If you’ve been following the health and wellness trends of today, you’ll find one thing that’s consistently being talked about: essential oils. This is a form of aromatherapy, whereby people are using naturally extracted oils from plant sources. The primary purpose of these oils is to promote better days and a brighter and healthier mental and spiritual well-being.
There’s so much rave about it, from long-time loyalists to new users that are now swearing by it, and even perhaps to those like you that are still on the hunt for some assurance and information whether or not essential oils are worth all that fuss.
Unfortunately, essential oils don’t exactly come cheap. If you want the best results in your body, you’ll want to ensure that you’re taking nothing less than the best and the purest; don’t skimp on your purchase. So, before you go on and spend some hefty amount of cash buying essential oils, it’s imperative that you already have some robust information to back you up.
So, if you’re looking to get started with essential oils, read through this article below. Here, you’ll have everything that you’ll need to be more informed about your decision to get started with essential oils.
What Are Essential Oils?
Essential oils aren’t just like any other oil that you can see in the market today. In fact, these are so pure that some of them may even need to be diluted for proper and safe use. The reason for this is because of the extraction process, ensuring that the oils itself are in its purest condition as possible.
Through a process known as “distillation,” generally using a combination of steam and water, the oils are obtained from various plant sources. The method of extraction must be natural, and not a chemical one, else these chemicals are going to make its way in every bottle of essential oil that you now have. With that delicate process, the consumers are also assured of ending up with nothing less than the best essential oil fragrances that they can use.
For starters, you don’t need to buy a hundred essential oils. Else, you might run the potential risk of not using all of these. You can start with a few, especially those that you know will be of good use to you. Then, after that select few, start adding one oil after another if you have another use for it.
To start with, here are ten of the conventional oils that’ll be beneficial for your daily use:
- Peppermint: to improve your digestion and boost your energy
- Lemon: to aid in digestion and headaches. It can also be an ingredient for all-purpose household cleaners
- Lavender: to relieve stress
- Jasmine: to help with childbirth and depression
- Sandalwood: to improve your focus
- Tea tree: to improve your immunity
- Bergamot: to help combat skin conditions, such as eczema
- Ylang-ylang: to get rid of headache and nausea
- Rose: to enhance your mood
- Chamomile: to promote relaxation
Benefits Of Using Essential Oils
There are many good reasons why a person will want to incorporate essential oils into their daily routine. Some of these health benefits include the following:
- Help With Anxiety And Depression
With the stressors of everyday life, it should come as no surprise to people that anxiety and depression are prevalent. These are two of the most common mental health issues that are present in the world today. Then, when a person has these, it affects the way they think, feel, see themselves, and even how they act.
Today, people are using essential oils to help combat their anxiety and depression. In fact, for those that are against being overly dependent on synthetic and chemical medication, essential oils are their therapy of choice. When used correctly, essential oils are generally safe to use and are also free of adverse side effects.
Here are some of the best essential oils to use for anxiety and depression:
- Lavender: helps promote relaxation, relieves anxiety, and improves mood
- Bergamot: best known for its uplifting and calming properties
- Wild ginger: has anti-depressant qualities
- Valerian: help promote sleep and relaxation
- Jasmine: promotes a better sense of well-being
- Promotes Better Sleep Quality
Essential oils have also shown promising results in helping improve the overall sleep quality of an individual, especially for those with sleeping disorders, such as insomnia. Essential oils can help them fall asleep faster and better.
To promote better sleep quality, lavender is the most effective, which is also one of the easiest to use. It’s one of the very few oils that can automatically be rubbed on the skin, without the need to dilute.
Other essential oils that can be used for this purpose are the following: chamomile, vanilla, peppermint, bergamot, and sandalwood.
- Relieves Stress
A common favorite reason for many to use essential oils has to do with its stress-relieving properties. Aromatherapy, through essential oils, is in use for a long time now for its healing properties, creating a better balance of the mind, spirit, and body. This is made possible through the manner that the human brain perceives and accepts certain scents, helping control a person’s emotions, one of which is stress.
For this purpose, some of the most common essential oils used are the following:
- Lavender: can help lower the blood pressure and heart rate
- Rose: very effective in controlling a person’s emotions
- Lemon: soothes stress
- Ylang-ylang: help release negative emotions
- Bergamot: found to help bring balance to the body
- Act As A Pain Reliever
If you’ve been overly dependent on over-the-counter medication for pain relief, then it’s about time to give yourself that healthier change in your body. Rather than taking in chemicals regularly, give yourself a break by choosing to go for a more natural means of healing instead.
For the purpose of pain, essential oils are also beneficial. Some of the most effective oils for pain relief are the following:
- Lavender: has excellent analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects
- Peppermint: due to its menthol and cooling effects on sore parts of the body
- Rose oil: excellent for women’s menstrual cramps
- Helichrysum: relieve muscle spasms and pain
- Bergamot: effective for neuropathic pain
Because you’re going to use essential oil for pain, the means of applying it in your body is topical. But, you have to be very careful not to use an undiluted one. Else, it may cause you skin irritation due to the purity and potency of the essential oil.
Some of the most familiar carrier oils to mix with essential oils for pain are the following:
- Grapeseed
- Coconut
- Jojoba
- Avocado
- Sesame
A good dilution recipe for you to follow here is as follows. Generally, for pain, ten drops of your essential oil of choice mixed with one tablespoon of your carrier oil work best. Then, make sure to do a skin patch first to ensure that your skin won’t have any allergic reactions to it. After all, no two people are alike, and some may react differently to essential oils than others.
- Cure Headaches And Migraines
Another health benefit of essential oils has to do with its ability to fight headaches and migraines. Again, like pain, for this purpose, the most common remedy is to take over-the-counter headache medication. Unfortunately, in the long run, these have their respective side effects. Plus, you wouldn’t want your body to be dependent on chemical pills for something as little as headaches.
This is where essential oils come to play. The most common effective oil for treating headaches is peppermint oil. You can mix this with any oil of your choice and a carrier oil, depending on the recipe that you’re trying to achieve.
How Do You Incorporate It In Your Daily Routine?
The beauty of essential oils is that it’s also effortless to use. There are so many ways for you to use it, to the extent that you don’t have to be limited in your means of doing so. For as long as you’re mixing it the right way, and with the correct measurements, you’re guaranteed a better level of safety for daily use.
That said, now that you know its benefits, it’s crucial also to tackle the how’s. In what manner or means is it that one can incorporate essential oils into their daily routine?
Here are some of these ways:
- Use A Diffuser
When you first sign up for an essential oil company, you’re mostly going to be signing up for the premium starter kit. Included in the starter kit is everything that you’re going to need to get started with using essential oils. It comes with a hefty price because of another thing in the package: the diffuser itself.
So, an excellent way to incorporate this into your daily routine is by using a diffuser. It’s effortless for you to do so, plus you can also use it at any time of the day.
For many, it’s a picker-upper as they wake up. Then, some use diffusers throughout the day as a focus booster. Other users also rely on using the essential oils in the evening, assisting them in their sleep.
Depending on the blends that you wish to make and the purchase for which it’s intended, the choice is mostly up to you. To help you get started, some of the best recipe blends that you can try out for your diffuser are the following:
- Stress relief: mix 4 drops of peace and calming and 3 drops of lavender
- Seasonal support: mix 3 drops of peppermint, 3 drops of lemon, and 3 drops of lavender
- Energy boost: mix 3 drops of orange and 3 drops of peppermint
- Sweet dreams: mix 3 drops of lavender and 3 drops of stress away
- Immunity relief: mix 4 drops of thieves and 2 drops of lemon
Using a diffuser is, in fact, one of the most well-loved ways of incorporating essential oils into one’s daily routine. But, a caveat here to remember is that for your diffuser to work effectively with the oil blends, you also have to do your part in cleaning it well – at least once a week.
- Create A Room Spray
This mode of incorporating essential oils into your daily routine is beneficial for those of you that mainly use essential oils to sleep. For others, it’s also to have their bedroom smelling cleaner and fresher. For this purpose, you can create your spray blends for a room spray. Then, spray it on your pillows, linens, and even your curtains.
When you use essential oils this way, it’s imperative, however, to ensure that your pets are not in the same room. Some pets may have an aversion to certain scents, even in the mildest form.
- Apply Topically
Topical application means putting it directly on your skin. With this, you have to be very careful. Because the essential oils are very pure and potent, there might be oils that are not safe to apply automatically on the skin. So, you’ll have to dilute it with matching carrier oil.
Topical application is also a good choice for those of you that use essential oils to treat skin conditions or for a nighttime massage.
- Add To Your Bath Water
If you have a tub in your house and your daily me-time routine consists of taking a good warm bath, the right way for you to improve your me-time routine is for you to add a few drops of essential oils on your bathwater. Not only will this end up smelling good, but when absorbed in your skin, it also makes you enjoy all of its relaxing and soothing benefits.
Conclusion / Final Word
When you first think of essential oils, you might think of it as something expensive. But, in reality, it can work to be cheaper than being dependent on synthetic medication. Then, the effects are better as well. For as long as you stay within the safe side and the proper dosage, the side effects fall from little to none at all.
Now that you’re informed about the intricacies of essential oils, all that’s left for you to do is to get started with purchasing your very first starter kit.