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The Best Essential Oils for De-Stressing Your Day

Photo by: Elizaveta Porodina

Understandably, it’s been a tough year, with many women facing extra stress in both their personal and professional lives. In addition to following other mindfulness practices – from taking a walk outside, doing deep breathing exercises, binge-watching Love Is Blind for the sixth time, or speaking to a therapy professional – the use of essential oils can help take the edge off during a particularly stressful period. Isabelle Pacchioni, co-founder of French essential oils brand Puressentiel, shares her philosophy on using oils and fragrances for inducing a sense of calm and serenity, even during the most frantic of days.

Isabelle Pacchioni from Puressential

Isabelle Pacchioni from Puressentiel. Photo: Supplied

How do oils help improve your mood?
Essential oils are amazing for the treatment of stress and different pains and aches both mentally and physically. Some essential oils have the power to balance, relax, calm, and soothe the spirit and the nervous system. They relieve an over-exposed organism, exhausted by adrenaline, norepinephrine and cortisol that are the stress hormones.

What kinds of stressors are women currently facing?
There are a lot of sources of stress in our daily lives, especially for women as we are constantly juggling different aspects of our life, from work, children, constant worrying of our healthy and our family’s health, making sure we are eating right and the daily struggles that we face. Stress and its effects, are actually one of the therapeutic areas that has been most studied, especially with the Covid-19 pandemic, which has added stress to each and every person on a global level

How do you use essential oils?
Generally, essential oils that are active against stress, can be used in three different ways. You can use them for skin application, in a massage or blended in vegetable oil. You could as well put some drops in your shower gel. Or, you could enjoy their properties thanks to olfaction. Those routes of administration all act rapidly and are safe and pleasant to use.

Puressential

Puressentiel oils. Photo: Supplied

What oils would you recommend for relieving stress?
Lavender is great to treat insomnia, irritability, anxiety attacks and various manifestations that come to a head due to stress. For skin application, use two drops of essential oil of true lavender and massage on the solar plexus. For inhalation, breath in 1ml of lavender placed on a diffuser during the day to calm you or in the evening to sleep better. Or pour 10 drops of essential oil of lavender in a spoonful of powdered milk or neutral base for the bath in very hot water. Relax for about twenty minutes, dry yourself without rinsing and go to bed.

Is there a difference in oil quality depending on where it was sourced?
As essential oils are active extracts, it’s important that attention is paid to quality when purchasing them. The higher the quality, the more effective they will be. A good essential oil will display certifications such as EOBBD (Essential Oils Botanically and Biochemically Defined) and 100% pure/natural certifying their traceability, quality, and strict supervision. Traceability must also be guaranteed; each batch of essential oil must be subject to inspection (chromatography during the gaseous phase) as a standard procedure.

Read Next: How Anxiety Affects Our Skin – and What You Can Do About It

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