lavender

Best Essential Oils – These Are More Than Just Herbs

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best essential oils

The culture of medicine is changing. There has been a huge movement in the past decade towards natural healthcare. We see droves of people heading to their local health store in search of natural ways to take care of their health such as the best essential oils. Of course there is always a time and place for modern medicine, but the two can work hand in hand.

Essential oils are one of the many options available to anyone looking for a natural alternative. While the mainstream use of essential oils continues to grow, oils have been around for centuries. The Egyptians used plant extracts for health and religious reasons. In fact, Jean Valnet used oils to successfully treat injured soldiers in WWII. Today we use these as simple and effective solutions for wellness and a healthy lifestyle.

Be The Healer In Your Home

For those of you who may not be familiar with essential oils. You may be asking yourself, “How can these drops of oil help?”.  Oil use is spreading like wildfire because more and more people are learning about research being done, and are finding out that essential oils are legit! Your life can be powerfully affected by these oils. Even if you don’t know much about them yet.

Essential oils are more than just herbs! They are volatile aromatic compounds that are up to 70 times more potent than herbs. Using essential oils may seem foreign, but with the right guidance they can be a simple and rewarding addition to every medicine cabinet. With proper use there are no side effects and they work quickly and effectively.

Click here to read, “5 Ways To Heal The Mind & Body By Using This One Oil!”.

essential oil blends

Best Essential Oils

When your child wakens during the night with an upset stomach, you can feel confident reaching for essential oils to settle them. Bug bites, burns and most common ailments and so much more can be supported with these amazing drops of oil. For example;

Peppermint Essential Oil

A single drop of certified pure peppermint oil can be all you need to tackle your next headache, digestive or respiratory discomfort, or maybe just your bad breath!

Lavender Essential Oil

Lavender is widely know for its calming and relaxing qualities. However it is such a versatile oil that it is also used for many skin conditions such as;

It can be particularly useful with sleep and stress. With proper dilution essential oils can be used for everyone in the family.

Lemon Essential Oil

Lemon can be used to cleanse and purify the air using a cool-mist diffuser. It is an uplifting and energizing oil that can help improve mood. Lemon essential oil can naturally cleanse the body and aid in digestion. When combined with lavender and peppermint, it can support those with seasonal discomfort.

Choosing The Right Oils For You

There are more than 90 essentials oils. Each of which contains hundreds of different compounds, providing versatile abilities to combat threats. Understanding their potency and safe usage practices is important for everyone just starting out. There are many resources about essential oils that can help you on your journey. But note that not all essential oils are created equally. So do your research before picking up your next bottle.

For more information, click here to read, “Have you heard of this miracle oil? You should be using it!”

You may also enjoy, “What Exactly Is Homeopathy?”

Have you heard of this miracle oil? You should be using it!

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essential oil frankincense

Frankincense is derived from the tree sap (or resin) of the Boswellia trees. In ancient times, Frankincense was used as medicine to treat digestive issues and leprosy. The resin would be consumed to promote healthy skin and a healthy digestive system. The majority of the world’s Frankincense comes from the country of Somalia, but can also be found in Ethiopia and Sudan.

More recently, through steam distillation, the tree resin or sap has been produced into an essential oil that can be used topically or diffused into the air.

Touted as the “king of oils,” the benefits of Frankincense essential oil are far reaching. The spectrum of uses range from aromatherapy and relaxation to the eradication of cancer cells in the body. 

Top 5 Everyday Uses of Frankincense Essential Oil

  1. It has beneficial properties that promote good skin health, wound healing and acne healing. It can be rubbed into the skin using a carrier oil such as coconut oil.
  2. Due to it’s calming effect on the body, Frankincense is perfect to add to your bath water or diffuse while doing yoga or meditating.
  3. To improve air quality in your home and eliminate bacteria in the air, diffuse Frankincense essential oil regularly.
  4. During cold and flu season (or anytime of the year to prevent getting sick) it can also be used to boost the immune system due to its antiseptic properties. 
  5. Frankincense is a powerful anti-inflammatory and can be used to reduce joint paint and soreness.

When selecting Frankincense essential oil, or any essential oil for that matter, it is crucially important to select a company that produces therapeutic grade oils, that have been derived from organic, natively grown plants. To determine if an oil is therapeutic, it is important to ensure the extraction process was done at low temperatures, for a long period of time and that no solvents were used in the extraction.

It is also important that the essential oils you are purchasing are derived from the first extraction because some companies re-use old plant materials which produces a lower quality end product. In some instances, to improve the aroma of the oils, synthetic chemicals are added to the finished product, which again, have a negative impact on the quality of the oil.

When considering the purchase price of essential oils it is important to understand that to produce pure essential oils, it requires a large volume of plant material to make each specific oil. For example, to produce one 15ml bottle of lavender essential oil, it takes 30 pounds of lavender flowers. A very inexpensive bottle of lavender oil is a good indication that it isn’t from a pure source.

How to Apply/Use Oils

For best results, use three or four drops of Frankincense essential oil in a diffuser or apply one or two drops topically to the skin. It is recommended that a carrier oil is used to dilute the essential oil and to avoid potential skin irritation. A carrier oil, for example, could be sweet almond oil, grape seed oil, coconut oil, or any other oil of your choice. Put a dollop of carrier oil in your hand and add the drops of essential oil to it, then rub on your skin.

In Praise of Salt

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abrasive, bad reputation, canned foods, dietary salt, electrolytes, essential oil, exercise, facial scrub, float, gentle exfoliate, healing, health, inflammation, lavender, lemon, moisturize, myth busting, natural health, nutrition, parabens, preservative, salt, saltwater, sea salt, sea water, skin, smooth

For the last 40 years or so, salt has been getting a really bad reputation. Many people are terrified of salting their food, and actually think salt is UNHEALTHY for you.

Time for MYTH BUSTING!! The body needs salt and the electrolytes it provides.

Salt, NaCl, is an ionic compound made of sodium and chloride ions. It has been important to humans for thousands of years, because all life has evolved to depend on it.

Humans, like all life, need dietary salt to survive. Salt’s ability to preserve food was a founding contributor to all civilization. It helped to eliminate dependence on seasonal availability of food, and made it possible to ship some foods over long distances. (Think preserves, pickling food etc).

However, salt was difficult to obtain, so it was a highly valued trade item, and considered a form of currency by certain peoples. In fact the Roman historian Pliny the Elder stated as an aside in his Natural History’s discussion of sea water, that “in Rome … the soldier’s pay was originally salt and the word ‘salary’ derives from it …”

I was one of these people, rarely used salt except maybe to salt the water for my gluten free pasta noodles. But I found out this summer how much my body really loves salt, when friends invited us out to swim in their salt water pool. We took my 90 year old mother, my daughter and son for a daily 30 minute swim. Mum’s wrinkles softened, her body thrived, her aches and pains disappeared and all she did was float and soak. My daughter’s persistent rashes disappeared, and her skin felt like silk. At first we thought it was because we were enjoying the sun – Barrie summers are so short – but we didn’t get the same results in a chlorine pool at all.

By the end of October, my body was missing our beautiful swims, not just because I missed the exercise, but it missed the salt waters healing properties!!

Epsom salt baths didn’t feel quite the same (my tub’s not big enough to splash around in, and I am too impatient to sit around idle in a tub, I prefer to shower).  Since my skin was getting dry I tried an experiment … mixing salt with my favorite moisturizer – coconut oil. I’ve never liked commercial moisturizers because parabens make itch and inflame my skin).

The result was: An amazingly effective and gentle exfoliant. At 62 years of age my skin is smooth, and almost entirely wrinkle free. I do not even need to moisturize afterwards! My daughter loves it too.

I used different salts till I found the right texture. Sea salt took too long to melt and was course, Himalayan salt was too rough and didn’t melt at all, but my favorite believe it or not is normal Sifto or Windsor salt. It melts quickly and isn’t abrasive, and most people are somewhat thyroid deficient in Ontario anyway so the fact that it is iodized is just fine, and I mixed it with coconut oil, added a dash of my favorite essential oil/aroma i.e calming lavender or rose, zesty tangerine or lemon to wake me up in the mornings.

Try it… I’m positive you will love it! Your body and senses will thank you. And your kids and significant other will comment on the silky smoothness of your skin.

By the way, if you have really sensitive skin use baking soda instead of salt, it’s very finely ground, and melts easily too, this is my daughter’s favourite facial scrub. You do not need a lot; a little goes a long way.

Worried about salt ingestion? Actually all the hoopla we listen to has been proven to be outdated and a result of faulty conclusions to data accumulated in the 1940’s. It comes from a time when everyone ate canned goods preserved with salt. Now we have refrigerators and we are more health conscious and eat fresh.  Enjoy, but don’t overdo the pretzels and potato chips.

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Blog by Guest Author:

01Jessy headshotJessy Morrison
For over 25 years now, Jessy Morrison has been called The UNflakey Reiki Lady/ a Body Talker/a Body Whisperer/ and a  Healing Catalyst,  but really, she is just a rebel with a cause. As single mother of a daughter who had “every allergy under the sun” and “failure to thrive” she is making sure everyone becomes their own best healer by not conforming to being a “Sheeple”, by embodying their true authentic self.
She was a Founding Member of the Ontario BodyTalk Association, co-founder of the Whole Life Learning Collective, & is the founder of Transformational Tuesdays for Soul-opreneurs. She is a contributing author to “The joy of an ex”, Another View, and Women with Vision Magazine, yet her passion is still working 1:1 with clients to heal their dis-ease labels, reclaim their bodies, refresh their mind, and renew their spirit.

Although she’s still a work in progress, her passion is to guide you on your own journey from “I can’t…” to “I AM!”

You can contact her at [email protected] 705-241-8680
www.jessymorrison.ca
www.transformationalTuesdays.ca  (soon to come)