Natural remedies for summer injuries and ailments

It´s summer, and accidents are bound to happen. And there are a slew of natural products and home remedies to to treat all of the season´s most common injuries. Here are natural treatments for four of the must common summer maladies.

SUN RELIEF
Spent too much time in the sun? While there are plenty of _tips and tricks
to treat scorched skin (link), you can also opt for peppermint oil, calendula oil, or St. John´s Wort extracts. All three help to reduce body heat and inflammation. Apply by adding a few drops to an oil-free lotion or to a cool bath. And to promote healing and prevent peeling, try spritzing your skin with some lavender essential oil diluted
in water or treat yourself to a slathering of avocado oil, which enriches the skin with natural vitamins and moisture.

BUG OFF
To keep the bug bites at bay, make your skin less appetizing to pesky mosquitoes and biting flies. Start by taking B-complex vitamins, and eating more garlic and onions. Bugs are also turned off by the taste of some essential oils, so dab on lemongrass, evergreen, eucalyptus (for mosquitoes) or lavender, basil, and geranium (for flies).
And if bugs get the best of you? Relieve itchy spots with undiluted drops of lavender or peppermint oil, or rub a crushed basil leaf onto each bite. For painful stings, try holding a crushed garlic clove on the sore area for 20 minutes, then rinse. Apis, a homeopathic remedy, may also work to control swelling and soreness associated with stings and bites. And for even more ways to deal with bites and stings, read Tips for getting bugs to buzz off and how to deal with bites and stings.

GET RID OF RASHES
If you find your skin crawling with the telltale red bumps of poison ivy, oak, or sumac, don´t despair. Instead, grab some Calamine lotion or topical clay to relieve the inevitable itch while speeding up the healing process. Then, take the edge off by soaking a compress with eucalyptus or witch hazel and apply to infected areas (both work as natural pain relievers and drying agents).

MEND MINOR MISHAPS
Burned by your barbeque? Look no further than your pantry for instant relief. Shake some soy sauce on the tender spot to ease the pain and put the kibosh on blisters. And when it comes to cleaning and soothing minor cuts and scrapes, tea tree oil and witch hazel are excellent ointments, while lavender and calendula ointments also promote healing and a healthy inflammation response in the skin.