I try to live my life as healthy as possible. Yes, I indulge and skip workouts just like the next person, but I value the effect healthy behaviors and healthy eating have on my family and me. That’s why I was thrilled when my friends introduced me to essential oils. I’m now a big fan – we use them every day in my house to encourage a strong immune system.
There are so many impurities we’re exposed to on a daily basis. It’s nice to know that simple oils and extracts can aid my health or mood and not require me to put anything artificial in my body. A few drops here, a dab of oil on your ailing body part, and poof, relief! Essential oils are sometimes misunderstood, but the benefits are plentiful, and there are multiple ways to experience the effects of these plant compounds.
Today, I’m sharing the basics with you…
What Are Essential Oils?
Essential oils aren’t essential in the “need to have” type of way. Instead, the “essential” represents the aroma of the seed, flower, or plant being properly captured and maintained through the distilling process. Some oils have oral uses, but many are commonly used topically or through a diffuser (think aromatherapy). I typically apply mine with a dropper or use a roll-on.
The Benefits
The benefits range from alleviating back pain (which I saw many of you mention on Instagram), calming nerves and helping with digestion. They don’t stop there! Relaxation, joint pain, antiseptic…you name it, there might be a seed oil or leafy scent to help you throughout the day. It’s important though to follow directions on bottles and do your research before using any essential oil – pregnancy and select health concerns can alter the way you use them.
My Favorite Scents
Peppermint (a favorite of mine), lavender and eucalyptus are amongst the most common scents. You can burn an aromatherapy candle to help relax and get rid of a pesky migraine that is ruining your day. There are spruce scents, carrot seed oils, and Frankincense as well as others made from a blend of different oils. For example, Young Living’s PanAway is a blend of peppermint, wintergreen, clove, and helichrysum, and when diluted with oil and rubbed over a strained muscle, it can relieve tension and aches.
I believe they’ve helped me, and I’ve heard many others praise the power of essential oils.
Have you tried essential oils? What has worked for you, and do you have recommendations? I am always happy to hear how these are benefiting others and what others I should try!
97 Responses
My and and I LOVE our Young Living essential oils! They are the best! So good to see others who have also found the joy and health benefits of essential oils. :)
The oils from Young Living are 100%, nothing added and nothing taken away. They are not laced with synthetics that are harmful and dangerous and they are not lab replicated. The ones in the health food store ARE. Young Living is the ONLY essential oil company in the world that owns their own farms to grow their own crop. Every other company buys their product at some point. Young Living tests and maintains pure, organic, therapeutic grade from the time the seed is put into the ground to the time it’s sealed into the bottle. These oils are therapeutic grade and have amazing healing factors to them. I have been using these oils for over 6 months now and they have helped me with so many things, from skin care and replacing various beauty supplies to providing relief on headaches, allergies, cold/flu, sleep aid, etc…the list is endless.
Therapeutic grade oils are almost never sold in retails stores. They might be organic, but they distill it in a way that is cheaper and faster (hence the cheaper price tag) which kills the compounds that make up the molecules; meaning that the healing properties are gone. So, don’t expect healing properties from them. When oils are distilled at low temp, low pressure the healing properties are preserved, but it takes a lot of time and a lot more money to do it that way. Over 90% of the oils that are sold as “essential” in America are food or fragrance grades and are NOT suitable for healing applications. Young Living oils are safe to apply, diffuse AND ingest… because they are 100% organic. If you see “do not ingest” on the bottle, run in the other direction because you’re basically buying it for the smell only. Just like the food industry, “legally” there only has to be 10% of the actual oil in there to be considered 100% peppermint (or whatever oil it is)… which is part of the reason Young Living oils are so great- there are no fillers, additives, etc etc. Truly, you get what you pay for with essential oils. Honestly, I wouldn’t put any other brand on my husband or myself other than Young Living.
I’ve been to their website before and some but not all of the oils are made by them. Still better than many other companies though.
“many of which are harvested from our own Young Living farms.”
http://www.youngliving.com/en_US/products
SO happy you use the oils, Tamera!I love YL oils, too! Thieves is one of my favorites! ;) Have you tried the new Orb USB diffusers? LOVE them! I bought two recently and just love them! You can plug it right into your laptop! I have a blog here – http://www.diffusingjoy.com if you’d like to take a look! XOXO!
I also love Young Living Oils. I haven’t taken a medication for a headache in so long with the help of peppermint and panaway. andI sleep so better using Lavender. I love Peace and Calming and rub it over my heart daily, it smells wonderful and it seems to helps my BP to stay regulated.
So glad you’re loving Young living oils! I’ve been very involved with them and you can’t beat their seed to seal guarantee that’s for sure :) My life has totally changed since being introduced to them. Rock on girl :)