Essential Oil Blends To Treat Depression & Anxiety
Anyone who has tried aromatherapy can confirm that the beautiful scents of diffused essential oils can have a healing effect on the mind and body. This effect is only enhanced when oils of different plants are blended together.
Weve curated a list of the best essential oil blends that can help you if youre dealing with depression or anxiety. Try these blends to feel better and reduce severity of symptoms:
How May Essential Oils Help Reduce Anxiety
Current research shows that inhaling essential oils in the form of aromatherapy has a soothing and therapeutic effect on the nervous system. However, much of the research has been in animal studies. Human studies that show promising evidence often lack rigor.
For instance, animal research from 2010 suggests that certain essential oil scents, such as bergamot, lemon balm, and peppermint, contain specific plant compounds to help induce relaxation.
Despite the lack of substantial evidence, many people find essential oil aromatherapy to be an enjoyable experience. This is due to the aroma of the oils traveling through the olfactory nerves to the amygdala in the brain, which elicits an emotional response to promote clarity and calm.
Aromatherapy/ Essential Oils For Depression And Anxiety
Many people who believe that aromatherapy works to decrease symptoms of depression, anxiety, and related issues, believe that it works in a very superficial way: essential oils make us feel better because they smell good.
A 2013 article published in China, however, proposes that aromatherapy may work to reduce depression and anxiety by stimulating serotonin pathways in the brain. Serotonin itself is an important messenger molecule in the body that helps us to feel relaxed and is an important part of many mood regulating medications.
While this is an engaging theory, the easiest way to measure mood is still with psychological assessment and questionnaires rather than by checking the levels of these messenger molecules.
All of the following studies used these methods, which some people consider to be unreliable and anecdotal. But from conclusions, it did help participants to feel better.
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Other Essential Oils For Anxiety And Depression
With a little trial and error, you should hopefully hit upon the best individual oil or combination of oils to suit your needs, improve your mood and calm your nerves. The list above contains the most popular essential oils for the purpose but is not finite.
Other essential oils that may help include sandalwood essential oil, basil essential oil and geranium essential oil.
Essential Oils For Immune Health
Many colorful tales are told about the use of essential oils to prevent illness. Many of them center around the time of the Bubonic Plague in Europe. Its said that herbalists managed to escape the plague. This was attributed to their constant inhalation of the plants aromatics. One story talks about a concoction of herbs, spices and oils that robbers used to avoid getting sick while plundering the bodies of those who died from the Plague. Maybe they got the idea from the herbalists? In any case, if youve ever heard of Thieves Oil, thats where the name comes from.
Tales aside, what we do know to be true is that essential oils have anti-microbial properties. Some, like oregano oil, are included in cold and flu remedies or in anti-fungal preparations. Weve already mentioned Thieves Oil, which is a combination you can put in a diffuser or use to clean your home.
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What Is The Impact Of Depression On The Brain
Depression can affect how we think, act, feel, and act however, experts arent sure what causes these changes. It is suspected that genetics, stress, and inflammation might play a role.
Research suggests that depression may cause the brain to shrink as it loses cells of grey matter. Remarkably, the number of grey matter cells in the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex seems to reduce.
The hippocampus is affected by stress hormones and is involved in memory. The Prefrontal cortex is involved in planning and problem-solving.
We can see how concentration and problem solving may become more complicated when one has depression.
In addition, it is unclear whether inflammation of brain tissue causes depression or vice versa.
Nevertheless, there seems to be some correlation between them.
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Geranium Essential Oil For Stress
Breathing in geranium oil aromas can help you cope when you are under intense physical or emotional stress.
Many researchers have found that the calming effect of geranium essential oil helps patients cope with anxiety in hospital. For example, a randomized clinical trial found that inhaling geranium essential oil for 20 minutes a day helps to lower anxiety after a heart attack.
One study on 100 women found that aromatherapy essential oils for anxiety can help to reduce stress during childbirth. In the study, inhaling geranium essential oil lowered blood pressure and had an anti-anxiety effect while in labor.
Great Essential Oils For Depression And Anxiety
Essential oils have been used in therapeutic ways for thousands of years because they offer numerous healing benefits. Theres is a lot of buzz around aromatherapy, especially in the natural wellness and holistic medicine communities. This post focuses on the use of essential oils for depression and anxiety.
Contents
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How Using Essential Oils For Anxiety And Depression Work
When using essential oils for anxiety and depression, the scent is first recognized by cells in the nose. These cells then send an impulse to a part of the brain known as the olfactory bulb. The olfactory bulb interprets the scent, then sends a signal to other brain areas, including the limbic system.
The limbic system includes the amygdala and the hypothalamus, which relate to memories, emotion, and mood. You had probably experienced a time when a particular scent brought about an intense emotional reaction from you. This is because smell is highly linked to our memories.
For this reason, using aromatherapy oils may help to improve mood, lessening symptoms of depression in some individuals.
Extraction Method Look For Co2 Extraction
The majority of high-quality CBD oils are extracted with supercritical carbon dioxide. This method produces a pure and highly potent product, leaving you with pure extracts free of any toxic solvent residue.
CBD tinctures, which are a bit different than CBD oil, are extracted with high-proof alcohol. Some less common extraction methods call for using olive oil, but when a company isnt open about how it obtains its CBD extracts, that should raise a red flag because that means they probably applied some toxic solvents in the process. And whats worse, theres a risk these solvents werent completely removed after extraction.
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What Is Social Anxiety
Social anxiety disorder is a type of anxiety disorder that causes people to feel extremely anxious and self-conscious in social situations. SAD can cause a person to avoid social situations, or make them feel so anxious that theyre unable to enjoy them.
CBD oil is thought to work by interacting with the bodys endocannabinoid system, which is responsible for regulating mood and anxiety. This means that CBD oils can help you prepare for a social outing by providing quick relief from the social anxiety disorder symptoms you experience before and during a social event.
Best 5 Essential Oils For Depression Stress And Anxiety
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It is not a new practice to use essential oils for depression or anxiety disorder. Essential oils for anxiety are used for many centuries in aromatherapy, commonly used in alternative and traditional medicine.
Aromatherapy includes the use of essential oils for depression, distilled from plants such as flowers, leaves, seeds, fruits, and roots. Essential oils may reduce depression feelings when they are inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Precaution must be taken as essential oils can be allergic to skin and might not be the most suitable option for people with breathing issues and pregnant women.
No matter how much essential oils for depression are effective for reducing bad thoughts and feelings, you must still know that they are not an ultimate cure for the depression, and you shouldnt use essential oils to replace the prescribed medication by your doctor. Essential Oils for depression act as a natural remedy for temporary relief from stress and anxiety.
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Best Cbd For Anxiety And Depression: How To Use
Managing anxiety is not as simple as it sounds prescription drugs can be costly, and come with a host of side effects. They can also carry a great risk of addiction. For these reasons and more, some people are turning to CBD oil for anxiety instead of pharmaceuticals.
But the question remains: Can CBD oil truly help treat anxiety?
Preliminary data and anecdotal evidence points to yes:
According to a 2015 review published in Neuropathics, We found that existing preclinical evidence strongly supports CBD as a treatment for generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessivecompulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder when administered acutely. They go on to say that CBD exhibits a broad range of actions, relevant to multiple symptom domains, including anxiolytic, panicolytic, and anticompulsive actions, as well as a decrease in autonomic arousal, a decrease in conditioned fear expression, enhancement of fear extinction, reconsolidation blockade, and prevention of the long-term anxiogenic effects of stress. In laymans terms, this study indicates that CBD has potential to reduce anxiety and compulsive behavior, and to reduce the long-term anxiety-inducing effects of stress.
And the best part?
CBD is not known to cause many of the side effects of pharmaceutical medications, and its non-habit-forming. Thats what we call a win-win.
Best Essential Oils For Anxiety
Since ancient times, essential oils have been used to prevent illness and address diseases. Modern-day science confirms their positive effects on many aspects of well-being, including mental health and, specifically, their ability to ease feelings of anxiety.
Essential oils are highly concentrated compounds extracted from aromatic plants via steam distillation, hydrodiffusion, or pressure that are then used as aromatherapy for a variety of conditions including anxiety and stress. Keep reading to learn more about the best essential oils for anxiety and how to use them.
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Bergamot Essential Oil Citrus Bergamia
Bergamot is one of the most popular essential oils used in aromatherapy to treat depression and anxiety. It has a distinctive floral flavor that drinkers of Earl Grey would immediately recognize. It is also an excellent remedy for insomnia and to reduce nerves and agitation.
Studies done on rats have found that bergamot oil reduces the corticosterone stress response. Other human studies using bergamot in combination with other essential oils have also effectively helped treat depression and anxiety.
When compared to people using a placebo, bergamot blended with lavender oil caused a significant reduction in pulse rate and blood pressure with participants rating themselves more relaxed and calmer than those who used the placebo.
While bergamot is regarded as safe for inhalation, it can cause photo-sensitivity when applied topically. After application, it is best to avoid exposure to direct sunlight for at least 12 hours.
How Essential Oils Relieve Stress And Anxiety
Aromatherapy is a holistic medicine that involves breathing in the scent of certain essential oils to improve your health and mental state. They work by stimulating your smell receptors in your nose, and these receptors can send messages to your nervous system. Additionally, people widely believe that essential oils have a slight effect on your body’s energy and chemical systems. They can help calm both your body and mind and help you cope with stress and anxiety.
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Lemon Essential Oil May Lower Anxiety Levels
Extracts from lemons are one of the many essential oils for anxiety that you can use in aromatherapy.
One study on animal subjects found that long-term exposure to lemon essential oil helped to reduce anxiety and even increased the pain threshold. Scientists also noted that the stress hormone corticosterone was lower after frequently inhaling lemon essential oil.
Why Are Pharmaceutical Anxiety Medications Dangerous To Our Health
The most common form of drug treatment for anxiety is a class known as benzodiazepines. These medications bind to the GABA receptors in the brain to force electrical activity to slow down thus alleviating the most common signs of anxiety. This works in a similar way to CBD, but is significantly stronger and more specific.
The main problem with conventional anti-anxiety medications is that they can become highly addictive often leading to a worsening of symptoms over time as tolerance to the medications begins to form.
Heres the problem
You take benzodiazepines to fight anxiety and for a time it works. However, the body quickly forms a tolerance to the medication to resist its effects by removing some of the GABA receptors. Once these receptors are gone, we need more of the medication to produce the same effect. This process continues until weve reached the maximum dose for the drug. If the drug starts to wear off, we no longer have enough GABA receptor activity to keep our nervous system from going into hyperdrive forcing us into a state of extreme anxiety.
The body will eventually reach a point where we require the drug just to not have an anxiety attack.
Benzodiazepines arent the only option, but theyre the most common. Other classes of medications used for treating anxiety have similar effects long-term.
Some examples of anti-anxiety medications include:
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Ho Wood Essential Oil
A tall evergreen plant native to China, Ho Wood oil is made from the bark of the Ho Wood tree. It has been widely used by the Ancient Chinese to eliminate odors and also create a relaxing environment. It’s an earthy-scented bedtime must-have that promises to calm the mind for relaxing sleep.
Scent Profile: Earthy and floral
How Essential Oils Work For Depression And Improve Mental Health
Natural healers have been aware of the healing components in plants for centuries. Before western medicines rise, natural remedies were mostly made from plant-based medicines and extracts like essential oils that come from flower stems, or roots with various benefits depending on which part you use.
The sense of smell is one that has been linked to our memories. Thats why, when we smell something beautiful or listen to our favorite song it boosts moods instantaneously. Essential oils are usually used topically in the form of aromatherapy and inhaling these healing extracts can be beneficial for mental health as well because each sense has an impact on how we feel internally, especially smell which also carries deep emotional responses from associations.
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Depression Signs And Symptoms
As well as sadness, depression can make you feel hopeless about life. It often manifests as low self-esteem, and it becomes difficult to find pleasure in things that previously brought you joy.
Often people with depression find they are more tearful or can also feel more anxious.
Sleep ceases to be helpful. Depression often makes you tired all the time but paradoxically also disturbs sleep. Sex drive often suffers, and it is not unusual for aches and pains to get worse.
It might be that depression is some kind of adaptive reaction to adverse life experiences. While most people experience stress or anxiety or even feel a little down, Low mood usually improves after a short period.
Symptoms of depression tend to be lingering and can range from mild to severe. At its mildest, you may constantly feel you cant shake a dark cloud, while severe depression can make you feel as if life is no longer worth living or suicidal.