Author Archives: AyurvedicOils

Best Ways To Use Ayurvedic Essential Oils

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Ayurveda is a gift to mankind and it follows the implausible elements of nature. This safe science trusts and believes that human being is a part of nature and his illness should also be treated in a natural way using the gifts of ‘Mother Nature’. Here comes the importance of Ayurvedic essential oils which are derived from the natural plant extracts. These oils have therapeutic properties for which it has been used since ages in traditional medicine and folk medicine.

In the recent times, you might have heard about the essence and effective use of essential oils in Aromatherapy but won’t you get surprised if I say that Aromatherapy itself is one of the ways of healing holistically in Ayurveda? This ancient therapy of curing human beings have suggested numerous ways of using Ayurvedic essential oils and the best ways are here for your guidance.

  1. Aromatic bath: A popular adage goes like this ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’, as Ayurveda insists highly on keeping yourselves and your environment clean, it prescribes taking bath twice daily either with the use of herbs or Ayurvedic essential oils in your bath tub.  Adding few drops of essential oils to your bath tub will give you a refreshing bath, which would be energizing and help you stay calm physically and emotionally.
  2. Essential oils massage: You work all day long all through the week; won’t you feel that your mind and body needs some ‘Quality Time To Rest’? Don’t need to go in search of quality time to rest, instead your life partner can help you discover it apparently with a caring massage with the sweet-smelling Ayurvedic essential oils. You can also try exploring the real sense of relief and peace after a systematic massage by an Ayurvedic expert in a nearby Ayurvedic center if you really feel like having a space for yourself. Ayurvedic massage with healing essential oils are often said to alleviate stress, trigger your olfactory sense, make your skin supple and give a never before newness to your life.
  3. As a vitalizing household cleaner: Home is the best place to give a great start to everything and everyone of your family. Why can’t you try complimenting your home by adding few drops of refreshing essential oils to your floor cleaner, washing machine and at the time of washing your dishes and cleaning your toilets? Lemon essential oil is often recommended for laundry, cleaning dishes and other general cleaning as it has the potential to remove tough, oily and greasy stains. You can also try using essential oils with clean, fresh, flowery and woody aroma to bring the real effects of nature even when your doors are closed.
  4. For skin care: Nothing other than certain selective Ayurvedic essential oils can caress your skin and take better care of them. You can use a wide range of skin-friendly essential oils like lavender essential oil, lemon essential oil, rose essential oil, sandalwood oil, ylang ylang essential oil, palmarosa essential oil, tangerine essential oil, mandarin essential oil, chamomile essential oil, geranium essential oil and few other. You can add few drops of any of the above essential oils in your favorite lotions, creams, carrier oil, carrier lotion, cocoa butter etc, to get set with your ultimate skin care pack.
  5. Diffuser/Air-Freshener: Using essential oils in your diffuser or in your Air-freshener will help you kill germs, bacteria and other harmful viruses in the air while giving you an everlasting aroma especially in the rainy season.
  6. Cold/Warm Compress: Circulation problems, sprains, muscular tension and other pains can be easily treated either with a warm or cold compress. It will be a brilliant idea if you add few drops of essential oils with absolute healing properties like peppermint oil, eucalyptus oil etc to your compress the next time when you feel like getting instant remedy from excruciating pains like menstrual cramps.
  7. Vapor inhalation/ Facial steam: Adding few drops of Ayurvedic essential oils like Eucalyptus oil or Peppermint oil to steaming water and inhaling the steam will help you keep away from the persisting problems like sinus, bronchitis, cold, flu etc. You can also add few drops of refreshing oils like lavender oil or other cleansing oil like chamomile oil to warm water and use it as a facial steam for deep cleansing.

Note: The way of using Ayurvedic essential oils plays a dominant role on its healing potential. Do not use essential oils directly to the skin as more pure the oil, more concentrated it is.

Reference Links:

  1. Essential Oils by Wikipedia
  2. Methods of Application by Nature’s Gift
  3. How to Use Essential Oils Effectively by David Crow, L.Ac. Published in Yogi Times
  4. What is Aromatherapy by National Association For Holistic Aromatherapy

Ayurvedic Essential Oils For Your Face

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Your face says who you are and shows better about what you really think and the popular saying ‘Face is the index of the mind’ proves it right. All kinds of human expressions like happiness, sadness, pain, angriness, depression, fear, anxiety, stress, shock, surprise and everything else is first conveyed through your face. It can also be called as your body’s brand ambassador and at times even your hidden feelings are revealed through your face.  People first look at your face and determine you even before speaking with you and it has an upper hand in creating the ‘first best impression’. It is your right and responsibility to take care of your face, the most expressive and the impressive part of your system. I can never think of anything else other than the natural skin care shield offered by the protective and healing Ayurvedic essential oils that has been a part of beauty secrets of many for centuries together.

  1. Lavender essential oil: No one can hate lavender if not for its color but for the mesmerizing aroma that it holds by nature. Even your hectic days that make your face dull and gloomy might revive gradually with the soothing fragrance of lavender essential oil. This calming oil has bactericide, anti-fungal, antiseptic and anti-viral properties that help fight facial problems like acne, pimples, wrinkles on the face and tanning of the facial skin. Lavender oil is also said to improve the complexion and give radiant glow to the skin, for which it has been a vital part of Ayurvedic massage therapy, facial creams, lotions and other popular skin care products in the market.
  2. Frankincense essential oil: A firm, fresh and fabulous face is always the symbol of energy and youthfulness. Frankincense essential oil can be your best friend in bringing all the above said qualities with a bracing energy to your face. This oil has anti-bacterial, tonic and antiseptic properties that help in toning, contracting and lifting the facial muscles helping in visible reduction of wrinkles and fights against acne. Few drops of Frankincense essential oil with Jojoba oil can work like a wonder on your face.
  3. Tea Tree essential oil: Tea tree oil is the beauty secret of Australians and more than 300 species of Tea tree has found its native in the land of Kangaroos. This enriching essential oil is known for its immune stimulating properties and protects your skin from the harmful bacteria, viral and fungal infections. Dull, lifeless and oily skin is often treated with the therapeutic benefits of Tea tree oil. This oil is also used as an effective remedy in curing acne, burns, rashes, skin irritations, wounds and tropical infections.
  4. Rosemary essential oil: Dry, tired, mature, sensitive and dead beat skin can be given a new life with a simple soothing massage of few drops of Rosemary essential oil with any of your favorite carrier oils. Rosemary oil works well in treating oily skin as it has been proved to reduce the sebum or excessive oil production when used topically.
  5. YlangYlang essential oil: Extreme secretion of oil or imbalanced release of sebum is the major causes of problems like pimples, acne, dark spots and other bacterial infections. The use of YlangYlang essential oil with its mystical aroma balances the improper sebum secretion and restores the essential oil required for a healthy, glowing and younger looking skin. This anti-depressive essential oil helps calm down the facial muscles and induce a good night’s sleep that would help in vitalizing and reducing dark circles visibly.

Using these Ayurvedic essential oils for your face is not a rocket science and anyone can do it easily with the tip of your fingers as nothing else can caress your face and cradle your tension other than your hands with the magical touch of such enlivening essential oils.

Reference Links:

  1. Health Benefits of Frankincense Essential Oil by Organic Facts
  2. The Tea Tree Skin “Miracle” – The 7 Benefits of Tea Tree Oil by Body Ecology
  3. Carrier Oils by Wikipedia

The Ayurvedic Routine

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Health is not a one day activity instead it is a never-ending and continuous mission until your soul departs your body. To stay healthy is to stay on par with the flow of nature without interrupting the natural temperament of your system and Dean Ornish rightly said that ‘Health is not something that you need to get; it’s something you already have if you don’t disturb it’. That is what the ancient remedial science known as Ayurveda suggests mankind to simply tag along the cadence of nature. A daily systematic life that strikes perfect balance with the natural pace of Mother Nature needs no cure or meets no disastrous diseases. Such an inspiring Ayurvedic Routine is popularly termed as ‘Dinacharya’ and seasonal routine is known as Ritucharya.   

Ayurveda strongly states that there is a time for everything with a natural meaning in it. If things are done at the right time, you are striking balance with nature and your body functions perfectly and in close connection with your mind. This natural tempo controls our predominant natural urges like food, sleep and sex, also known as the three pillars of life. Today’s modern living has sickened our lives and has forced us to lead it as blindly as a lost kitten in the middle of the forest. Only when we practice certain vital things on a scheduled time, we can live in harmony without the compulsion of any other external factors misleading our lives. To remember it easily, I have listed the daily Ayurvedic routine as 11 simple points to follow as per the Ayurvedic body types. They are:

  1. Wake up early in the morning before sunrise. For Vata it is just about 6 AM, Pitta it is approximately 5:30 AM and for Kapha it is around 4:30 AM. This aids your senses to rise above and ascend along with the sunrise.
  2. Gargle your mouth and drink a cup of warm water with few drops of fresh lemon juice and one teaspoon of raw honey. This supports your body’s normal bowel movement in the morning and helps the digestive system to function properly. Regular bowel movement will aid in eliminating the toxin from your body and make you feel refreshed without carrying the toxins of the previous day’s food.
  3. Brush your teeth twice daily early in the morning and before going to bed. Scrape and rub your tongue thoroughly in the morning to clear away toxins or the poisonous particles sticking on your tongue from the remaining of the previous day’s food items known as ama in Ayurveda. You can either use a good tongue scraper or a stainless steel spoon to clean your tongue front to back. Clean your nasal passages, ears and eyes regularly.
  4. Go for a brisk walk for about 15 to 20 minutes. This helps in improving your blood circulation and aids you in enjoying the healthy rays of the sun fully filled with Vitamin D and other essential nutrients required to boost the functions of your brain and uplift your skin from within. Vitamin D deficiency might end up in skin cancer, rickets, cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment in elderly people, muscular weakness and much more.
  5. It’s time to caress, pamper and massage your skin with Abhyanga, the Ayurvedic massage therapy with the use of Ayurvedic essential oils all through your body and your head. Leave it at least for 20 minutes.
  6. Meanwhile, you can practice the life saving skill nothing but the great sibling of Ayurveda, popularly known as Yoga. This grants you strength, endurance, resistance and the potential to enhance the functionality of your entire system.
  7. It’s time for a revivifying bath with few drops of energizing Ayurvedic essential oils like lavender essential oil, bergamot essential oil, rose essential oil, jasmine oil, sandalwood oil, grapefruit essential oil, cinnamon essential oil, orange essential oil and few other citrus essential oils to give a right start to your day.
  8. Offer prayers to the Almighty and a calm meditation for about 5 minutes will give you all the energy that your mind needs for accomplishing your challenging tasks all through the day. A powerful meditation influences self-realization and mental strength.
  9. Eating right is very important than just filling your stomach. Taste your food, like it and chew it well as it promotes quicker digestion and absorption of essential energy required by your body. Ensure that you take up a rich and nutritious breakfast between 7:00 to 8:00 AM in the morning.
  10. Have your lunch in between 12:00 to 1:00 PM. Let the not-so-easy to digest food items find a place in your lunch rather than during any other meals of the day because there is enormous time to digest and the Agni or the digestive fire is very active during this time. If possible, go for a small walk after lunch to help easy digestion.
  11. Ensure that your dinner is taken before 8:00 PM and you floss and brush your teeth before going to bed to keep away from harmful germs. Go to bed by 10:00 PM at night making certain that you have enough rest after working throughout the entire day and for gifting a dynamic start to the day ahead. Spend 5 minutes before sleeping to recollect all that you’ve done for the day. Think whether you have accomplished all that is required or have something left behind to finish? This will keep you informed about where you are and direct you towards where you want to go. Utter a small prayer and thank the Creator for all He has given you and sleep peacefully with the hope of being in a new day at dawn.

This might appear as a huge or an impossible list to many but you’ll certainly feel its simplicity and its greater benefits on your healthy and harmonized living once you start practicing it as the celebrated adage ‘Practice makes a man perfect’ appropriately fits in this context and a regular following of these Ayurvedic routine in your life will indeed make you perfect, peaceful and proficient. Start with one and its positive impact will naturally influence you in choosing the whole lot.

Best wishes for your methodical living in the pink.

Thought for the day:

The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they’ll ease
Your will they’ll mend
And charge you not a shilling.

-Nursery rhyme, What the River Knows, 1990, quoted by Wayne Fields

Suggested Reading:

  1. Perfect Health: The Complete Mind/Body Guide, Revised and Updated Edition by MD Deepak Chopra
  2. Yoga for your Type: An Ayurvedic Approach to Your Asana Practice by Dr. David Frawley, Sandra Summerfield Kozak
  3. Dhanwantari: A Complete Guide to the Ayurvedic Life by Harish Johari

Reference Links:

  1. Dinacharya by Ayurveda Alchemy
  2. Vitamin D Deficiency by WebMD
  3. Agni(Ayurveda) by Wikipedia