AMAZON: RAINFOREST FULL OF MEDICINAL AND SPIRITUAL PLANTS

The Amazon forest is also known as the world's biggest medicine chest. Those who fall ill here do not even have to leave the entire rainforest to find cures. The Amazon is home to 80,000 plant species, which is extremely large. By comparison, the Netherlands has 3,900 plant species. A significant proportion of the plants in the Amazon are medicinal. A magical place, then! Not least because, besides medicinal plants, there are also plants with psychoactive compounds. In other words: those that make you trip. Below are some of the most popular plants from the Amazon with medicinal or spiritual properties.

Tripping with Amazonian spiritual plants

One of the most famous families of plants from the Amazon can be called both medicinal and spiritual. These plants have been used in spiritual trip ceremonies for generations. By locals, but nowadays also in the West. Different plants (like Chacruna) contain the same psychoactive compounds that will give you the trip of a lifetime: DMT. You smoke DMT, after which you are treated to an intense, colourful and euphoric trip pretty quickly. If you add a so-called MAOI to DMT, you get Ayahuasca.

Snorting like the Amazonians

You might not expect it, but the original inhabitants of the Amazon do like a snort. Only in a ritual setting. Yopo is a well-known one from this category. You take this with a so-called kuripé; a Y-shaped tool with which you blow it into the nostrils. You should also sniff rapé, a type of tobacco.

Yopo

Yopo is not actually a medicinal plant, but a tree that grows in the Amazon. There, locals have used it for many centuries as a way to open the third eye. Like ayahuasca, it contains DMT. So you can guess that it can trip you up quite a bit! You can get visions and experience the world around you completely differently. Feel like being shot to other dimensions? Then you should definitely try yopo.

Rapé: snuff your tobacco

Rapé is a type of snuff used in ceremonies and rituals. Like regular smoking tobacco, it contains nicotine, but is otherwise pretty pure in nature. No hundreds of extra additives that make you addicted, as with cigarettes, in other words. Moreover, using rape is not exactly something you do recreationally. It is used to ritually cleanse body and mind. That is why you often see it being used prior to a tripping ceremony, such as Ayahuasca.

Healing and getting healthier with Amazonian medicinal plants

The inhabitants of the Amazon use various plants to combat specific ailments. There is something for almost every ailment, from venereal diseases to bad joints. The rainforest is also rich in plants that are super healthy and protect you from complaints and harmful external influences. So these plants have more of a preventive effect. Besides, you don't need to make coffee in the Amazon - nature is full of medicinal plants that give you instant energy. Here are some of the recommendations among the healthy medicinal plants from the wondrous Amazon.

Guarana and guayusa: natural pick-me-ups 2.0

Looking for a natural energizer? Guarana is a medicinal plant from the Amazon that contains caffeine, along with several healthy substances such as antioxidants. These protect your body from harmful substances and can inhibit inflammation. Guarana's main direct effects are that it gives you energy and improves your focus. That is why you often find this plant as an ingredient on the labels of energy drinks and energy pills.

The medicinal plant guayusa is a little brother of guarana in terms of effects and ingredients. It too will give you a nice energy boost thanks to its high caffeine content.

Açai: medicinal berries

Fan of smoothie bowls? Then you've undoubtedly had one with Acai. These berries grow on palms in the Amazon, and they can rightly be called a superfood. For one thing, they are packed with antioxidants; even 3 times more than the super healthy blueberries. In addition, these berries seem to help with high cholesterol levels and can boost your brain power.

There is a lot of interesting stuff to be found in the Amazon as you read - and this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the medicinal plants this rainforest is rich in. Just be aware that natural remedies can also have powerful effects. For instance, energy boosters like guarana can raise your heart rate quite a bit. And psychedelic plants from the Amazon can really make you disappear from the earth for a while, for your senses. So when you first get to know a plant, start with a small portion and test what dose is ideal for you.