Guest contribution by Nina Wells
Essential oils can be a wonderful way to treat a variety of ailments, increase your home’s defences against cold and flu, bacteria and viruses, help to purify the air around you, and offer a whole host of benefits too numerous to name. They’re a great alternative or a fantastic compliment to certain medicines, household cleaners, beauty products, and are easily found and used almost anywhere you live.
Essential oils are found at most health food stores, and often you can even find those that are locally made. There are well known household names that sell high quality essential oils, and you can certainly find a wide range on the internet if you happen to live far from a city or large town where they’re readily available.
[amazon box=”B07NJJSS68″]
Top Benefits of Using Essential Oils
Many essential oils contain a wealth of anti-fungal, antiviral, anti-parasitic, antiseptic and anti-bacterial properties. They kill bacteria and a host of pathogens and viruses, and can be easily mixed up as a household cleaner. Use a few drops of sweet orange, lemon, or cinnamon leaf in a spray bottle of water to help disinfect counters, bathrooms, stoves, furniture and floors.
In this way you can avoid any side effects or contamination to your home by other more commercially used cleaning agents. Some of these cleaners get into our food via our countertops or get onto our skin when we spray them. Replacing your cleaning chemicals with essential oils can give you the same cleaning power without the toxins.
The health of your mind, body and spirit can all be increased with the use of essential oils. Many spas these days recognize the benefits of aromatherapy and use it to enhance such treatments as massage, baths, facials and even pedicures and manicures. While spas often have steam showers that let you enjoy these oils, you can also use specific oils around your home in the same way, with the same results.
Some oils release pleasure producing endorphins, some can increase the levels of serotonin in your body. Oils can also penetrate your cell membranes (they are known to be lipid soluble meaning that they can easily disperse in fatty tissue) and help heal you from the inside out. The antibiotics that most people rely on to re-establish good health cannot even penetrate a cell wall.
Essential oils are also known to detoxify your cells and blood, and help to stimulate blood flow, which increases the body’s ability to deliver nutrients and oxygen. These powerful antioxidants can often replace medications that may deliver a host of negative side effects. Some oils are best delivered by being applied topically; while others can be ingested in very specific doses either orally or through inhalation.
Your environment will immediately be improved, both by smell and through the essential oils ability to purify air and eliminate unpleasant odours. If you have a diffuser, nothing is better than walking into a home that smells of lovely essential oil. You can mask unwanted cooking smells or even odours associated with pets.
[amazon box=”B01KWIKUU4″]
Really, What Can’t Essential Oils Be Used For?
Some oils lend themselves more naturally to this type of use, but really any oil you prefer to use will be fine. If you’re looking to brighten up the feeling of your space, try a little lemon or lemongrass oil. If you’d like to use a diffuser as part of your bedtime routine, lavender is one of the best oils to use for inducing a calm and sleepy feeling.
You can also blend oils with a little water and use them to spray about the house for a similar effect. Add essential oil to your washing machine’s liquid detergent and enjoy the scents on both your bedding and in your clothes all day long.
Essential oils can become a great addition to your homemade beauty routine products. A fantastic moisturizer can be made from a mixture of carrier oils and then the addition of a few drops of lavender, citrus, or any other oil that you enjoy and provides benefits to your skin. You can also use oils like eucalyptus to improve the condition of your scalp and reduce embarrassing conditions like dandruff.
Lemon oil can be mixed with a little water to make a good toner that you can apply without worry every morning. This will help brighten your complexion and create a more even skin tone.
Pack a variety of oils into your medicine cabinet and have them at the ready. Peppermint can be rubbed into sore muscles and joints for pain relief, and lavender can be applied to burns for immediate pain relief and a better healing process. Tea tree oil can be applied directly to cuts and to fungi especially those associated with nails on hands and feet.
Your home, medicine cabinet, and your health and well being can all be improved by the use of several different essential oils.
[amazon box=”B074XTQCQS”]
Guest Bio:
This article is written by Nina Wells. Nina is a guest author from Vidalux and is a respected and expert voice in a plethora of health related subjects with over 10 years of writing under her belt.