Two Personal Inhaler Essential Oil Blends To Help You Through Stressful Times

I think it’s safe to assume that everyone, at some point, feels the weight of stress in his or her life. Whether it’s kids, school, work, or some other demand, stress is an expected part of life.

Stress is rarely something that can be avoided, and thankfully, it isn’t always a bad thing. Stress can motivate and stretch us. It can push us to achieve more and go further. These changes can be good when they are properly balanced with other things in life.

On the other hand, though, the stress that weighs us down and remains long-term can negatively affect our well-being. It’s this kind of stress that we want to learn to deal with in a healthy manner.

Seeing how I’m the kind of person who can easily become stressed when I take on too much or don’t have enough pleasurable activities scheduled into my week, I have learned a few tricks to help me cope in a healthy way with negative stress when it arrives.

One of the most helpful things I’ve found for stress management is to use essential oils.

Before I knew much about essential oils, I wrote them off as only working to help some people feel relaxed. However, now that I’ve researched and studied them more, I’m not only convinced that science shows how effective they are at relaxing the body and mind, but I have first-hand experience with it as well.

How Certain Smells Can Affect The Body’s Stress Response

Smell has long been linked to emotional responses. When it comes to using essential oils to approach stress in a natural, holistic way, Annie Hall (2014) explains the process in her article, Essential Oils for Stress and Anxiety. She says, “When the nose picks up a scent, olfactory nerves send signals directly to the emotional part of your brain. It is through this pathway that essential oils may help mitigate the brain’s perceptions of stress and anxiety.”

So when you take a deep breath of one, or even a blend of, essential oils, the emotional centers in your brain are triggered, and the way you perceive stress can be altered.

Using Essential Oils for Stress

There are many different ways to use essential oils to help you relax. You can use them in a massage oil. You can use them in a milk bath. You can diffuse them in a diffuser. You can even create your own personalized essential oil blend of relaxing essential oils and put it in a personal inhaler to use whenever and wherever you need it.

Personal inhalers are one of my favorite ways to use essential oils, specifically for stress. Seeing how stress isn’t a “fix it and forget it” issue, I find myself needing to use essential oils repeatedly to help myself get to that relaxed, centered place when I’m dealing with more stress than I’d like in my life. Using a personal inhaler with a custom essential oil blend is an easy way to make this repetition more doable.

Before I share some recipes for personal inhaler blends to help you relax during stressful times, let’s first look at some essential oils for stress.

Essential Oils for Stress

There are many essential oils that can be used to help relax the mind and body. Aromatherapist and teacher Andrea Butje lists the following essential oils to aid in relaxation and stress reduction.

• Sweet orange (Citrus sinensis)
• Ylang Ylang (Cananga odorata)
• Vetiver (Vetiveria zizanioides)
• Patchouli (Pogostemon cablin)
• Palmarosa (Cymbopogon martinii)
• Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
• Marjoram (Origanum majorana)

(Butje, 2014)

Now that you have several ideas for some essential oils to help you relax during stressful times, let me share two simple, yet effective, essential oil blends with you. These blends can be used in a personal inhaler any time you feel the effects of stress coming on.

Two Personal Essential Oil Inhaler Blends for Stress

To Use:

Any time you feel the effects of stress creeping up, open your personal inhaler, position it close to your nose, and take 3-4 slow, deep breaths. Place the cap back on your personal inhaler. Repeat every 20-30 minutes throughout the day, as needed.

Although we can expect times of stress in our lives every now and again, we certainly don’t have to live with it. We can take natural measures to deal with stress, such as using relaxing essential oils in a personal inhaler to help us keep calm and carry on.

Learn A Holistic Approach To Stress Management In Our Newest Short Course: Herbal Self-Care for Stress Management

The Herbal Academy team has been working hard for the last several months to put together a new Short Course to help you learn to how to take a holistic approach to stress management.

This course explores stress and its effects on your wellbeing and then delves into the holistic approach to self-care for stress management. This course will not only give you a thorough understanding of the nutritional choices, lifestyle practices, and herbs that can transform your response to stress and enhance your wellbeing, but it will walk you through the process of using essential oils and aromatherapy for stress management as well!

Learn more about our newest Short Course here!

REFERENCES

Butje, A. (2014, Ap1). Relax with essential oils. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.aromahead.com/2014/04/21/relax-essential-oilsril 2

Hall, A. (2014, February 20). Essential oils for anxiety and stress relief. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://theherbalacademy.com/essential-oils-for-anxiety-and-stress-relief/