Essential oils for soul: Weekly scents and remedies, week four

doTERRA essential oils for pain management (Image © Yoga Robin®)

Moving past last week's subject of anger and its management with essential oils, this week is dedicated to soothing, aches and pains, tension and healing through essential oils. I'm going through an intensive yoga teacher training now so soothing is in order.

Of course, there are other methods for soothing aches and pains aside from essential oils. Epsom salt baths draw out the lactic acid buildup from sore muscles; epsom salts are magnesium.

Anti-inflammatory supplements such as turmeric assist. Ice on sore body parts help. I only turn to ibuprofen with an injury needing a quick fix so as not to linger and turn into a prolonged injury, or worse yet, cause other body parts to compensate for weakness, thereby creating more problems. Essential oils are a valuable addition to pain management and also complement anti-inflammatory routines.

soothe don't suffer

Deep Blue® (Soothing Blend) is a big favorite of mine. It's not only a feel-good oil, but it penetrates the skin deep into the tissues with medicinal qualities. I can definitely feel it. The sensation morphs through the course of an hour or two. It also has a wonderful scent—floral, sweet yet nonintrusive. I'm guessing it's the blue flowers aromatically combining together. This oil is blue in color, by the way. I often end up putting this on my wrists, elbows and shoulders before my Ashtanga yoga practice.

The truth is that I intuitively feel calmed by this oil. It's not like the China Gel or Tiger Balm category, whose job is to soothe you from pain—go cool then hot then cool in the process—and then give your pain a break until the next application. Deep Blue® has something more. I sense it first in its scent. It's a healer.

One of the oils in this blend, Wintergreen, is 99% methyl salicylate which means it has cortisone-like properties. In other words, it assists with reducing inflammation. (I much prefer getting my cortisone this pleasurable way, as opposed to a big giant needle.) The key to healing most injuries or fatigue brought on by over exertion is first to reduce inflammation.

Camphor is in this Deep Blue® blend as a pain-relieving analgesic and anti-inflammatory. Peppermint provides the cooling feeling—that has a short life—but is strong and works on damaged tissues. Blue Tansy and German Blue Chamomile, also analgesic anti-inflammatories, have another property too: they are calming to the circulatory system.

soothing anxiety and nerves

Just breathing in this blend sends me to a place of immediate calm. Another powerful oil here is Helichrysum, my chosen skin oil for rebuilding cells, cleansing blood and improving circulatory functions; an anti-inflammatory too, its added benefit is to bridge to the meninges of the brain, affecting spiritual transformation around that which holds one back in life. The final oil in this blend is Osmanthus, a famous flower in China, which emits the aromatic delicacy that's also good enough to be used in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Ashtanga yoga is a phenomenal place to feel, process and trust the transformations that can occur by these essential oils, during yoga practice and in life.

Deep Blue® essential oil is also combined within a concoction called Deep Blue® Rub. This is better than the China Gel, Tiger Balm, but similar in nature. I keep a tube in my car for post-yoga bliss and know that since it's infused with spiritual, cell-rebuilding and anti-inflammatory properties that I'm doing way more than soothing.

Lemongrass assists with ligament rebuilding. To me this is all part of soothing because it's healing. I recently pulled a ligament pretty badly in my elbow. It was a major hyper-extension injury (the kind where you hear a slow-motion velcro-like sound as it tears). With that over stretch (I thought it was a permanent tear at the time), the opposing tendon over contracted. That caused pain, vulnerability, numbness, shutting down of muscle strength, to name a few. I was able to identify that the shoulder on that side was the true source. Deep Blue®, Wintergreen and Lemongrass essential oils all contributed greatly to my physiological and emotional healing. Continuing with my daily Ashtanga yoga practice was invaluable.

spiritual, cleansing, uplifting

A blend called PastTense® (Tension Blend) is becoming my new go-to essential oil for relief from aches, including headaches. I rub this on my trapezius, back of neck, across my eyebrows and on space between my eyes (a.k.a., third eye). Made mostly of herbs that you'd cook with—Cilantro, Marjoram, Basil, Rosemary—all chosen for their soothing qualities for the nervous system. Wintergreen and Peppermint top it off, along with the blended scent of Lavender, Frankincense, and Roman Chamomile. A yoga friend continually notices my afternoon yoga scent (since tension relief is where I'm at in the afternoons during the intensive yoga training). It's not offensive, but rather calming, cleansing and uplifting to the senses and mood.

[If you want to try some dōTERRA® essential oils yourself, here are two ways to do it. 1) Shop here for retail purchases directly.  2) Join to get wholesale prices. Ships internationally.]

Namaste.

~ Robin Ellen Lucas, M.A.