Where to Start with Essential Oils

Beginning your journey using essential oils can be a challenging thought. Just how do you achieve optimal health using these concentrated essences?

Most people are excited to get their oils but when they do they often end up collecting dust on the shelf. This is because it's hard to know where to start.

There are so many ways to improve our health with essential oils. Each person has their own personal health goals, but in case you're not sure where to start, inflammation, digestion, stress, sleep, and detox are great places to begin because we can all relate to one of these core challenges in one way or another.

Where to Start with Essential Oils

Stress

In this day and age stress is a constant in our day to day lives. We are always running about trying to meet deadlines, finish to-do lists, or just trying to cram as much into one day as possible. One thing is for certain in this scenario - our body cannot heal when under stress.

This is why when you catch a cold during high stress it lasts longer than it should. We feel tired, burned out and can't recover as quickly.

Since our body prioritizes the stress response over all other functions it's very easy for us to fall into bad health, sickness, and disease. Prolonged stress actually degenerates our ability to stay well.
If you find yourself dealing with high loads of day to day stress, this would be the perfect place to start.

Read my article on the Best Essential Oils for Stress.

Sleep

It is during this time that our body is best able to regenerate and repair itself. Deep sleep allows us to sustain mental clarity and physical energy so that we may go through our day feeling clear-minded and well rested.

Running on low sleep leads to higher stress levels as well. Being tired makes us irritable and less able to keep it together when things aren't going right.

Lack of sleep fogs our mind and makes us less productive. We also lose focus. Worst of all it degrades our health over time.

If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep this is a great place to begin.

Read my article on Essential Oils for Sleep.

Digestion

Our ability to digest and assimilate nutrients has everything to do with the health of our gut. Even eating a healthy diet cannot always guarantee that we are absorbing all of the nutrients in our food.

For optimal digestion, our body needs to be in a calm state otherwise known as the parasympathetic state. This "rest and digest" state allows to body to properly produce the necessary gastric juices needed for the best digestion possible.

We are too often in the "fight or flight" mode when eating meals. This is also known as the sympathetic state - which sounds nice but really isn't. There is nothing sympathetic about it when it comes to properly digesting food.

Using certain essential oils can vastly improve our ability to assimilate and absorb nutrients. If you have digestive complaints, this is a great place to start.

Read my article on the best Essential Oils for Digestion.

Detox

The body's ability to remove impurities and toxins is critical for optimum health. Often, toxins that are left in the body are reabsorbed and stored in fat cells or are recirculated through the bloodstream.

These can cause hormonal imbalance, a sluggish liver due to toxic overload, acne, and a variety of other unpleasant ills.

If you have frequent mood swings or have acne prone skin, this may be the path for you to begin.

Read my article on the best Essential Oils for Detox.

Inflammation

Inflammation often begins in the gut and correlates with both stress and toxicity in the body. If left untreated, chronic inflammation can easily throw it out of balance. A common symptom of chronic inflammation almost always manifests itself as leaky gut.

This, in turn, keeps our body from absorbing nutrients from our food.

Read my article on Essential Oils for Inflammation.

If you have trouble with this type of inflammation then this would be a good place to start your journey.

You may also enjoy reading:

Beginners Guide to Essential Oils - Part 1
Essential Oil Conversions and Dilutions