelion root and burdock serve as natural tonics that stimulate bile flow and lymphatic drainage, effectively flushing out metabolic waste. Meanwhile, ginger, fennel, and licorice harmonize the formula by soothing inflammation and easing digestive bloating, ensuring that the body’s detoxification pathways operate smoothly and comfortably.

Consistent consumption period of 1 to 2 weeks to achieve the best results with a liver cleanse tea. After this initial period, it is standard practice to take a 1-week break before resuming for a second cycle; this "cycling" approach helps prevent the body from becoming over-reliant on the herbs and allows the kidneys to return to their baseline function.

While subtle digestive improvements may be noticed within a few days, more significant support—such as improvements in liver enzymes—often requires consistent use for 4 to 8 weeks.

Guideline for Consistency
Daily Routine: Most protocols suggest drinking the tea 1–2 times per day during the active "on" phase.

Maximum Duration: It is generally advised not to exceed 3 to 4 weeks of continuous daily use without a break.

Signs of Progress: Many users report increased energy and reduced bloating within 2–4 weeks.

Timing:
Drinking a serving in the morning before eating may help activate bile flow.
Consuming the tea between meals is sometimes suggested for continuous support.
An evening serving before bed might align with the liver's natural cycle.

Preparation
1 teaspoon per 8 oz
Simmer for up to 10 minutes in boiling water, then let sit and steep for 7-10 minutes for best extraction .

Do not take if you are pregnant , on blood thinners, diuretics, Tamoxifen, lithium, blood pressure medications, cyclosporines, or on diabetes medications.

This information is for general knowledge and should not be taken as medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new supplement or treatment regimen.

01/05/2026

The answer to this week’s Herbal Trivia question is Chitin. “Name the compound in mushrooms which prevents absorption of much of their medicinal activity when eaten.”

The reason that edible/medicinal mushrooms are not that effective medicinally when eaten as a food or taken as a powder has to do with the fact that cell walls of mushrooms are not made of cellulose like plants, but of chitin, the same substance that makes up shrimp, crab or lobster shells. Unfortunately for us our digestive systems are not well equipped to break down chitin. Extracts (decoctions, properly made mushroom tinctures, spray dried extracts) are the preferred form of taking mushrooms for medicine.

This blog is intended as an informational guide. The remedies, approaches and techniques described herein are meant to supplement, and not be a substitute for professional medical care or treatment. They should not be used to treat a serious ailment without prior consultation with a qualified health care professional.

01/04/2026

Happy New Years!

2026 is here and we have a lot to offer!

If you made a resolution to clean up your body and therefore your life, we have just what you need !!

Detox tea that is full of herbal cleansers and goodies like
Burdock Root
Dandelion Leaf
Ginger Root
Lemongrass
Licorice Root
Milk Thistle
Peppermint
Red Raspberry Leaf
Unmatched herbal goodness from blood cleansers to herbal drainers that not only cleanse your system but work at removing toxins through elimination. Add nourishing herbs for liver and kidneys like dandelion and milk thistle or for women’s health like red raspberry leaf

Or stop those rising cortisol levels and make a plan to destress with
Lose the middle Tea
Apples
Cardamom
Cinnamon
Cleavers
Devil’s Claw
D**g Quai
Orange Peel
Puerh Yellow Tea
Rosebuds & Hips
Peppermint
Yerba Mate
All the herbs designed uniquely to Help that abdominal area that collects fat sent by increased cortisol levels. Almost impossible to lose right?

1-2 cups a day
Just start
Be consistent
Make a plan

Don’t drink tea?
We have a tincture for that!

Let us help!
Fatburn Fire Cider!
Yes we have a plan!

Augusta Surrey Center
Monday-Saturday 10-5
Ask for Nakia or Amber
I am there most Wednesday s or Thursday s

Helen closed January 5-15 then
January 16 Tuesday - Sunday 9am-5pm
So let us increase your wellness!!

Oh and you get 10% off if you eat at Earth Momma’s Kitchen!!