Three Natural Remedies for Stress: The Power of Scent for Stress Reduction and Deeper Rest
Article summary:
Getting deep rest is crucial for building stress resilience.
Scents that reduce the effects of stress include specific essential oils that improve your mood and help you feel less anxious.
Three natural remedies for stress reduction.
Certain essential oils act as natural alternatives to Xanax for anxiety symptoms.
The importance of deep rest for building stress resilience
Deep rest is elusive in our culture here in the U.S. What we call “resting” is often just escaping from ourselves by scrolling, binging TV, and online shopping. Please someone take this phone out of my hands and bury it 20 feet underground!
When we can’t deal with life as it is happening, the stress caused by that builds up in our spirits as misalignment and disconnection. It shows up in our bodies as poor sleep, exhaustion, and pain. It taxes us mentally with lack of focus, poor decision making, and confusion. It robs us of joy and peace.
What we need is the ability to deeply rest so that we feel able to deal with life situations as they happen. We need time to nourish our bodies, minds, and spirits so that we feel calm confidence as we move through our days. When we get deep rest, even just for a few minutes, we are replenished and able to think, feel, and do better. We are not as susceptible to the buffeting of stressful situations. We remain who we most want to be in the world.
What’s on the other side of deep rest?
· Stress resilience
· A calmer nervous system
· Deeper breathing
· More immediate access to inner stillness that allows you to hear your intuition and God.
· Clarity of thought, better decision making
· Better digestion
· More access to creativity and problem solving
· Space to listen and really hear what people are saying to you – better communication
· SO MUCH MORE!
How scent supports deep rest, reduces stress, and helps build stress resilience
Scent is thought to be our first sense to have developed all those years ago. It doesn’t get the same applause as taste and sight, but it should! We react viscerally to it without needing language or even context. It is entwined with our memories and evokes feelings and emotions with immediacy like no other sense does.
Recent studies have shown that smelling something you enjoy the scent of, or that brings back a good memory, will encourage a positive, calming response in the mind and body. The act of smelling something can be meditative, too, supporting a calmer, more centered and grounded state of being.
Make that something an essential oil with proven ability to calm the nervous system, deepen breathing, slow the heart rate, and reduce cortisol levels, and you’ve got a fast-acting, elegant tool for reducing the symptoms of stress in the body and creating space for deep rest and recalibration, even if just for a few seconds. That’s long enough to change the trajectory of your day.
The more often you can act from a place of grounded calm, the more you build your resilience to unexpected situations.
Essential oils that have been shown in clinical studies to reduce cortisol levels
Inhaling essential oils activates the pituitary gland, thereby improving certain hormonal and neurotransmitter levels responsible for improving your mood and helping you feel less anxious, two important precursors for feeling your best amid stressful situations.
Clinical studies done on humans (in vivo) have shown that certain essential oils work well to reduce cortisol (the “stress” hormone) levels, increase GABA (a calming neurotransmitter) uptake, and increase serotonin (the “antidepressant” neurotransmitter) levels.
Inhale these essential oils to reduce the effects of stress in your mind and body and build your resilience:
· Bergamot (Citrus bergamia)
· Frankincense (Boswelia carteri)
· Geranium (Pelargonium graveolens)
· Grapefruit (Citrus paradisii)
· Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)
· Neroli (Citrus aurantium var. amara)
· Sweet Orange (Citrus sinensis)
· Ylang Ylang (Cananga odorata)
Three natural ways to build resilience to stress using scent
Wear a scent you love. Don’t save it for special occasion. Even better if it’s made with essential oils that support a calm nervous system, like neroli, geranium, and ylang ylang. Lose yourself for a moment in the pleasure of the scent and how that feels. This may be all you need to shift from a stress response into a more relaxed state.
Breathe. Have an essential oil on hand that supports a reduction in cortisol levels, and/or calms anxiety and the heart rate. Lavender, rosemary, grapefruit, and sweet orange are a few of the essential oils I’d recommend. Take a slow, gentle inhale and fill your lungs. Focus for a second or two on the smell of the oil. Be fully present as you release the air from your lungs. Think of this as a micro-meditation that can help you shift the trajectory of your day.
Two ways to keep your essential oil handy: keep a bottle in your bag and smell it right from the bottle. Get yourself a cute vintage handkerchief and drip a few drops of it onto that, then tuck it into your collar or sleeve.
Scent your situation. Add scent to situations that tend to provoke stress as a way to mitigate its impact. For example, add it to your car rides with aromatherapy sprays that support uplifted, calm, and peaceful vibes. Essential oils like bergamot, neroli, and frankincense would be useful here for their anti-anxiety and calming properties. In my experience children seem to universally love bergamot and react positively to its uplifting yet calming scent. Create a good mood in the car for school drop offs and pickups, for your commute to and from work, and while running errands.
Natural alternative to Xanax
If anxiety is part of your daily stress response, consider adding lavender essential oil capsules to your toolkit (always check with your medical professional first!) for natural stress relief. A study done in Europe showed that Silexan® (brand name in the U.S. is Calm Aid®, available from Nature’s Way®) tracked with the benzodiazepine lorazepam for helping relieve the symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder.
Other powerful, gentle anti-anxiety essential oils are bergamot, neroli, sweet orange, and Roman chamomile. Diffuse any of these on their own or in combinations of two or three essential oils throughout the day, for about 20 minutes at a time.
Learn more about getting the most out of diffusing essential oils in my video series Diffusing Wisdom.
Reducing stress naturally through scent
By providing yourself natural tools to build your stress resilience you’re giving yourself a clearer pathway to deeper rest, better decision-making and communication, more creativity, and a peaceful state of being. We are designed for living unencumbered by anxiety, overwhelm, and disconnection from love and joy. Scent, specifically through the gentle therapeutic action of essential oils, provides us a short cut to returning to our natural state of calm and peace.
How I can help as a certified aromatherapist
My raison d'être as owner and aromatherapist at The Blossom Bar® is crafting personalized, custom aromatherapy to help people live more fully and vibrantly, in deeper connection to God and their spiritual natures. I also create aromatherapy kits like the Advent Calendar (which can be used any time of year to support a calmer, more grounded state of being) and targeted products for specific, common situations like Calm Aromatherapy Spray and the Menopause Stress Relief Roller.
DIY support: 12 Days of Calm and the Creativity Kit
Private Aromatherapy session: https://www.theblossombar.com/private-aromatherapy-sessions
Year-long support and education: https://www.theblossombar.com/aromatherapy-program-seasons
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