Beat the Winter Blues: How Bergamot Essential Oil Can Bring the Sunshine to Your Mood and Spirit
The stress and discomfort of an endless winter can be agonizing. Relentless cold, overcast days, and unpredictable weather can bring even the most upbeat person to their knees with anxiety, insomnia, and depressive thinking.
Life doesn’t stop, though. We still have to show up for our loved ones and our work. We still have to run the errands, answer the texts, and keep our commitments. We still, more than ever, need to honor for ourselves the natural wintering cycle of deep rest.
How do we throw off the overwhelming weight of winter blues so we can live fully no matter what’s going on outside?
Joy in a bottle
If I could sum up bergamot essential oil with one word it would be Joy. This bright and beautiful citrus oil brings the sunshine to any situation.
Bergamot (Citrus bergamia) showcases the power of aromatherapy. Adding bergamot to your day, to self-care practices you’re already doing, or to routines already in place, can amplify the effort you’re making through its ability to directly impact the emotion center of the brain and the nervous system.
Bergamot works on a neurological level, increasing dopamine to boost motivation and satisfaction, balancing serotonin to regulate mood, and enhancing GABA release for a calming effect.
It has antidepressant properties and uplifts the mood, helping us shift our emotional states within minutes.
Diffuse bergamot to create an uplifted atmosphere and mood.
Upon waking, place a drop of bergamot onto a vintage hankie or a tissue and tuck it into your collar to help you get your day started.
Make a pillow spray with bergamot to support restful sleep.
Drop some onto a tissue in the car for school drop offs and pickups to elevate the mood and set a tone for the rest of the day.
Use it when you’re feeling spread too thin, emotionally strung out, stressed out, depressed, anxious, agitated, unhappy, discontent, irritated, tense, can’t sleep, or wake up tired. Bergamot comes to our rescue in so many ways when we’re trapped under the weight of winter blues.
Wintering with bergamot
It is the perfect essential oil to turn to in winter as a companion in the pause. Taking our own self-care cue from nature, winter is a time to go deeper within ourselves and nourish what is hidden below the surface.
Bergamot gives us a joyful, calm space to do that exploration, and a positive place from which to view our hopes and plans. The calming and uplifting aspects of bergamot are a wonderful support during creative endeavors and bring a beautiful light to contemplative and spiritual practices.
Diffuse bergamot essential oil while you write your morning pages or journal.
Place a drop of bergamot on a handkerchief, bandana, or tissue and focus your attention on the scent for a calming mindfulness practice.
Make a water-based spray with bergamot and spritz it around you before prayer or meditation and notice how it shifts the experience.
Call in joy any time
Bergamot connects us to joy. Invite sunshine into your winter days with bergamot essential oil.
Want to purchase the bergamot I myself use? While I don’t often sell essential oils (they are the tools I use in my practice, not often an income stream on their own) I do have an affiliate relationship with one of my most trusted suppliers, Aromatics International. This is an ethical company and woman-owned. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you purchase essential oils though this link:
