Why & When to Diffuse Essential Oils [Video]

Diffusing Wisdom video series: All about diffusing essential oils

Part 2: Why & When to Diffuse Essential Oils

In this 4:35 minute video you’ll learn:

• When diffusing essential oils is the most effective delivery method

• The roles of the brain and blood stream in how essential oils impact your health

• Which health issues respond best to diffusing and why

I welcome questions! Put them in comments below and I’ll cover them in future installments!

Why and when to diffuse essential oils.

Transcription of video: “Part 2: Why & When to Diffuse Essential Oils”

Hi, it's aromatherapist Dori Bell from The Blossom Bar here with part two of Diffusing Wisdom.

I'm doing a three-part series on diffusing essential oils. Part one was about the two different kinds of diffusers. I covered two different kinds, nebulizing and ultrasonic, and the pros and cons of both. Today, we're going to be talking about how diffusers work, how they work to impact our bodies, and what diffusing is good for and why. And then the third one is going to be more about safety and things like that.

How diffusing essential oils impacts the body

So today, let's get into how diffusing essential oils works to impact our bodies. When we diffuse essential oils into the air, it's releasing little microparticles of the essential oil. And essential oils are collections of molecules, just like everything else organic on the earth. So, the molecules they go into our bodies two different ways. Through the respiratory system by breathing it in and from there into our bloodstream, or through our olfactory system into our brains through electrical signals and then into our bloodstream.

So there's two different ways diffusing works. There's the brain angle, and there's the respiratory system angle. Both end up in your bloodstream eventually, but through different pathways that lead to different impacts. For the brain part of it, when we are diffusing essential oils, we get a lot of psychological, emotional, and hormonal benefits. When the molecules of the essential oil go into our olfactory system through our brains, they go up through the nasal cavity to the back through various processes. And then, the brain converts it to an electrical signal that goes into the brain. That's why diffusers are great for anxiety, mood boosting, relaxation, focus, fear. These kinds of things are great with diffusing because the impact goes into our brains through the essential oils in the air. You're getting very little, though.

How to get the most benefit from essential oil diffusing

With diffusing, we get a very small percentage of the actual molecular content of the essential oils. If you really need a therapeutic hit of an essential oil, I would recommend putting it into a blend and inhaling it cupped into your hands, like right under your nose, so you're getting as much of the molecular content of the essential oil as possible. But diffusing is a wonderful, gentle way of creating a mood in the house, relaxation, if someone's anxious, or if you just want a pleasurable, relaxing environment. That's great because the brain is keyed in with the essential oils molecularly.

What happens, though, is the brain does turn off that kind of stimuli because it turns off repeated stimuli. So if you're diffusing, as I mentioned in the first one, if you're diffusing over long periods of time, your brain will turn off all the psychological and emotional benefits kind of just because as it needs to be ready for new stimuli. So get a diffuser that has the intermittent timer, so it goes on for 10, 20 minutes, and off for 10 or 20 minutes. That way, you'll continue to get the good benefits for your brain. What's also happening when you diffuse is it's going into your respiratory system through inhalation. So it's going into your lungs. It's getting in your sinuses. It's great for chest congestion, coughs, anything to do with the respiratory system because it's a actual local effect on those body systems.

What also happens when you inhale something through the lungs, it does go into your bloodstream as well, having a systemic effect, just like with the brain. Great for central nervous system issues like we talked about with the brain, anxiety, worry, focus, when you want to relax, things like that. It also processes through the liver and kidneys. So you'll have a good benefit if you're trying to do something to help to impact the way that liver and kidneys are working. So again, very gentle, though, because you're not really getting a whole lot when you're breathing it in through a diffuser. So if you have any other questions about diffusing essential oils, pop them into the comments, and I will answer them at the next video. Thanks.