Stress Free Mama

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The Benefits of Essential Oils for Stress

When you are stressed, the benefits of essential oils are fabulous.

They work on many levels. Emotionally, they can both calm you down, and uplift you because they work to help your body find equilibrium. Mentally, the oils will clear your brain from the clutter, and focus your thoughts. Spiritually essential oils will lift you to a higher vibration. And physically, essential oils and their use can have many therapeutic benefits, including reducing cortisol levels, relieving achy muscles and headaches, and bringing oxygen to your blood.

Using essential oils for stress provide natural, effective and enjoyable stress relief.

Essential oils and their benefits for stress are many layered:

Benefits of Essential Oils–Emotional Support

In an essential oil, the tiny, aromatic molecules that we smell can enter our blood very quickly. Some of the molecules can actually pass the blood-brain barrier and give virtually immediate emotional relief. This makes aromatherapy a very unique tool to reduce our stress levels.

Ways that Aromatherapy reduces our emotional symptoms of stress:

  •  Woman Smelling LavenderEssential Oils calm and soothe our ragged nerves.
  • They can uplift us when we get down and depressed.
  • They restore us.
  • They are fun to use and appeal to our sense of beauty and joy.

Recommended oils for emotional support:

If Aromatherapy excels at any health benefit, it certainly must be emotional support. Virtually any high-quality, therapeutic-grade essential oil will support your emotions and help you to restore yourself. Some favorites include Sandalwood, which as we said earlier, is high in sesquiterpenes that stimulate the pineal gland and the limbic region of the brain, the emotional center. Cedarwood also stimulates the limbic center and has been found to be helpful with ADD and ADHD. Good ole humble Lemon has a very uplifting effect, and can even reduce depression. Blends like “Believe”, “Harmony”, and “Surrender” may also be helpful.

Benefits of Essential Oils–Mental Support

Some essential oils are so jam packed with oxygen that smelling them instantly wakes you up and gets you going. Try taking a whiff of true peppermint–you will be amazed at how clear your head (and your sinuses!) are. Use it when you are at a board meeting and can barely keep your eyes open.

Ways that Aromatherapy reduces our mental symptoms of stress:

  • Essential oils increase our mental focus. If you can’t make a decision or figure out the next step, give peppermint or frankincense a try.
  • They can increase your clarity and reduce brain fog.

Recommended oils for Mental Support:

Essential oils bring nourishment to the plant and, in the same way, bring nourishment to our bodies. Peppermint is great to bring oxygen to our blood. Rosemary has been found to bring alertness and clarity. You can’t go wrong with Frankincense to clear your brain fog. Even Lemon will revive you. And blends which combine these oils, like “Clarity”, “En-R-Gee”, and “Brain Power” all bring alertness and clarity.

Benefits of Essential Oils–Spiritual and Energetic Support

Essential Oils capture the liquids that give plants life; in essence, they capture the plant’s life force.

Have you ever noticed how walking in a woods can make your feel relaxed and happy again. Sitting in a garden can erase even the worst mood?

Plants are synergistic with us. We are designed to live in harmony with them and to use them for nutrition and medicine. We live around them and we take them inside ourselves when we eat them or smell them.

Because of this, essential oils, which capture the life-force of the plants, bring the vibration of the plants to us. They are bottled equivalent of walking in a garden.

Ways that Aromatherapy reduces our energetic and spiritual symptoms of stress:

  • Essential oils can help calm the mind to prepare it for meditation.
  • They can raise our vibration so that we are more luminous.

Recommended Oils for Spiritual and Energetic Support:

The first oil that come to mind for Spiritual Support is Frankincense. This oil has been used for many centuries for many reasons, but one of the prominent ones to promote spiritual connection. Frankincense helps with meditation, increases spiritual awareness and uplifts your spirits.

Similarly, Rose oil has been used for centuries in eastern spiritual tradition. If you want the full vibration of roses, the highest vibration of all the essential oils, buy a true, pure rose oil, and be prepared to pay for it. It takes 5000 lbs. of rose petals to make 1 lb. of rose oil.

Cedarwood is also uplifting. You may also try blends like “Magnify your Purpose” and “Highest Potential”.

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Aromatherapy for Stress Relief: Great Health Benefits

Using Aromatherapy for stress relief is easy and fun, and the benefits are numerous.

Stress relief with essential oils balances the body, returning it to a normal, balanced state. The parasympathetic nervous system (the “rest and digest” system) calmly takes over and the body can recover and reenergize. Your emotions will subside and your brain will clear.

What is Aromatherapy?

Herbs and Aromatherapy Bottle

Aromatherapy is the use of essential oils to heal our bodies and balance our emotions.

Essential oils are the distilled essence of plants–the liquids that result when plants are distilled, and the lighter, aromatic molecules in the plant are captured. They contain the pheromones, the oxygenating capacity, and the healing capacity of the plant. Because of their unique make-up, essential oils are excellent for relieving stress.

Essential oils can benefit the body by reducing stress physically, emotionally and mentally. They have a very real chemical effect by influencing the limbic center of the brain, balancing and tonifying the organ systems, even by cleaning the receptor sites in the cells. But they also have an energetic effect, raising the vibration of our bodies to promote a feeling of well-being. When I am particularly stressed, this well-being feels like a bit of grace, relieving me of the suffering of stress.

On top of all these healthy benefits, you should also remember that essential oils smell good and are fun to use. How many times does your doctor prescribe something which makes you smell good on a date? When you feel tense, try some aromatherapy. Stress relief has never been more fun.

To find out about other uses of aromatherapy to relieve stress, please view the resources below.

Aromatherapy for Stress Relief

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New Year’s Resolution: Reduce Stress at a Health Club

Women in a spinning classThe New Year is a great time to look at your life and assess what you need to be happier and more content.

And if your quickie answer is “reduce stress”, you need a plan to get that happening.

One of the best ways to combat stress is with exercise.  Now is a great time to sign up with a local gym start a new regime.  Many clubs have specials running with the new year, and many offer a new year’s challenge program to get you started.

If you have never researched health clubs, there are some things you need to know.

First of all, I find the experience very unpleasant (picking a health club does not reduce stress!).  Very few fitness centers post their prices and many will not even talk to you over the phone.  Most insist that you come in and get a tour before they present a plan that’s “right for you”. This means that you have to visit each gym and take their 30 minute tour just to get basic information.  When I called around, I had some deal breakers on my list, but even so, they were reluctant to discuss anything over the phone.

If you do get a club to name a price on the phone, many times they will hide the details until you show up at their door.  When I called, I had lots of gray-area sales techniques:

  • Some centers said their membership is “as low as $45/month”, but that price came with a boatload of hidden restrictions.
  • I have had health clubs reassure me that they have lots of classes, but fail to tell me that the classes are extra.
  • I’ve had clubs tell me that they’re running the biggest sale of the year and that I will save lots of money, but not tell me that the plans I’m asking about are not part of that sale.

Expect surprises when they talk to you in person.  The details of their deals are different from their sales pitch.

Assess What You Need to Reduce Stress

Before you start calling health clubs, I recommend that you make an honest assessment of what you need to reduce your stress.

  • Do you need a pool?  If so, do you need hot water?  Salt water?  Endless Current? Lap time? Classes?
  • Do you need a track?
  • Do you need classes?  What kind?  Aerobics? Weights?  Body weight?  What times are best for you?
  • What kinds of machines do you like?  What kinds of weights?
  • Do you need extra services like tanning?  Personal Trainers?
  • What kind of environment do you prefer?  Family?  Singles?  Buff?  Local?  Quaint?  Modern?
  • If you travel a lot, do you have access to other gyms?

Once you get to the club, you will probably find the tour fun.  Health clubs have great toys, and it’s always fun to see the latest in fitness.  However stay firm with what you’re looking for.  Your fitness center tour will show you lots of cool features.  Some you may like and will open new doors for you.  Others are not right for you.

The final hitch in implementing your New Year’s Resolution to reduce stress will be finding the right price.  Generally, gyms love on-going members and will structure their plans to make them long term.  You get discounts for longer contracts and penalties for breaking contracts.  Often the membership dues are automatically withdrawn from your account.  Be sure to ask what happens if you want out of your contract.

I found the perfect solution for my fitness goals to reduce stress.  I was looking for a bare bones facility with just weights and machines, an affordable price and a short term plan.  The club got bonus points if it had classes.

I assumed that the local health clubs would be too expensive or too long term and so I was researching a franchise.  On a whim I called Supreme Health & Fitness and found they had the best plan and terms.  They were friendly and answered all my questions over the phone.  A local run health club won hands down.

Once you have your health club membership, that is only the first step.  You will only reduce stress if you do the exercises.  Sign up for you club this week, and start exercising the next day.