If you haven’t heard or used essential oils before, then you’re missing out on a lot of health benefits! It’s typically used in aromatherapy and an alternative solution for medicines from plant extracts to support health and well-being.
Today, we’ll explain all you need to know about essential oils, the top 10 and their health effects.
What Is an Essential Oil?
Firstly, you should know that essential oils are compounds extracted from plants. The essential oils capture the plant’s flavor, scent, and main components.
Each essential oil has its unique aromatic compounds and its characteristic essence. Also, essential oils are extracted through water and/or steam distillation or mechanical methods (cold pressing).
Once we extract the aromatic chemicals, we can combine them with a carrier oil to make a product that’s safe and ready for use.
As a beginner, we introduce the top 10 essential oils and their main benefits:
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Lavender
Lavender oil is an essential oil extracted from the lavender flower. Women most commonly use it in their beauty products, bathtubs, and other applications for its fantastic smell. Also, it can be taken orally and breathed in through aromatherapy.
Lavender oil benefits the skin in many ways. It can help lighten skin, lessen acne, and decrease wrinkles. Also, it can treat other conditions, like improving digestion and hair health.
● Helps with Relaxation
Lavender oil is an anxiety reliever (an anxiolytic) and a sedative. Simply, it helps you relax, be calm, and sleep better.
Lavender helps quiet the brain and nervous system activities by interacting with neurotransmitter GABA. Therefore, it reduces anger, agitation, restlessness, and aggression.
● For stress, anxiety, and depression
Lavender aromatherapy reduces emotional and physical signs of stress, increasing signs of stress, and lowering blood pressure.
● For Sleep
One of the most common aromatherapies chosen for relaxation and sleep is lavender oil. It improves sleep quality, especially for people suffering from depression, anxiety, and insomnia.
Also, lavender oil aromatherapy increases the time spent in deep, slow-wave sleep.
● Helps with Cuts & Burns
Having lavender oil at home will help heal scrapes, cuts, or wounds. Also, lavender essential oil helps speed up the healing process by promoting skin healing.
All you need to do to heal a small wound is mix a few drops of lavender oil with a few drops of tamanu oil or coconut oil. Then, dip a cotton ball in the mixture and apply it on the wound for better healing and scar reduction.
Bottom line:
Lavender essential oil helps with relaxation and helps with cuts and burns.
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Peppermint
It’s one of the strongest essential oils with many uses and found in many people’s cabinets. It freshens your breath, soothes nausea, and many digestion problems.
Thanks to menthol, it can cool overworked muscles and refresh your senses before a long meeting. Moreover, peppermint essential oil helps with headaches, clears congestion, and relieves symptoms of PMS.
Peppermint essential oil is intense and a highly concentrated essential oil than other essential oils
● Mental Awareness
Smelling peppermint essential oil promotes alertness, concentration, and focus. However, eating peppermint doesn’t have the same effect as smelling it on mental awareness.
● Supports Digestion
Peppermint oil is helpful in digestion, thanks to its carminative property of expelling gas from the stomach or intestines. So, it relieves flatulence or distension or abdominal pain. By massaging several drops on the abdomen, or placing a drop on wrists or inhalation, it will soothe motion sickness or general nausea.
● Headache and Migraine Treatment
Menthol and wintergreen oil relieve pain from migraine, tension, headaches, and other conditions.
You can apply a 10% menthol solution topically on the forehead and temples for migraine treatment, pain relief, and less nausea.
● Muscle Pain Relief
Peppermint essential oil has a heating and cooling effect. Therefore, it is a wonderful analgesic remedy for aching and tired muscles. Also, it’s a lymphatic stimulant for water retention and swelling treatment.
Bottom line:
Peppermint essential oil improves mental awareness, supports digestion, headache, and muscle pain relief.
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Ginger
Ginger Essential Oil (Ginger Root Oil) is extracted from the Zingiber officinal herb root, and it’s better known as Ginger.
The ginger essential oil has the same, if not more, benefits as its roots. Thanks to Gingerol, it has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. It’s energizing, warm, sweet, woody, and spicy, which makes it perfect for aromatherapy. It earned the name “The Empowerment Oil” for all its health, medicinal, and therapeutics.
● Reduces Inflammation
In 2018, studies proved that ginger essential oil has an anti-inflammatory effect on treating diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Also, it prevents changes in kidney functions or molecules associated with inflammation.
● Improves Digestion
Ginger oil is one of the best natural remedies to treat upset stomach and improve digestion. Also, it’s an amazing remedy for diarrhea, colic, spasms, indigestion, stomach aches, and vomiting.
● Relieves Nausea
When you’re feeling nauseous, you can inhale the aroma from ginger oil to relieve it.
Bottom line:
Ginger essential oil reduces inflammation, improves digestion, and relieves nausea.
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Tea Tree
Tea tree essential oil has many beneficial purposes for your hair, skin, and nails. It’s an inexpensive and safe essential oil that you definitely should have and use.
● Skin Application
Tea tree oil is known for its powerful germ-fighting properties. Therefore, it helps with treating fungal and bacterial infections on your skin, including acne.
Moreover, it speeds up the healing process of cut wounds and soothes skin inflammations.
● Reduces Bad Odor
You can control underarm odor by using tea tree oil’s antibacterial effect.
Did you know that sweat doesn’t have an odor? Then, where’s that nasty smell coming from?
When your sweat combines with bacteria on your skin, it generates the strong odor you smell.
Under the armpits is where you have a lot of sweat glands, producing lots of sweat and, therefore, the body odor. By using tea tree oil, it fights the bacteria making it a perfect natural alternative to antiperspirants and deodorants.
● Boosts the Immune System
By diluting tea tree oil with a carrier oil, you can apply it topically and benefit from its sudorific properties. In other words, you can use it to strengthen and stimulate your immune system to fight off infection. It promotes perspiration, which eliminates internal bodily toxins.
Bottom line:
Tea tree essential oil helps skin problems, reduces bad odor, boosts the immune system.
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Frankincense
Frankincense (Olibanum) essential oil originated from Boswellia tree resin. Typically, it grows in the dry mountains of India, the Middle East, and Africa.
You can inhale or apply frankincense oil on your skin. Also, it can be taken orally as a supplement. It has a woody, spicy smell with many health benefits.
● Boosts Immunity
The studies suggest that frankincense oil promotes a healthy immune system and response, supports overall skin health, and maintains a healthy inflammatory response in skin cells.
● Heals Age Spots
Frankincense oil is capable of boosting cell regeneration, healing, and fading scars. It stimulates healthy skin and strengthens skin’s elasticity since it’s a potent natural agent.
● Fights Depression
Well, studies proved it can reduce depression in mice. However, no studies confirmed its effect on humans.
● Fights Cancer
Frankincense oil can help fight certain cancers. Thanks to its Boswellia acids, it might prevent cancer cells from spreading.
Also, some studies show that frankincense oil can distinguish between cancer cells from normal ones, and only kill the cancerous ones.
Bottom line:
Frankincense essential oil builds immunity, heals age spots, fights depression, may help fight cancer.
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Oregano
Oregano essential oil comes from the oregano plant with amazing health benefits. Research and studies proved that it has antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral properties. Moreover, oregano oil is a strong antioxidant, cancer suppressor agent, antidiabetic, and anti-inflammatory.
● Flu Fighter
Now, essential oregano oil is known for its active antimicrobial and strong antioxidant properties. That means it provides natural support for your immune system fighting cold and flu symptoms.
Also, it defends your body against infectious bacteria and eliminates free radicals.
● Kills Fungus
Wild Oregano oil has strong antibacterial and antifungal properties that kill toenail fungus, nail bacterial infections, and ringworm. It reduces or inhibits fungal growth on your skin or in the nail bed.
Bottom line:
Oregano oil, known as “flu-fighter,” helps you kick a cold fast and kills fungus.
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Grapefruit
Grapefruit oil is an orange-tinted oil with citrus-scented that is frequently used in aromatherapy.
The oil is extracted by cold-pressing from glands in the peel of the grapefruit.
Grapefruit essential oil offers a variety of health benefits, like reducing blood pressure and stress levels.
● Increases Metabolism
Grapefruit oil assists in the activation of enzymes in your body that break down fat. Grapefruit helps in weight loss because it is rich in compounds like D-limonene. This compound supports the metabolism and cleanses the lymphatic glands to carry nutrients between the bloodstream and tissues easily.
● Cellulite Reduction
Grapefruit oil has large amounts of anti-inflammatory and proteolytic enzymes (bromelain and d-limonene). These enzymes help break down cellulite and stop the formation of new fat cells by inhibiting fat formation (adipogenesis) under the skin.
● Helps with Jetlag and Fatigue
Grapefruit essential oil is a great natural treatment for stress, sluggishness, depression, fatigue, and other adrenal fatigue symptoms. It has a soothing aroma property that uplifts and relaxes the mind.
Bottom line:
Grapefruit essential oil increases metabolism helps with cellulite reduction and helps with jetlag and fatigue.
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Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus essential oil is the generic name for distilled oil from the Eucalyptus leaf. It has a history of several applications as an antiseptic pharmaceutical, flavoring, repellent, fragrance, and other industrial uses.
● Purifies the Body
Eucalyptus Oil is known to boost immunity, cleanse, purify, and clarify your body from toxins. It is popular for its stimulating, soothing, and antibacterial properties. Also, you can use it in several body care products for your skin and hair and emotional care through aromatherapy.
● Relieves Sore Muscle
Eucalyptus oil can relieve muscle tension as it has anti-inflammatory, analgesic, and antineuralgic properties. Also, its pain-relieving effects help in soothing aching and strained muscles, neuralgia, or pain extending in the nerves.
● Helps Clear Sinus
Many over-the-counter decongestant medicines, like chest rubs, have eucalyptus oil. Why? Many believe that eucalyptus oil relieves the symptoms of coughs, colds, sinus congestion, and stuffiness. You can use eucalyptus oil in steam baths for sinus relief.
Bottom line:
Eucalyptus oil invigorates and purifies the body, relieves sore muscles, and helps clear sinuses.
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Sandalwood
Sandalwood essential oil is obtained by steam distillation of billets and chips cut from the heartwood of several species of sandalwood trees (like Santalum spicatum and Santalum album). It is used in cosmetics, perfumes, sacred unguents, and food flavoring.
● Natural aphrodisiac
Studies have discovered that women who inhaled sandalwood oil with its main compound while having sex increased their mood and created higher levels of desire than those who didn’t.
● Boosts Your Energy
Although sandalwood oil has calming effects, it enhances mental alertness. So, sandalwood oil is believed to deliver a calming effect while activating body functions, muscles, and brain activity.
Bottom line:
Sandalwood oil is a natural aphrodisiac that improves libido and improves energy.
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Cypress
Cypress essential oil is made from the leaves, twigs, and stems of the cypress tree. Most extracted cypress essential oil is from Cupressus sempervirens (Mediterranean cypress). Finally, cypress oil has numerous health benefits, as it has antimicrobial, antibacterial, and antifungal properties.
● Improves Blood Circulation
Cypress Essential Oil has styptic and hemostatic effects. So, it can prevent blood flow, promote blood clotting, and constricting blood vessels to stop excessive blood flow. Not only is Cypress Oil excellent for quick healing, but it also boosts circulation.
● Reduces Varicose Veins
One of the best essential oils for treating varicose veins is cypress oil. It can increase blood circulation and support the circulatory system. Basically, cypress oil helps in blood vessel contraction, which promotes proper blood flow in your veins.
● Heal Broken Bones
Cypress oil is an antispasmodic that improves blood circulation and reduces stress and fatigue.
It will carry healing nutrients and oxygen to cells and promotes faster healing of the injured bone.
Bottom line:
Cypress essential oil improves circulation, reduces varicose veins, boosts confidence and helps heal broken bones.
