Essential oils are causing quite a buzz as more and more people are using them to address a variety of health concerns. But in reality, these plant oils are an age-old remedy that is becoming popular again. For more than 5,000 years, a number of cultures — from the Chinese to the Romans to the Egyptians — have been using them for health and therapeutic purposes.
Today, using essential oils as therapy to improve physical, emotional, and mental health is often referred to as aromatherapy. The specific benefits that aromatherapy achieves depend on the particular essential oil or combination of oils being used. Whether you need to solve a certain health problem or just want to lead a healthy and more natural life, essential oils can be of great benefit.
We’ve dug deep and put together everything you need to know about the wide-ranging positive effects that essential oils can have on your health.
Why Should You Use Essential Oils for Health Purposes?
Your health and wellbeing are no joking matter. With the use of essential oils for health-related purposes gaining popularity and people seemingly treating them to be a cure-all, you may want to err on the side of inaction. However, there are several great reasons to use essential oils to meet your healthy living needs.
Essential oils are natural
Healthcare bills keep rising, and conventional medications have harmful side effects, which can cause damage to the body. Antibiotics are also becoming ineffective because of overprescription and increased bodily resistance. It comes as no surprise that more and more people are seeking out more natural and holistic approaches to healthcare. Natural remedies don’t have the worries and dangerous side effects that accompany pharmaceutical drugs.
Essential oils are volatile aromatic compounds derived from plant parts. Depending on the specific oil, it can be extracted from the leaves, flowers, bark, seeds, roots, or stem of a plant. For instance, orange and lemon essential oils are obtained from the fruit rinds. For chamomile and lavender, the oils can be made from flowers.
Essential oils are plant-based, so you can add them to your natural medicine cabinet.
They’re very potent
Essential oils are typically created by extracting the natural oils in certain plants and distilling them to remove the plants’ water based-compounds. The therapeutic oils in these plants shield them from harsh environments, assist them in adapting to the surroundings, and protect them against insects. By using essential oils, you’re harnessing the beneficial and protective powers of the plants.
Lots of plant matter is required to create an essential oil. That makes essential oils extremely concentrated sources of phytochemicals. Believe it or not, it takes 3 to 3.5 tons of Bulgarian rose flower petals to make just a single kilogram of Bulgarian rose essential oil. To bottle up a pound of peppermint essential oil, about 250 pounds of leaves are needed. Manufacturers of lavender essential oil create one pound of the oil using around 220 pounds of lavender flowers.
By concentrating the oils of loads of plant matter, the making of essential oils literally brings together the potent healing compounds of the plants in a single oil. It’s no wonder just a single drop of essential oil can bring about powerful effects on health. As a matter of fact, a drop of peppermint oil is equal to about 28 cups of peppermint tea.
Hospitals are now using essential oils
Aromatherapy is a non-invasive method of addressing a range of medical concerns. It’s often safe to use in combination with other therapies and conventional treatments. It comes as no surprise that many traditional hospitals such as Vanderbilt University Hospital are now incorporating essential oils into the treatment of infections, anxiety, and depression in hospitalized patients. Clinics and hospitals are also increasingly using essential oils to improve the overall wellbeing of patients. Some incorporate the oils into their ventilation systems.
At Mayo Clinic, experts offer spearmint or ginger essential oils to patients to help them combat nausea. At times, they recommend the use of mandarin essential oil to help with nausea, anxiety, sleep, and restlessness or lemon oil for mental fatigue and headaches. Aromatherapy using lavandin oil has been shown to reduce anxiety in patients preparing for surgery. Several oils like lavender, sandalwood, and neroli have been utilized in traditional medicine to improve anxiety management in patients.
Midwives have also used certain essential oils to reduce anxiety and fear during childbirth. In fact, studies show that women who receive aromatherapy during childbirth experience less pain and need fewer pain medications.
Benefits are supported by science
In case you were wondering what science has to say about essential oils, a growing body of research points to these oils having positive effects on a number of health concerns such as pain, nausea, infections, diabetes, tumors, and premenstrual syndrome just to mention a few. Scientists are discovering benefits that holistic healers from several different cultures have known for thousands of years.
As you can see, there are compelling reasons behind people using essential oils besides their health benefits. However, using the right essential oil for your needs is important because each oil has its own properties, which make it useful for particular physical or psychological concerns or ailments. Now let’s work our way up to explore the many benefits that essential oils provide and open your mind and body to a whole new effective method of preventing as well as reversing any health concerns you may be battling.
Relieve Stress
One of the most well-known health benefits of essential oils is their stress-relieving capabilities. These aromatic compounds soothe your body and mind, helping you beat different forms of stress.
Reduce anxiety
Inhaling certain essential oils helps alleviate anxiety. Sweet orange is one such oil. When used properly, it helps slow down pulse and breathing while inducing higher levels of cheerfulness and vigor. Postpartum women who inhale the essential oil blend of rose and lavender experience considerable improvements in anxiety symptoms.
Other oils that can be beneficial to people suffering from anxiety include neroli, Roman Chamomile, ylang ylang, bergamot, vetiver, and frankincense.
Improve mood
Essential oils can give you a happier state of mind. Their scents can directly affect your brain and trigger powerful emotional responses that leave you feeling hopeful and optimistic. Applying the oils topically also helps treat mood disorders. The tiny molecules of the oils are readily absorbed through the skin into the body for internal therapeutic benefits.
Citrus essential oils are known to have mood-boosting effects. You can use them to enhance your mood by diffusing them or applying them directly to your wrists after blending them with a light carrier oil like argan oil or coconut oil.
Jasmine essential oil can also help calm your nerves and improve your overall mood. Need an uplifting boost at the start of your day? Use grapefruit essential oil.
Lower cortisol levels
Inhaling essential oils reduces levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. Cortisol is often released during times of stress. High cortisol levels increase your risk of anxiety, depression, and mental illness. Lavender, ylang ylang, and rosemary are some of the oils you can use to decrease cortisol levels.
Deal with depression
Did you know that you could use essential oils to control depression? Rather than using pharmaceutical antidepressants, a lot of homeopathic doctors depend on essential oils as alternative medicine. Studies have linked lavender essential oil use to reduced depression symptoms. You could also utilize the mild sedative nature of clary sage essential oil to lessen depression significantly.
Promote restful sleep and relaxation
Do you have to count sheep each night to fall asleep? Does the slightest noise disrupt your sleep? Don’t worry, relaxation and quality sleep is just a whiff away. Some essential oils have proven to be natural sleep aids. Not only do they help you get quality shuteye through the night, but you also wake up feeling collected and well rested.
Sniffing a sleep-inducing essential oil before bedtime can help. However, if you want to reap nightlong benefits, you can use a pillow spray or keep an open jar containing the oil dilution on a nightstand. Lavender, neroli, chamomile, marjoram, ylang ylang, cedar, and sandalwood are some of the common treatments recommended for those who wish to improve their sleep.
Improve Brain Performance
Brain function improvement is one of the most outstanding health benefits that essential oils offer. They’ve been shown to improve the ability to focus, learning, and memory. Both sedative and stimulating essential oils are useful in enhancing brain performance.
Essential oils for neurodegenerative diseases
Many oils have sesquiterpenes, which are capable of traveling through the head’s brain-blood barrier. Therefore, they can help prevent neurodegenerative diseases.
The neuroprotective effects of essential oils help improve cognitive performance, and they’ve assisted many individuals who have Alzheimer’s, dementia, and multiple sclerosis. What’s more, essential oils that reduce feelings of anxiousness help relieve agitation in people with dementia.
Mental boost
We’ve all been there before: The clock hits 4 p.m., and that dreaded slump strikes. Rather than rushing to get a caffeine hit from a cup of coffee, knowing very well that it might affect the quality of your sleep later on, turn to essential oils. You can double down for the rest of the workday with the help of the scents of invigorating oils. Basil, peppermint, and helichrysum will help you tackle mental fatigue and burnout.
Enhance memory
Fewer experiences are more frightening than failing to recall past events or form short-term memories. Unfortunately, this problem plagues the elderly. Aromatherapy can provide supplemental treatment to assist people to create new memories and recall old ones. According to experts, there’s a strong bond between scent and memories.
Sage is one of the most commonly used essential oil to boost memory. Diffusing rosemary oil could also help you recall information better as well as stay relaxed in high-pressure situations.
Improve focus and concentration
Looking for a pick-me-up to help you stay alert? Stimulating essential oils can provide sustained attention over long periods. Consider inhaling peppermint or spearmint for a quick concentration boost when your mind keeps wandering. Rosemary oil also promotes alertness.
Alleviate Pain and Aches
Whether you have pain up in your head or down in your foot, essential oils can help. They have the capability to alleviate pains as well as aching that usually accompanies some ailments. In fact, the oils are attracting attention in hospital settings because of their pain relief abilities.
Same power as standard treatments
You can either use essential oils aromatically or apply them topically to reduce body pains and aches. They can be just as effective as, or even better than, several types of conventional treatments. For instance, the predominant component of wintergreen oil is methyl salicylate, which has a similar effect on the body as aspirin. Peppermint contains menthol, which is a major active ingredient in numerous commercial sports creams.
Neck pain
Black pepper essential oil has antispasmodic and anti-inflammatory properties that make it excellent for relieving neck pains. Combining it with marjoram, peppermint, and lavender gives you a powerful neck pain reliever that you can apply to the affected area.
Erase headaches
Essential oils are effective at relieving headaches naturally because they tackle the root causes of the aches like stress or muscle tightness due to exertion, unlike painkillers that just mask them. Lavender oil is helpful for relieving tension headaches. You can inhale it or apply it directly to your temples for quick relief from pain.
Peppermint oil also alleviates headaches by providing a cooling effect and stimulating blood flow. Dab it on your forehead and temples to relieve pain. You can also use it in combination with lavender oil. The old Persian remedy of applying a mixture of sesame and chamomile oil to your temples can also help with headaches. Also, rosemary and eucalyptus oils are helpful in alleviating headaches.
Soothe muscle aches
Besides relieving headache pain, peppermint oil provides muscle pain relief. It’s no wonder that it’s usually found in muscle care products. Add a few drops of this ever-versatile oil to some Epsom salt or sweet almond oil to create a DIY leg muscle rub.
The warming effect of marjoram oil is also beneficial for relieving muscle pains. Add one or two drops to a tablespoon of your preferred carrier oil and then rub the mixture into the painful muscles. Ginger, myrrh, frankincense, and chamomile will also provide fast pain relief to your muscles.
Relieve Inflammation
Some essential oils contain anti-inflammatory properties. Applying them to the skin helps reduce inflammation and irritation.
Respiratory Inflammation
Thyme essential oil is known to have anti-inflammatory properties. Inhaling it can help reduce your respiratory inflammation.
You could also consider rosemary or eucalyptus essential oils as they both help reduce inflammation of the throat and sinuses that usually come with colds. They open up clogged sinus passages and congested airways.
Adding a drop of tea tree oil to water and gargling the solution is a useful remedy for sore throat discomfort. Just make sure you spit out the solution after gargling instead of swallowing it. Cinnamon oil too soothes the physical soreness that usually accompanies chest colds.
Digestive inflammation
Improving digestion is one of the well-researched benefits that essential oils have to offer. From stimulating digestive enzymes to combatting gastrointestinal conditions, these oils can eliminate inflammation in your digestive system. Peppermint essential oil reduces inflammation of the intestines. When ingested, it can quickly relieve nausea, gas, and indigestion.
Ginger essential oil is also popular for its ability to improve digestive health. It stimulates gastric emptying in individuals with indigestion. You can also use the oil to lessen nausea, relieve gas, and ease constipation, ulcers, and other abdominal discomforts.
Other oils that you could add to your natural medicine chest for digestive improvement include black pepper, juniper berry, marjoram, fennel, and lemongrass.
Skin inflammation
Certain essential oils can improve inflammatory skin conditions like acne, lupus, and eczema. These include tea tree oil, oregano, lavender, rosemary, bergamot, and helichrysum.
Essential Oils for Personal Beauty
The billion-dollar beauty industry is full of products with hydrogenated oils and chemicals that can cause toxicity inside your body. More and more people realize that goodness abounds in natural treatments like essential oils. You can create your own safe and effective beauty and skin care products using these natural oils.
Hair growth
Essential oils can thicken your hair and promote hair growth. Rosemary oil use has been shown to increase hair count significantly. Sage is also useful for thickening hair.
Skin care
Essential oils can reduce aging signs, soothe irritated skin, provide protection from sun damage, improve skin conditions, and enhance your skin’s general appearance. According to studies, there are at least 90 oils that can be used for dermatological purposes.
Roman chamomile, lavender, tea tree, frankincense, myrrh, geranium, and helichrysum are some of the essential oils you can use to improve skin health.
Boost Immunity
Any medical professional will tell you that it’s much better to prevent a disease than to treat it. Fortunately, you can achieve just that with the help of essential oils. Many of these powerful oils have antibacterial, antiviral, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, and antifungal properties that fight infections and enhance your immune system. Ketones, esters, terpenes, phenols, ethers, and other substances found in the oils fight off foreign pathogens that are harmful to your health.
Oregano oil has phenols like thymol and carvacrol that possess antimicrobial effects and help prevent the development of several kinds of bacteria. You can ingest it to prevent infections from growing into more severe conditions. Clove essential oil has also been found to successfully enhance the immunity of Lyme disease patients. The antifungal and antibacterial properties of tea tree oil will help you prevent fungus and cuts from developing into serious infections. You can use the oil to clear your household air of allergens and pathogens as well.
Ingesting garlic essential oil will help you fight bacterial, viral, and fungal infections. Other great options for enhancing your immune system include lemon, peppermint, frankincense, eucalyptus, cinnamon, and myrrh.
Detoxification
Nowadays, we inhale and ingest many chemicals and toxins that can harm our health in multiple ways. Fortunately, there are several essential oils that can cleanse your body and reduce toxicity in your surroundings.
Internal detoxification
The numerous beneficial properties that parsley oil possesses — such as carminative, antiseptic, antimicrobial, and diuretic — make it effective at detoxifying the body. Other essential oils you can use to clear toxins from your body include grapefruit, lemon, lemongrass, ginger, and peppermint.
Detoxifying your home
Essential oils clean your home’s air naturally by destroying pathogens and contaminants. Lemon, orange, lemongrass, tea tree, cinnamon, and eucalyptus will all help reduce toxicity in indoor air.
Weight Loss
Everyone knows that a balanced diet and regular exercise helps with weight loss. However, often, people need an additional boost to achieve their slimming goals. Unluckily, many turn to the potentially dangerous slimming pills. Thankfully, you can avoid such pills that can have harmful effects that last a lifetime by switching to the safer essential oils that aid fat loss.
Cinnamon oil balances blood sugar levels and can help curb cravings. Hold it near your nose and then inhale it deeply to get its benefits. Smelling peppermint also suppresses your cravings as well as improving digestion. Ginger oil possesses gingerol that boosts your metabolism. The d-limonene in grapefruit essential oil also improves metabolic enzyme levels.
How to Get the Most Out of Essential Oils
When using essential oils for health-related products, you must ensure you purchase only pure and high-quality products. That’s because low-quality products may be not only ineffective but also harmful.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn’t regulate or certify aromatherapy products. In fact, there’s no single government agency that does so. Due to the industry being unregulated, quality and composition can vary widely from one product to another. The onus is on you the consumer to find out the quality of the essential oil brand you’re purchasing.
So how do you tell that an essential oil is of high quality? Here are the important considerations you should make:
Scientific name
Your first line of defense is the label of an essential oil. Pure oils tend to have the plant’s botanical name like Lavandula officinalis. Make sure you can see the common and Latin name of the oil (or oils if it’s a blend) as well as any carrier oil that may have been used in the product you’re planning to buy.
Remember, some plants such as lavender have different species, so checking the scientific name helps you ensure you’re buying the right oil.
Country of origin
The name of the nation that the plants were sourced from makes more sense to aromatherapists than consumers, as quality can differ from one country to another. For example, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Morocco are known to produce the highest quality rose oil. Nevertheless, having the country named on the label shows a general consumer that the company is making an effort to market its product to both the knowledgeable and inexperienced customers.
Purity
High-quality essential oils only contain pure plant compounds that have been indigenously sourced. Be sure to verify that the product you’re purchasing is 100% essential oil. Avoid essential oils that have been diluted with chemicals or synthetic fragrances or oils.
Word of caution: An essential oil can be pure yet low quality. For that reason, you shouldn’t judge the quality of a product on purity alone.
Extraction method
High-quality products only contain essential oils that have been derived from plants by distillation or the cold press method.
Price
Price should vary from one essential oil bottle to another due to the difference in the quantity of plants required and the unique extraction process used. Consider it a red flag if a manufacturer has similar prices for its oils.
It is also vital for the cost of a product to be comparable to those of the same oil from competing brands. If it’s too cheap, then it’s probably a fake essential oil that will be of no value to your health.
Color of bottle
The bottle containing the essential oil you want to purchase should be 5 to 15 ml, have a tight fitting cap and orifice reducer, and be dark in color. That’s because essential oils degrade faster when exposed to heat and light.
In summary, to buy a high-quality essential oil that you can confidently use for health care, search for clues such as the oil’s common and Latin names, the plant parts that were processed, how and where these plants were grown, and method of extraction. The most reputable brands won’t shy away from including all the necessary information in the labels of their products.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed the valuable information we provided on the health benefits of essential oils and are now looking forward to adding them to your daily routine. What’s even better is the fact that both research and history back up many of these benefits.
Feel free to talk to your trusted health care provider or a homeopathic doctor for assistance on achieving your targeted solutions with essential oils. And don’t forget to only use the highest quality oils from trustworthy sources.
Essential oils have long-lasting effects that promote health and wellbeing. We believe you’ll experience the same as well.